38 ALASKAN MINERAL RESOURCES IN 1905. 
with the surface workings. At various points along the tunnel drifts have been started 
to investigate the ore body along its strike. In the basin below the mine excavations 
have been made for a 300-stamp mill, 100 of which are to be in operation by the early 
spring. A large boarding house and mine office have been. built and a compressor and 
electric plant are under construction. Transportation facilities and a power plant, both 
of which involve great expense, must still be provided before economical mining can be 
done. 
During the early spring of 1905 a small ledge of rich ore was discovered at the head of 
Gold Creek, which attracted considerable attention and resulted in the staking of the 
Bull Consolidated group. This property is located at 2,800 feet elevation on the north- 
eastern vi\^ of the mineral belt. A few sacks of ore were obtained from this ledge for 
testing purposes, but no development work has yet been done. 
Other properties in the Gold Creek area are t he Humboldt mine and the Hallam and 
Boston groups of claims, on which developments have continued during the summer. 
The Jualpa Mining Company employed a small crew of men during the summer months 
and operated its placer property on Gold Creek. A large derrick was erected at the begin- 
ning of the season and excavations were made near the mouth of the drainage tunnel. 
Work, however, at this point is greatly obstructed by masses of slide rock, which compose 
the greater portion of the gravel wash and often necessitate the use of dynamite. The 
waters of Cold Creek, which hampered operations in the past, are now controlled by a 
dam built across the canyon at the junction of Gold Creek and Snowslide Gulch, from 
which point a flume 1,250 feet in length and 20 by 9 feet in cross section was constructed 
around the south side of the basin. Operations ceased in October for the season, no gold 
having been produced. In November excessive water in Gold ('reek is reported to have 
caused a blockade in the drainage tunnel, thus filling the pit, damaging the machinery, 
and washing away 200 feet of the flume. 
The placer deposit in Silver Bow Basin, which was worked from L895 to 1901, and which 
during that period yielded nearly $500,000 in gold, was again operated this season. A 
Lease was secured upon this basin deposit by the Silver Bow Hydraulic Mines Company, 
and operations were begun in .Inly and continued until October. A hydraulic giant, having 
a 6-inch nozzle under a head of 130 feet, was used and the gravel bank at the mouth of 
Icy Gulch attacked. The heavy wash of bowlders in this deposit are handled on wheel- 
barrows or small hand car-, while smaller gravels are hydraulicked into sluice boxes along 
the bottom of the pit. The gravel bank at this point is 70 feet deep and in it the gold is 
said to be uniformly distributed, with no marked concentration of values on bed rock. 
Much mineralized quartz float in large cobbles and fragments is scattered throughout the 
deposit and is being sorted with the view of milling it at some future date. 'Pen men 
were employed during the summer, and the mine returns are reported to have been satis- 
factory. Early in the spring of 1906 it is proposed to install more hydraulic giants, also 
elevators, and to increase the water supply. 
SHEEP CREEK. 
At Sheep Creek, which empties into Gastineau Channel, 3 miles south of Gold Creek, 
the principal mines were operated under lease from the spring of 1903 to July 1, 1905, at 
which time mining ceased. 
The mineral belt on which these mines are located is the southern uninterrupted exten- 
sion of the Gold Creek deposits. The quartz veins occur in well-defined fissures following 
the structure of the slate country jock and are continuous for only a few hundred feet in 
length, though as a rule where one vein disappears another is found by driving a short 
crosscut into the hanging wall. 
Other properties within the Sheep ('reek drainage area are the Regan mine, the Gould A 
Curry mine, and the Golden Treasure group. At these there has been no metal produc- 
tion and no mine improvements during the past year-. 
