MINOOK CREEK GROUP. 31 
The origin of these gravels has been puzzling to the miners and prospectors. 
Their great width and depth, their position so far above the present gravels of 
Minook Creek, and the presence of the great quantity of heavy quartzite bowlders, 
where the bed rock would afford no such material, have made it seem to many 
miners necessary to assume that some larger stream, possibly the Yukon itself, once 
flowed across the country. This view received some support from the apparent 
course of an old channel ether toward or from the northeast, while the present 
stream flows somewhat west of north from the mouth of Hunter Creek. 
The data at hand suggest that Minook Creek while flowing toward the Yukon to 
the northeast of its present course, when the land stood at a lower altitude, had 
formed a flood plain of approximately the dimensions of the present high bench. 
With the elevation of the land along the Yukon, the effects of which are to be seen 
over hundreds of miles, the mouth of Minook Creek may have been raised through 
local variations, its grade may have been lessened, and the former flood plain may 
have had the gravels under discussion deposited over it. As the elevation went on, 
the creek was forced to the west and finally found a new outlet to the Yukon. The 
elevation continued, and Minook Creek cut downward, leaving its gravels on a bench 
above it. The elevation did not, perhaps, proceed steadily but periodically, and 
thus intermediate benches were formed. 
The smaller creeks, Hunter, Little Minook, and Hoosier, all give some support to 
this hypothesis. By reference to the map (PI. Ill, p. 26) it will be noticed that 
each of them, upon reaching the edge of the bench gravels, sharply changes its 
course and flows westward through the high bench. In the case of Hunter Creek 
and Little Minook Creek the change in direction amounts to about a right angle, 
while with Hoosier Creek the angle is less acute but still noticeable. The eastern 
limit of the bench gravels probably marks the mouths of the various streams when 
this line represented the course of Minook Creek. As the course of Minook Creek 
was shifted to the west the tributary creeks followed under the influence of the 
same force that shifted the larger stream. The age of the bench is probably Pleis- 
tocene, as is shown by vertebrate fossils found in the gravels of Little Minook 
Junior Creek, which seem to be the oldest gravels of the streams cutting the bench. 
Gold has been found in the bench at many places, and between Little Minook 
Creek and Hunter Creek a large amount of prospecting has been done. This por- 
tion of the bench is known as " Idaho Bar." One shaft near the middle of the divide 
toward their eastern edge is said to have shown the gravels to be over 100 feet thick. 
Many other prospect holes have been sunk in them at various places, and tunnels 
were run above Little Minook Creek at their eastern edge. Three claims upon this 
portion of the bench have been patented. From the bottom of one prospect hole, 
between Little Minook Junior Creek and Hoosier Creek, $27 was reported to have 
been taken, but drifting failed to show pay. Above Florida Creek, in the small area 
of high gravels known as "Macdonald Bar," prospect holes gave colors but no pay 
Apparently the gravels of the bench are nowhere rich enough to pay for drifting, 
although if it were possible to get hydraulic water to them cheaply they might, per- 
haps, be worked at a profit. The aneroid barometer readings, though not very reli- 
able, suggest the possibility of bringing water from a point 3 or 4 miles above the 
mouth of Granite Creek under sufficient head to work at least a part of these 
gravels, if prospecting should show them to be rich enough to warrant the expense. 
CREEKS CUTTING THE HIGH BENCH. 
Hunter, Little Minook, Little Minook Junior, Hoosier, and Florida creeks cut 
through the high bench just described. Of these, Little Minook Junior and Florida 
creeks have their channels in large part or wholly within this area, while, as already 
noted, the other creeks lie partly outside and change their courses noticeably upon 
reaching it. The three longer creeks head close together in the hills which extend 
