THE YORK TIN REGION. 
By Frank L. Hess. 
INTRODUCTION. 
During the year 1905 the York region has remained the only part of Alaska giving 
promise of producing tin in commercial quantities. The region has been visited and briefly 
described a number of times by members of the United States Geological Survey, a but as 
it is has continued to attract the attention of the mining public it has seemed desirable to 
supplement the previous observations. During the months of August and September 
the writer spent several days at each of the known tin-bearing localities except those on 
Ears Mountain. 
The York region, in a general way, may be defined as a triangular area with its apex at 
Cape Prince of Wales, in longitude about 188° 5' west, from which point it extends eastward 
to about longitude 166° west. It is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean and on the 
south by Bering Sea and Port Clarence. The settlement called Tin City is situated on Ber- 
ing Sea about 5 miles from Cape Prince of Wales. Buck Creek is about 14 miles and Ears 
Mountain about 55 miles east of the cape. The Lost River deposits are about 25 miles, and 
York, a collection of a few cabins at the mouth of Anikovik River, about 10 miles southeast 
of Tin City. 
From Nome, the center of population, trade, and mining in the peninsula, boats sail at 
frequent intervals during the open season to the mouth of Lost River, York, and Tin City, 
while boats going to Kotzebue Sound will land persons who wish to reach Ears Mountain 
from the Arctic coast side, at Shishmaref Inlet. 
TOPOGRAPHY. 
Between the York Mountains on the east and Cape Mountain on the west there is a table- 
land rising to an elevation of about 600 feet. This table-land, known as the York Plateau, 
is an old marine bench which is now dissected by streams and above which occasional hills 
rise higher than the general level. A remnant of this table-land runs down the coast to the 
east, forming a narrow bench, a mile or more wide, as far as California River. 
East of the York Plateau are the York Mountains, steep sided and sharp ridged, com- 
posed largely of- limestone and frequently almost bare of vegetation. They reach their 
summit in Brooks Mountain, 2,918 feet high, about 5 miles north of the head of Lost River. 
Through these mountains the streams have cut their channels to comparatively low grades. 
About 16 miles north of York, Potato Mountain rises to 1,370 feet, while to the west Cape 
Mountain, an isolated mass with steep sides and cliffs of granite exposed to the wash of Ber- 
ing Sea and Strait, reaches 2,300 feet. It, too, shows remnants of the York Plateau, with a 
well-marked bench at about 300 feet elevation, above which are long level shoulders, prob- 
ably remnants of another bench, at a height (barometric) of about 1,300 feet. At the south 
side of the mountain the alluvial fan of a small stream has been eaten away until a bank 30 
to 40 feet high is exposed at the shore. The nearer streams on the east have sand bars 
across their mouths and the lower ends of their valleys are occupied by lagoons. These 
aBrooks, A. H., and others, Reconnaissances in the Cape Nome and Norton Bay regions, Alaska, in 
1900: special pub. U. S. Geol. Survey, 1901, pp. 136-137. Collier, A. J., Tin deposits of the York region, 
Alaska: Bull. U. S. Geol. Survey No. 225, 1904, pp. 154-167; Recent development of Alaskan tin deposits: 
Bull. U. S. Geol Survey No. 259, 1905, pp. 120-127. 
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