GEOLOGY AND MINERAL RESOURCES OF IRON CREEK. 
By Philip S. Smith. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Iron Creek, one of the largest tributaries of the Kruzgamepa, joins 
that river near the great bend about 1 1 miles east of Salmon Lake. 
Although realty continuous, Iron Creek bears three names in different 
parts of its valley; thus from its mouth to Left Fork, a distance of 7 
miles, the stream is called Iron Creek; above Left Fork as far as 
Eldorado Creek, a distance of 1 mile, it is called Dome Creek, and 
from Eldorado Creek to the divide it is called Telegram Creek. This 
confusion of names is due to the interpretation of the mining laws 
which permits the staking of additional claims on different creeks — 
i. e., creeks having different names. There are four main tributaries, 
the three largest being from the south and the fourth and smallest 
from the north. 
Owing to the fact that some errors occur in the reconnaissance map 
of 1900, a the only map prepared by the Geological Survey of this 
region, it has seemed advisable to correct such inaccuracies as were 
noted in a hasty trip along the stream in 1906. Much assistance in 
platting the district was afforded by the transit notes of a ditch survey 
made by J. M. Love, of the Gold Beach Development Company. A 
corrected map of the Iron Creek basin is shown in fig. 8. It will be 
noted that this basin is roughly triangular. The western side of the 
triangle forms the divide between the drainage of the Kruzgamepa 
and that of Iron Creek. The southern side of the triangle in the west- 
ern part separates the Iron Creek drainage from the headwaters of 
Gassman and Venetia creeks, both tributaries of Eldorado River. 
The divide from Venetia Creek is low, being only about 800 feet above 
the mouth of Iron Creek, or 1,000 feet above the sea, so that it affords 
a good route for a road to Nome. The eastern portion of the southern 
side of the triangle forms the divide between the Iron Creek and Casa- 
depaga drainages. A low pass, with an elevation of about 1,000 feet, 
permits a good wagon road to run up Telegram Creek and down Lower 
Willow Creek to the Council City and Solomon River Railroad, a 
distance from the junction of Iron and Canyon creeks of 13 miles. 
a Reconnaissances in Cape Nome and Norton Bay regions, Alaska, in 1900; a special publication of 
the U. S. Geol. Survey, 1901, pi. 17. 
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