spencer.]  THE    JUNEAU    GOLD    BELT,    ALASKA.  37 
with  a  shovel  and  pan  along  the  edges  of  the  deposits  has  been 
demonstrated. 
Shuck  River,  the  main  affluent  of  Windham  Bay,  also  contains 
good-sized  gravel  deposits,  some  of  which  have  yielded  more  or  less 
profitable  returns  to  sluice-box  mining.  It  is  reported  that  a  propo- 
sition is  now  afoot  to  install  a  dredge  on  this  river. 
The  lode  mines  of  the  district  have  received  a  great  deal  of  atten- 
tion, but  with  discouraging  results.  Two  sorts  of  deposits  have  been 
prospected— quartz  veins  and  mineralized  bands  in  the  slates.  The 
former  are  usually  crosscutting,  containing  various  sulphides  and  free 
gold,  but  they  are  extremely  irregular  and  unreliable  and  are  often 
mere  stringers  or  bunches,  as  has  been  demonstrated  in  several  places. 
There  are  several  bands  of  mineralized  slate  that  contain  a  large 
amount  of  disseminated  pyrite  which  carries  some  gold,  but  these 
bodies  have  not  been  found  sufficiently  valuable  to  constitute  even 
low-grade  ores. 
No  points  beyond  Windham  Bay  were  visited,  but  prospecting  is 
known  to  be  in  progress  in  the  vicinity  of  Hobart  Ba},  and  it  is 
regarded  as  probable  that  a  connection  will  yet  be  established  between 
the  Juneau  gold  belt  and  some  portion  of  the  Ketchikan  district, 
throughout  which  mineralization  is  so  widely  distributed. 
Mines  north,  of  Juneau. — At  present  more  attention  is  being  directed 
to  the  northern  portion  of  the  mainland  belt  than  to  the  region  south 
of  Juneau.  During  the  summer  of  1903  considerable  development 
work  was  done  and  some  promising  leads  were  discovered,  and  still 
greater  activity  is  promised  for  1904. 
Northward  from  Juneau  the  upper  greenstone  contact  can  be  traced 
nearly  as  far  as  Berners  Bay,  though  from  Mendenhall  River,  10  miles 
beyond  Juneau,  its  outcrop  trends  less  to  the  west  than  in  the  lower 
part  of  the  belt.  Between  Juneau  and  Mendenhall  River  no  impor- 
tant discoveries  have  been  made  along  the  line,  but  farther  north  there 
are  important  placers  in  McGinnis,  Montana,  and  Windfall  creeks, 
and  the  black  slates  next  to  the  upper  greenstones  contain  many 
quartz  stringers,  both  in  the  creeks  named  and  northward  in  the  tribu- 
taries of  Co  wee  Creek.  In  the  drainage  of  this  last  stream,  a  few 
miles  from  Berners  Bay,  the  greenstone  and  slate  beds  are  cut  oft*  by 
the  transverse  contact  of  the  Coast  Range  diorite. 
Hydraulic  plants  were  installed  in  McGinnis  Creek  and  Windfall 
Creek  early  in  the  season  of  1903,  but  the  exceptionally  dry  season 
made  it  impossible  to  operate  them  and  doubtless  mining  will  begin 
early  in  the  coming  summer. 
On  the  landward  side  of  the  well-defined  lode  system  there  is  in  the 
aggregate  a  large  amount  of  mineralization,  though  present  develop- 
ment has  revealed  no  workable  deposits.  Stringers  of  quartz,  often 
carrying  sulphide  and  gold,  are  to  be  found  throughout  the  area  of 
