38 GOLD PLACERS OF RAMPART REGION. 
in diameter. A handful of garnets was obtained from a pan of dirt. There are s« 
many of them that they give considerable trouble by filling up the spaces in tb 
riffles and must be cleaned out once or twice a day. Some barite is said to be present 
and an occasional silver nugget appears, one weighing 2 ounces having been reported 
The silver nuggets are very rough. 
It seems likely that the origin of the gold is in the local bed rock, which alon; 
this part of the creek is a carbonaceous slate of irregular cleavage. In places muci 
pyrite is distributed through it, The creek has been worked during the summer b; 
open cuts and in the winter by drifting, but it has x>robably paid little, if anything 
more than wages. Preparations were being made to install a hydraulic plant, and i 
mile of steel pipe, consisting of 720 feet each of 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, and 14 incl 
pipe with branches of 11 -inch pipe for an elevator, and 7-inch pipe for a giant, was t« 
be put in. It was said that it would deliver the water under a head of 154 feet. 
SLATE CREEK. 
Slate Creek, a western tributary of Minook Creek, about 12 miles from Yukon River 
is about 4 miles long and is said to always carry at least a sluice head of water. 1 1 
has a grade in the lower portion of about 150 feet to the mile, and the valley is nai 
rowly V-shaped. 
The creek has been worked only since 1902. Freights from Rampart are 8 cent 
per pound in summer and 4 cents per pound in winter. 
The bed rock in the lower part is much-folded shaly limestone, green and purpl 
slates, and cherty beds, with a northeast strike. The main rock of the valley is : 
dark graphitic schistose slate which breaks into pencil-like fragments and contain 
many quartz seams. Most of the work has been done nearly 2 miles above th 
mouth by drifting in the winter. The deposits here are 26 feet thick. 
Gold is found in as much as 3 feet of gravel and to a depth of H feet in bed rod 
and over a width of 50 feet. An f 8 piece is the coarsest thus far taken out. Silve 
is a common associate (PI. VI, b), and an 8-ounce nugget has been found. Cop 
per also is said to occur in the gravels. The absence of garnets indicates tha 
the schists of Ruby Creek do not extend into the valley. The gold in this case ha 
probably been derived from the small stringers common in the bed rock. 
THE BAKER CREEK GROUP. 
GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 
The Baker Creek diggings are situated from 28 to 32 miles by trail almost s*outl 
from Rampart, and occupy a narrow belt with a northeast-southwest extension o 
about 9 miles. Along Baker Creek itself there have been no placers discovered s< 
far, all at present known being on the tributaries flowing from the divide separatin 
the Minook and Troublesome drainages from that of Baker Creek. The principa 
diggings are located along Pioneer, Eureka, Glenn, Gold Run, Omega, and Thanks- 
giving creeks. 
The topography is strikingly different from that of the other two areas. Bake 
Creek flows along the southwestern side of a large flat, 7 to 9 miles broad in it 
widest part, and perhaps 10 miles long, its longer extension being northeast-sout ,h w es 
in the line of flow of Eureka and Hutlina creeks. Instead of sharp canyon-lik 
valleys the streams flow through open valleys, and where they flow in genera 
parallel to the Baker-Minook divide — that is, approaching a northeast-southwest o 
an east- west direction, the southern bank is steep while the northern one is gentl, 
sloping, the creeks flowing close to the steeper side. Even along the broad Bake 
Flats this feature is still prominent. The north side is ;. long gentle slope towar* 
the divide, rising more sharply in its upper part, while across the flats the souther] 
side may be seen rising abruptly from the valley floor. 
