160 ALASKAN MINERAL RESOURCES IN 1904. [mu, 259. 
from Puget Sound and bituminous coal from Vancouver Island. It 
could do this successfully in a few Alaska markets if mined on such 
a large scale as to be sold at a low price, commensurate with its quality] 
PORT GRAHAM. 
The small bay of Port Graham, on the east side of Cook Inlet, lies 
halfway between Kachemak Bay and the southern end of Kenai 
Peninsula. The cove on the north side of Port Graham under Dan- 
gerous Cape was called Coal Bay by Portlock, who discovered coal 
here in 1786." 
At the west end of a crescent-shaped beach behind Dangerous 
Cape is a low bluff, in which are exposed sedimentary rocks lying 
between igneous rocks 1,000 feet apart. The series is composed of 
sandstone, shale, clay, and coal. Two outcrops of coal were seen, one 
on the beach between high-tide and low-tide level and the other near^ 
the west end of the gravel beach at high-tide mark. A tunnel driven 
on the coal at this outcrop is now caved and inaccessible. At the 
mouth of the tunnel there are between 8 and 9 feet of coal, some or 
which is good and some bony. On top of the bluff, a short distance 
back from the beach and about in line with this tunnel, is the mouth 
of a large shaft. The dump here is small and shows no coal, from 
which it may be inferred that the shaft ended at no great depth. On 
the beach at the end of a log crib is the framework of a 6 by 10 foot 
shaft, in one corner of which are two vertical hollow logs, which may 
have been pump columns. An old Russian miner, who lived for many 
years at Seldovia and died there in May, 1904, at the age of about 95 
years, said he had worked in this shaft. As he remembered it, the 
shaft was 180 feet deep and passed through five seams of coal, of which 
the first was about 5 feet thick, the three succeeding ones smaller, and 
the fifth, at the bottom of the shaft, was about 9 feet thick. 6 Nothing 
is known of the extent of the workings in this shaft, although 2,700 
tons are said to have been mined/ The ruins of several large log 
buildings on the hill back of the shafts, and of a stone pier extending 
out at least 100 yards from the mouth of the tunnel on the beach, 
point to considerable activity in this bay at the time of the Russian 
occupancy, from 1855 to 1867. 
The coal at Port Graham is lignite, black, brilliant, clean to handle, 
with conchoidal fracture. An analysis is given on page 170. 
CAPE DOUGLAS. 
Cape Douglas is at the southwestern entrance to Cook Inlet and 
terminates the prominent shoulder on the northeastern end of Alaska 
Peninsula. Rumors of the existence of coal in this vicinity led Dall 
" Portlock, Nathaniel: A Voyage to the Northwesl Coasl of America, 1", London, 1789, pp. 102-110. 
b Information furnished verbally by E. G. Wharf, of Seldovia. 
c Bancroft, H. H., History of Alaska, p. 694. 
