154 ALASKAN MINERAL RESOURCES IN 1906. 
lack of water. A mile above the forks of Wilson and Lower Willow 
creeks two men have been doing some work, but operations were 
suspended late in the season to allow the installation of a California 
grizzly. About l\ miles above the fork of Wilson and Lower Wil- 
low creeks two men had been employed all summer. They stated, 
however, that the claim had been previously worked out, and their 
operations this summer consisted merely in saving some of the values 
that had been lost in the earlier mining. A short ditch at a low level 
takes water from the upper part of the creek and carries it to the 
discovery claims, a distance of about 2 miles. The geology of the 
region at the forks of Willow Creek is complex, the bed rock con- 
sisting of limestone and both chloritic and graphitic schist. The 
gold of this part of the stream has probably been derived from a 
near-by source. Mineralization is evident in at least two places at 
the schist and limestone contacts on the south side of Lower Willow 
Creek. At one place sulphides were recognized in a quartz vein, 
and numerous copper stains on weathered vein stuff were found on 
the summit of the divide between Lower Willow Creek and the Casa- 
depaga near the head of Ptarmigan Creek. 
On Ruby Creek two parties have been at work during the last 
summer, but the creek is now exhausted. It is said that the values 
have been more completely extracted from the gravels of this creek 
than from those of any other stream in the Casadepaga drainage, so 
that reworking these gravels in the future will not be remunerative. 
On Moonlight Creek the main activity during the last two years 
has been ditch building. This creek heads in a series of bare lime- 
stone hills with steep slopes, so that the run-off is high. The ditch 
has an intake at an elevation of about 500 feet. It is proposed to 
carry the ditch across Canyon Creek to the broad bench of Casade- 
paga River about three-fourths of a mile southwest of Goose Creek. 
The water supply from Moonlight Creek will be augmented by a 
ditch line from L T pper Willow Creek with its intake at such a level 
that it delivers water to the ditch at Moonlight Creek at an eleva- 
tion of 500 feet. It is estimated that the ditch will have an average 
delivery of 1,500 to 2,000 inches of water. 
An eighth of a mile below the junction of Moonlight Creek and 
the Casadepaga there has been some slight exploration of the bench 
gravels that occur a few feet above the level of the river. The 
gravels seem to be typical river gravels, but the floor on which they 
rest is rather uneven. Old channels have been reported in this dis- 
trict, but the rumors could not be investigated. Above Moonlight 
Creek there have been no mining operations on the Casadepaga 
during the last season. 
