GOLD-BEARING  RIVER  SANDS  OF  NORTHEAST 
KKN  WASHINGTON. 
I'.v  A  inn  11:  J.  Coli  hi; 
INTRODUCTION. 
The  occurrence  of  finely  divided  gold  associated  with  magnetic!! 
iron  in  the  sands  of  Snake  River,  in  Idaho,  is  well  known,  and  publ 
lished  reports  describing  these  deposits  and  the  methods  of  mining 
and  collecting  the  gold  have  frequently  appeared.  Information 
regarding  the  presence  of  similar  gold  along  the  Columbia  and  other 
of  its  tributaries  is  not  so  general,  though  such  occurrences  have  been 
known  locally  For  many  years. 
From  t  went  v  to  t  birty  years  ago  placet'  claims  were  worked  at  many 
points  along  the  upper  Columbia  byChinese/1  but  since  the  exclusion 
of  Chinese  laborers  these  old  mines  have  been  abandoned  and  the 
evidences  of  them  are  obscured  by  a  growth  of  young  pine  trees] 
Mining  was  resinned  to  a  certain  extent  by  white  men  during  the  hard 
time-  of  L893  and  IV)  I.  when,  as  reported,  scant  wages  could  he 
obtained,  but  in  later  years  the  attempts  to  extract  this  gold  have 
been  sporadic  and  usually  ineffectual.  Interest  in  these  deposits  has 
recently  been  revived  by  the  location,  ostensibly  for  placer-mining 
purposes,  of  man\  large  tracts  of  bench  land  adjacent  to  Columbia 
and  Sanpoil  rivers  in  the  Colville  Indian  Reservation. 
During  the  past  season  an  investigation  was  made  by  Mr.  F.  M. 
Goodwin,  of  the  General  Land  Office,  and  the  writer,  to  determine 
whether  or  not  these  locations  were  made  in  good  faith.  This  inves- 
tigation was  confined  to  100  miles  of  the  Columbia  Valley  from 
Nespelem  to  Kettle  Falls  and  to  the  Sanpoil  Valley  below  Republic 
but  much  of  the  resulting  information  is  believed  to  be  of  sufficient 
genera]  interest  to  warrant  publication. 
GEOGRAPHY. 
The  Colville  Indian  Reservation  lies  in  the  northeastern  part  of  the 
State  of  Washington,  north  of  Columbia  River,  which  bounds  it  on  the 
east  and  south  sides.      This  river  (lows  southward  from  the  Canadian 
oSymons,   rhos.  W.,  Rept.  on  Examination  of   Upper  Columbia  River:   Senate  Ex.  I>"<'.  No.  L86J 
47th.Con  Washington,  1882,  pp.  27-28. 
56 
