158 ALASKAN MINERAL RESOURCES IN 1904. [bull. 259. 
about 7 feet, there is only 18 inches of clear coal, the greater portion 
of the bed being made up of thin seams interbedded with leaf -bear 
ing shale. It is said that J. A. Bradley drove a tunnel at this place 
several years ago, but it is now caved in. 
From Fritz Creek eastward to McNeil Canyon the coal seams exposed 
in the sea bluff are mostly thin and of little value. In one stretch of 
2 miles the section is almost entirely sandstone. This soon dips below 
sea level, giving place to a 100-foot section containing half a dozen coal 
seams, the thickest of which is 27 inches. 
About 10 miles northeast of Homer coal is exposed in the canyon 
of McNeil Creek. Several years ago a Mr. Curtis drove two short 
tunnels on a 1-foot seam at a point 400 yards west of the canyon and 
a few feet above the beach. The seam is called the Curtis seam. A 
short wharf and coal bins were built and still remain. When the 
locality was visited in June, 1901, one tunnel was partly closed and 
full of water; the other, above the bins, was covered by a dirt slide. 
Iron-stained sandy clay forms the roof, and the floor is gniy clay. 
In the bluff above the Curtis seam there are three other coals, sepa- 
rated by thick beds of clay or soft sandstone. The lowest of the 
three is nearly 4 feet thick and has only 1 inches of parting. The 
rocks lie nearly horizontal, so that this seam is found about 300 } T ards 
up the canyon, where it causes a small cascade 35 feet above high tide, 
A short distance farther up the canyon, and 60 feet above tide, a 
20-inch coal seam causes another cascade. From this seam to the toj 
of the bluff the section measures 325 feet, and contains 21 feet 4 
inches of coal. Four of the coal seams are 3 or more feet thick, 
Two hundred tons of coal were mined in McNeil Canyon in 1891, taker 
to San Francisco, and submitted to a series of tests. a 
The section on Cottonwood Creek, 2 miles beyond McNeil, consist] 
largely of soft shale. It is reported that prospecting has been done 
here, but no traces of it were seen. In the canyon no coal seams ovei 
2 feet thick were seen until at an elevation of 300 feet a bed appearec 
which seemed at a distance to have a thickness of 3 feet. The coa 
in this canyon is lighter, perhaps less compact, and dull. Some of ii 
preserves its woody structure so perfectly that it will split in slab 
and chips like wood. 
A heavy sandstone layer conspicuous near the top of the bluff ai 
Cottonwood Creek seems to be almost as high above the beach ai 
Eastland Canyon, 1^ miles farther east. At the mouth of the canyor 
there are the ruins of three cabins, a short dock, and a small tram 
way which runs up the gulch 2,000 feet. Active mining exploratioi 
work was done here by M. B. Curtis, engineer in charge, from 1891 1( 
1897. One-half mile up the canyon the creek cascades over a coa 
seam which has the following section: 
aDall, W. H., Coal and lignite of Alaska: Seventeenth Ann. Rept. U. S. Geol. Survey, pt. 1, pp 
831-832. 
