.PLACERS OF THE RAMPART REGION. 78 
Through the upper part of its course it is a crooked stream with a 
narrow V-shaped valley, probably indicating a rejuvenated drainage, 
while at its turn into the high bench the course becomes almost 
straight, showing a young, rapidly cut valley. It has but one tribu- 
tary below the bend — Dawson Creek — entering from the south about 
4 miles above the Minook. In the lower part of the valley of Hunter 
Creek the two sides are unlike. On the south side the upper 300 
or 400 feet of the valley wall is very steep, almost precipitous. The 
descent then becomes gentler and forms a broad bench which slopes 
easily to the creek where it ends abruptly with a face 15 to 40 feet 
high. This bench is probably to be correlated with the lowest one on 
Minook Creek. It is covered with gravel, varying in thickness from 
5 or 6 feet to 15 feet, and with muck varying in thickness from 1 
foot near the creek to 40 feet or more near the hillside. 
The creek flows tortuously through its bench, retaining the mean- 
ders it had before the bench was formed, and generally is close to the 
north side of the valley, but occasionally, as about 4 miles above the 
mouth, it wanders toward the south side, cutting away most of the 
bench. The valley has a grade in its lower part of 75 to 80 feet per 
mile. 
Gold was discovered in Hunter Creek Valley by William Hunter 
(for whom the creek is named) in 1896, at a point about 1J miles 
above the mouth. Few definite data were obtainable concerning the 
gold production of the creek, but it is believed to have been approxi- 
mately $24,000, of which $3,000 was produced during the winter 
of 1903-4 and $3,000 during the summer of 1904, a total for the year 
of $6,000. Hunter Creek has so far not proved to be a rich creek, 
though gold has been found in the gravels of both the bench and 
the present stream bed. 
At the head of the creek the bed rock is mostly Rampart slate and 
quartzite; tuffaceous greenstones which predominate in the lower 
part of the valley are overlain near the mouth by Kenai sandstones 
and conglomerates. The tuffs contain some rounded pebbles, and a 
hole 228 feet deep was sunk in them under the impression that they 
belonged to the frozen muck and gravels of the creek. The rocks 
are much jointed and contain many small veins of quartz and calcite. 
Pyrite occurs at many places. 
The gravels of the creek are 2 to 12 feet thick and are mostly 
diabase, slate, and chert pebbles from the bed rock, with many heavy 
bowlders of quartzite, occasionally reaching 3 feet in diameter. These 
larger bowlders are residuals from the gravels of the old bench 
through which the valley is cut. Much of the diabase gravel is 
angular or subangular. The muck over the gravel varies in thickness 
from 1 foot in places along the stream to 40 feet or more where the 
small streams pour their debris upon the valley floor. 
