ST.   JOE    RIVER    BASIN,   IDAHO.  137 
mi  North  Fork  of  Clearwater  River,  from  10  to  20  miles  south;  at  Moose  Creek,o  Cedar 
3reek,  and  St.  Joe  basin,  near  the  southeast  corner  of  this  district;  and  at  Deer  Creek 
lear  the  northeast  boundary. 
On  the  headwaters  of  St.  Joe  River  a  small  placer  district,  locally  called  the  St.  Joe  basin, 
s  partly  within  the  area  covered  by  the  map,  PL  IV,  though  the  protest  regarding  that 
oart  of  the  classification  has  been  dismissed.  Owing  to  the  short  time  available  for  field 
vork  and  the  fact  that  it  is  outside  the  area  involved  in  this  hearing  it  was  not  examined 
oy  the  writer.  Gold  was  discovered  as  early  as  1870,  and  a  few  men  have  mined  here  con- 
tinuously for  the  past  ten  years,  but  no  large  amounts  of  gold  have  been  obtained.  The  dis- 
trict is  said  to  be  25  miles  distant  from  Iron  Mountain,  Montana,  from  which  place  a  wagon 
xmd  leads  up  Cedar  Creek  to  within  a  few  miles.  Cedar  Creek  in  Montana,  a  tributary 
)f  Missoula  River,  and  Moose  Creek  in  Idaho,  a  tributary  of  Clearwater  River,  are  placer- 
searing  streams  in  the  same  vicinity.  St.  Joe  basin,  so  called,  is  described  as  a  gravel- 
jovered  flat  several  miles  long,  containing  about  320  acres,  at  the  head  of  Middle  Fork  of 
st.  Joe  River.  The  auriferous  gravels  here  are  deep  and  owing  to  a  reef  of  bed  rock  near 
:he  lower  end  of  the  deposit  it  has  been  impracticable  to  drain  them,  so  that  except  around 
t*  rims  the  basin  deposit  has  not  yet  been  worked.  Medicine,  Wisdom,  Sherlock,  and 
Rocker  creeks  are  small  placer-bearing  streams  tributary  to  the  basin,  and  probably  con- 
tributed much  of  the  gold  in  the  larger  deposit.  The  bed  rock  along  these  streams  is 
reported  to  be  quartzite  cut  by  "seams  of  quartz  and  talc, "containing  free  gold.  Coarse 
colors  of  gold  are  found  in  the  gravels  of  St.  Joe  River  as  far  down  as  the  crossing  of  the 
De  Borgia  trail,  but  attempts  to  locate  valuable  deposits  below  the  basin  have  not  been 
successful.  The  gravels  along  St.  Joe  River  through  its  whole  length  contain  large  quanti- 
ties of  garnets  and  of  black  sand  consisting  of  magnetite  and  ilmenite. 
Near  the  western  boundary  of  this  district,  in  T.  45  N.,  Rs.  2  and  3  E.,  there  are  deposits 
of  auriferous  gravel  along  Mica  Creek,  from  which  it  is  possible  that  miners  could  make 
wages  by  sluicing.  Attempts  at  placer  mining  have  been  made  at  several  other  places, 
but  none  of  these  have  been  at  all  successful. 
GOLD-QUARTZ    VEINS. 
It  has  been  shown  that  some  of  the  ledges  described  as  copper  deposits  also  carry  con- 
siderable amounts  of  gold.  Near  Wards  Peak,  however,  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  district, 
and  from  that  point  southward  for  several  miles,  the  rocks  are  cut  by  distinctly  gold-bearing 
quartz  veins,  some  of  which  are  undoubtedly  of  economic  value.  Two  such  veins  southeast 
of  Wards  Peak  are  partially  developed  and  were  examined.  The  country  rock  here  con- 
sists of  a  sericitic  slate  or  quartzite,  which  is  probably  equivalent  to  the  Prichard  slate  of 
the  Cceur  d'Alene  district.  It  is  cut  by  quartz  veins,  which  extend  more  nearly  north 
and  south  than  east  and  west.  One  of  these,  called  the  Gold  Mountain  vein,  has  a  width 
of  about  15  feet;  it  strikes  N.  20°  W.  and  stands  nearly  vertical.  It  has  been  traced  north- 
westward about  one-fourth  of  a  mile  and  is  there  exposed  in  the  face  of  a  steep  cliff.  Two 
large  stringers  parallel  with  the  bedding  of  the  slate  lead  off  to  the  west  from  the  main 
vein.  The  ore  of  the  Gold  Mountain  lode  consists  for  the  most  part  of  white  quartz,  hut 
near  one  of  the  walls  it  is  heavily  mineralized  with  pyrite  in  large  tubes.  Where  devel- 
oped by  the  shaft  this  pyrite  is  altered  to  hematite  or  limonite,  in  which  the  free  gold  can 
often  be  seen  by  the  naked  eye.  Picked  samples  of  this  ore  when  assayed  showed  values 
exceeding  $60  in  gold  to  the  ton,  while  average  samples  carefully  taken  across  the  whole 
width  of  the  ledge  are  reported  to  yield  about  $10  in  gold  per  ton. 
The  Revenge  lode,  which  lies  about  half  a  mile  west  of  the  Gold  Mountain,  strikes  a  little 
least  of  north.  It  has  a  width  of  about  5  feet  and  its  ore,  like  that  of  the  Gold  Mountain 
ledge,  consists  of  weathered  pyrite  contained  in  white  quartz.  This  pyrite,  however,  is 
much  more  evenly  distributed  through  the  quartz  than  is  the  case  in  the  Gold  Mountain 
oLindgren,  Waldemar,  op.  cit.,  p.  108. 
