YORK TIN REGION. 155 
discovery was reported and about, half a ton of ore similar to that described was brought 
to Nome. 
The United States Alaska Tin Mining Company has a cabin and a couple of small ware- 
houses on the beach at Tin City and has started a 10-stamp mill a quarter of a mile back 
from the beach. Power is to be furnished by a gasoline engine. The claim on which the 
company is at present working is situated on the north side of Cape Mountain, at an alti- 
tude (barometric) of about 1,750 feet. A shaft sunk on this claim is said to be 15 feet deep, 
but was filled with water so that it could not be seen at the time it was visited. 
Along the side of the hill on each side of the shaft are a large number of quartz blocks, 
some of which contain cassiterite in almost colorless, gray, brown, and black lustrous crys- 
tals (specimens T5AH18, T5AH18a). No other minerals are seen in the quartz. The 
granite country rock in the shaft is somewhat altered and is said to carry tin. A specimen 
said to be from this place shows cassiterite crystals (specimen T5AH41). 
A contract was let in the fall for 300 feet of tunnel to be run during the winter from a 
point lower down the hill in the hope of cutting within that distance the vein from which the 
quartz float is derived. 
Prospecting has been or was being done at a large number of other places. It was said 
that float tin ore had been found nearer the cape and some prospecting done, l>uf ( he locality 
was not visited. At another point a dark basic dike was being prospected by a crosscut, but 
in such rocks the chances of finding tin ore are small. 
BUCK CREEK AREA. 
So far no producing tin lodes have been found in the Buck Creek area, but it is of interest 
that several small tin-bearing veins have been found during the past season. 
The country rock is slate, and heretofore outcrops of igneous rocks had not been seen, 
although it was felt that there must be such occurrences: but a number of granite dikes are 
now known at various points in the hills running northward from Potato Mountain. A 
number of narrow veins of quartz 2 or 3 inches wide carrying small clusters of cassiterite 
crystals accompanied in each case by iron pyrite, generally more or less arsenical, have been 
found cutting the slates on these hills. The pyrite weathers away, leaving the cassiterite in 
spongy spaces in the quartz (specimens T5AH53, T5AH55, T5AH5C), T5AH58). No 
minerals besides the pyrite and quartz have been seen in the veins, and with the possible 
exception of a small amount of wolframite, none have been found in the Buck Creek gravels 
other than hematite and magnetite, which are derived from pyrite. 
On a hill west of North Fork of Buck Creek a granite dike said to be 15 feet wide is being 
prospected for tin. A specimen given the writer (specimen T5AH62) shows a short narrow 
opening carrying black cassiterite and small crystals of quartz. 
The hope of paying deposits in the slates would seem to lie in finding stockworks (net- 
works of small veins) rich enough to pay for working. These have been successfully worked 
in slate in Cornwall and the Malay Peninsula. 
At many places veins and small replacement deposits of pyrite are found in the slates, and 
these have been said to carry stannite (tin pyrites). Six samples collected at points where 
stannite was said to exist were submitted to E. C. Sullivan, of the United States Geological 
Survey chemical laboratory, but he was unable to find a trace of tin in them. 
EARS MOUNTAIN. 
Prospecting on Ears Mountain continued during the summer of 1905, probably a dozen 
men being there during different parts of the season. While cassiterite undoubtedly has been 
found on the mountain, it is nevertheless true that most of that brought out as such is some- 
thing else. The mineral generally mistaken for cassiterite is tourmaline, and at Ears Moun- 
tain the two are remarkably similar, for often neither shows its crystal habit well and both 
are black and without cleavage, so that men who have seen the cassiterite-bearing rocks are 
ready to declare that tourmaline-bearing rocks of similar appearance are "exactly the same " 
