72 FAIRBANKS AND RAMPART QUADRANGLES. 
One shaft near the middle of the divide toward their eastern edge is 
said to have shown the gravels to be over 100 feet thick. Many other 
pros]3ect holes have been sunk in them at various places, and tunnels 
were run above Little Minook Creek at their eastern edge. Three 
claims upon this portion of the bench have been patented. From the 
bottom of one prospect hole, between Little Minook Junior Creek anil 
Hoosier Creek, $27 was reported to have been taken, but drifting 
failed to show pay. Above Florida Creek, in the small area of high 
gravels known as " Macdonald Bar," prospect holes gave colors but 
no pay. Apparently the gravels of the bench are nowhere rich enough 
to pay for drifting, although if it were possible to get hydraulic 
water to them cheaply they might, perhaps, be worked at a profit. 
The aneroid barometer readings, though not very reliable, suggest 
the possibility of bringing water from a point 3 or 4 miles above the 
mouth of Granite Creek under sufficient head to work at least a part 
of these gravels, if prospecting should show them to be rich enough 
to warrant the expense. 
CREEKS CUTTING THE HIGH BENCH. 
Hunter, Little Minook, Little Minook Junior, Hoosier, and Florida 
creeks cut through the high bench just described. Of these, Little 
Minook Junior and Florida creeks have their channels in large part 
or wholly within this area, while, as already noted, the other creeks 
lie partly outside and change their courses noticeably upon reaching 
it. The three longer creeks head close together in the hills which 
extend northward from Wolverine Mountain and divide the Minook 
drainage from that of Troublesome Creek. Their valleys, even at 
the heads, are so steep that the trails leading out of them are exceed- 
ingly difficult to travel. 
Hunter and Hoosier creeks not only have had a sufficiently large 
flow to cut their canyons, but they did it quickly enough to have 
since had opportunity to widen them, while Little Minook Creek with 
its smaller volume has not yet graded its valley sufficiently to do so 
much side cutting, and Little Minook Junior and Florida creeks lack 
much of having cut their beds down to grade. 
HUNTER CREEK. 
General description. — Hunter Creek is the first tributary of any 
size above the mouth of Minook Creek. It is between 12 and 15 
miles long, carries probably a little over 40 second-feet, and flows in 
a steeply walled canyon-like valley through its whole length. In its 
upper 7 or 8 miles it flows almost north until it comes to the line of 
the high bench, when it turns at a right angle and flows west to 
Minook Creek. 
