ECONOMIC GEOLOGY. 53 
points in the larger drainage areas and study the daily run-off din- 
ing the open season from records thus obtained. This plan afforded 
greater opportunities for procuring comparative data than thai of 
covering a larger territory in a less definite way. In this country 
without storage, daily records are an important factor, and such rec- 
ords could not have been obtained over an extended area. Outside 
of the producing creeks the country is almost a wilderness, and it 
is practically impossible to get observations other than those which 
would be made on the occasional visits of the engineer. No daily or 
even weekly records could have been assured, and the results ob- 
tained from scattering measurements wottld have furnished no com- 
prehensive idea as to what the daily run-off of the streams really 
was throughout the open season. 
On account of the location of the stations the results published in 
the following tables have a more direct bearing on the development 
of water power for electric transmission than on that of a water sup- 
ply to ditch lines for hydraulicking, though a properly constructed 
ditch may furnish water for either or both. 
The records kept on the upper Chatanika establish the fact that 
the volume of Avater is more nearly what would be required for a 
ditch supply than that of any other drainage area within a prac- 
ticable distance of the Fairbanks district, except that of Beaver 
Creek. While the upper Chatanika may thus be considered for fur- 
nishing water to the Fairbanks district, the supply wottld have to be 
conveyed for more than 100 miles through a ditch line difficult to 
construct and maintain before it would be available for use, and then 
on account of the low head but a small number of the producing 
creeks would be benefited. The Beaver Creek basin would furnish a 
greater supply at perhaps a higher elevation, but its greater distance 
from the seat of operations makes it a less practical source of water 
than the Chatanika. 
From the data at hand it appears that hydro-electric development 
is the most practical solution for the various industrial problems of 
the camp. Electric power could be readily transmitted to the various 
creeks and easily supplied to the individual miner as a cheap and 
practical power for pumping water to the sluice box, for running 
the hoist, for elevating the tailings, for pumping water out of the 
mines, for lighting the underground work, and in some localities for 
supplying power to the dredge. 
The following tables indicate in a general way the work done in 
the Fairbanks district during the past season. A more detailed report 
of the work done in this territory will be published in a water-supply 
paper of the United States Geological Survey. 
Table 1 gives a list of discharge measurements made at the several 
gaging stations together with the approximate elevation above sea 
