142 ALASKAN MINERAL RESOURCES IN 1906. 
in one or two places where low ridges or rolls of bed rock reached the 
surface and projected slightly beyond the ancient beach exceptional 
amounts of gold were found on their west sides, a position of maxi- 
mum concentration corresponding to that in the indentations just 
mentioned. This would indicate that the distribution of gold in the 
gravels was largely influenced by the prevailing direction of the ocean 
waves and currents. It is probable also that very rich deposits, such 
as occur at Little Creek and Bessie Bench, are due to their nearness 
to the source of gold or to streams which brought it to the sea. The 
character of both the gold and the gravel accumulations would indi- 
cate the same thing. On the western part of the beach the gold is, on 
the average, much coarser than at the east end, where it resembles in 
appearance and approaches in fineness that of the present beach. 
The gravels of the west end are more variable in character and exhibit 
a larger amount of coarse angular stream wash than those toward 
the east, showing that the conditions under which the western gravels 
accumulated were less uniform — at one time stream deposits, at another 
sea deposits, being laid down. 
Some ideas concerning the eastward and westward continuations of 
the third beach are suggested by an examination of the topographic 
map. The shore line must formerly have extended from the hills 
west of Cripple River to Cape Nome, and if one may judge by the por- 
tion now known it had the form of a broad arc of fairly uniform curva- 
ture, like the present beach, but with smaller radius. It is the belief 
of not a few miners at Nome that the third beach did not, like the first 
and second beaches, keep to the seaward of Cape Nome, but that it 
passed to the north through the broad, low depression between 
Saunders Creek and Flambeau River, thus forming an island of the 
Cape Nome granite area. The elevation of the depression between 
Cape Nome and Army Peak is only 115 feet, and the possibility of the 
cape being an island at the time when the third beach was formed can 
not be refuted by any evidence now at hand, although it appears 
improbable. Bed rock is traced northwestward from Cape Nome for 
a distance of nearly 5 miles, and in the low rounded hill between 
Hastings and Saunders creeks has an elevation of 297 feet. Between 
this point and the Army Peak schist mass, still farther to the north- 
west, is an interval of about 3 miles across a broad, low saddle where 
no rocks are exposed. As stated, the elevation of this flat at its lowest 
point is about 115 feet, but the depth of gravel is unknown. If it has 
a thickness of 40 or 50 feet it is possible that the third beach passes 
through. It seems far more probable, however, that the controlling 
influence in determining the coast line here was exercised by Cape 
Nome, since it must have been a factor in directing the ocean currents 
and consequently the accumulation of sands and gravel. To judge 
