| Tales From the Hills
(Continued from Page 11) •
gladly accept.the criticism if some one.
of these articles strikes fire in the
mind of the prospector and illumi
nates some problem which is now baf
fling hiinWi
If the prospectors find these arti
cles h-'ftf.ul, we suggest that they
wfflte in und suggest problems which
they wi.wld like to have discussed in'
p t .re- ;jr.ticlss,
Ct(nfint*3f««it: P nos peering
To Mineralized Districts.
l.arrti. O’Sijllivan and Jack McKay
are two typical Alaskan prospectors.
Their ttobnu-is a weather-beaten shack
. perched ajJove timber-line own distant
Alask tips mountain. The shack. is of
mongrel* design, for they started to
buiid it of lumber, but after carrying
the fu'Bt shipment up on their backs
they compromised on canvas, and as
a finai gesture walled it up with rocks
so thetwtiler wind could not dump tme
and their outfit into the inhospitable
rocks gulch, where the empty tin cans
find a oik r xvzfifl mgfwy cmfwy fwy
find a abating place.
If you forget to stoop low you get
a -nasty, bump on the head as you
head -as*. you enter the door. Don’t
c pect too much of the interior of the
shuck,-for every article there has been
backpsi/dced up a steep switchback
trail tii.A. ends up the mountains.
Larcy, as you probably suspect, is
* a .gOvd-/sntured Irishman, quick of
wit and-of temper—a wiry little fel
low *vtv6 would tackle his weight in
wilde .4a-.. Jack McKay is a man of
powerful build; slow of speech—he is
the dicect antithesis of Larry. De
spite their physical and temperamen
tal- 'iiSfirences they make an excellent
team, for each secretly admires the
trait - -»>f his partner—otherwise they
wouMstSt have spent the past fifteen
years, prospecting together.
You will be introduced to them on
a tSe member evening, shortly after
they nive finished a shift on their
prospect. This prospect i sdown the
gulch tfr.om the cabin and as they ad
vane -ttifc tunel from day to day their
ht^pt st fluctuate from rock bottom to
the skies and then down again. Jack
deposited an arm load of wood behind
the cookstove, and Larry, who was
- deftly cutting up the bacon and dis
tributing it through the bean pot,
spoke up:
“Jack, I have been doing a little
figuring. We have been prospecting
for the last fifteen years, but in that
tithe' w" ’— ""'-"ol'v hpon nrospect
ing only about five years. The other
ten years we have been earning grub
stakes, building trails, getting tip sup*
plies and going to town after the mail.
We are almost as bad off'as'that old
prospector I met down in Arizona who
said thfct he had spent ten years Hunt
ing burrows, three years prospecting,
• and the rest of'the. time (being high
top boots.’"
Jack grunted- He realized" that
, Larry was in a- talkative mood, so he
filled his pipe, picked up last month’s
newspaper and tried to listen with
only one ear.
Larry continued:- “It is my idea
that « prospector should conlne all of
his work to mineralized areas and not
spend his valuable summers chasing
rainbows in districts barren of prom
ising mineralization. Take old Bill
Driunhn, for example; he has spent'
the best part of ten years prospect
* ing in the Bnld mountain country. I
have been through that country, and
to me ^t looks like the hungriest
country, fr n a mineral standpoint,
that I've seen in Alaska. Bill con
tirtuees to ’ respect there because the
* general topography of the hill resem
bles his old stamping ground about
Silverton, Colorado."
• “Ninety per cent of Alaska or- any
other coirm: ryv is barren of commer
cial minetcti'kation. The mineralized
districts are' isolated pin-point specks
spaced over a. map*—like an occasional.
island in the sea. It. is up to the pros
pectors, as I see it, to locate these
mineralized patches and then concen
trate their energies there. It simply
means this:. To make a .rich mining!
district you have to get an unusual
set of geologic events which Jwtwt the
j mineralization from the igneous mag
: mas, which the geologists' talk about,
1 to be concentrated into a limited area.
“Take Butte, Montana, for . exam
ple. They call Butte the richest hill
: in the world. That hill is simply
i laced through and through with a net
I work of strongly mineralized veins.
There is a mineralized country for
ydu. All of that ore didn’t come di
rectly from the igneous intrusion
,,’hich makes up the hill. The big in
rusion which underlies that country
for hundreds of miles has been
gleaned of metals, and while the in
rusion was still in a molten state
some set of conditions caused the ore
minerals for miles around to be
forced into Butte Hill. Such intensive
banding of ore into one corral does
not happen often, and that is the rea
son we have so few camps like Butte.
More often the mineralization is di
vided between three or four centers
of mineralization and then we find
three or four mining districts spaced
50 to 100 miles apart and the country
! between these districts robbed of its
; mineralization. It is something like
this, Jack: If you are in town and a
big fire breaks out, everyone natural
ly rushes to the fire and crowds
around there. If at this time you
'■ would prospect the other, section of
town you would find them well de
serted, with .only an occasional stay
at-home to be found.
“Then I remember the Republic
gold camp, in the northeastern corner
of the State of Washington, which has
produced several million dollars and
has a good life still ahead of it. You
could lay a blanket five miles long by
| onedialf a mile wide and cover up all
the mines in the camp. Outside of
•that small rectangle.' Icouldn’t find a
prospect worth wasting a box. of pow
der on. *
“The producing area. of. Tonopah,
Nevada, can be included: in a strip, of
country one mile wide by about two
miles long.
j “The Mother Iiode district of Cali
.: fornia is more like gold gold belt that
trends along: the coast of Southeast -
ern Alaska. The mineralized belt on
the Mother Lode is about a mile wide,
• but it contains a series of closely
spaced veins outcropping at intervals
for a length o flOO miles. Several
- of the stronger veins have been devel
oped, for. more than a mile along their
strike.”
Jack laid aside his paper; lighted
: his pipe which had gone out, and then
; with a quizzical smile remarked: “So
far, so good, Larry, but what I would
; like to knoow how i sthe prospector
j going to recognize a mineral country
j when he sees one? Anyone can rec
| ognize a mineralized area after mines
j have been developed there, but sup
! pose you are in a new country, what
I are you going to do then ? ”
j “That is a fair question, Jack. To.
start with, I’ll admit that the best'
prospector might pass through a min
eralized district and totally miss all
the signs, but there are some helpful
guide posts available. Suppose we
were traveling through a new country
and were following either along the
ridges or*up a valley. We would
j watch for float or for outcroppings,
j We might do a little panning on the
| bars and if we didn’t find anything we
would probably conclude that it was a
hungry country, and keep on -traveling.
I suppose every mining district has
been passed, up; that way at some
time.
“I believe we should : go one step
farther and ask ourselves what' the
raining districts of Western 5forth
America have in common. My ob
servation has heen. that they are usu
ally in or near intrusive igneous
rocks, such as small cupolas of gran
ite or monzonite. Others are along
the margins of great granite batho
liths such as the coast range batho
lith that trends through British Co
lumbia and Southeastern Alaska.
Don’t tell me about the exceptions,
for I know that there are many, but
that isn’t a bad rule to cover tire ma
! jority of the rich districts. So when
| we are prospecting anil come uponin^
trusions of these igneous rocks I con-1
tend that there is a good place to
pitch camp and spend a few days in
any signs of "mineralization in the
zones around 'these intrusive masses
w eshould move on and try another.
“Also I have noticed that whert
you have ore deposits you generally
find dikes close at hand. If I climbed
up on a ridge and saw dikes cutting !
across from one ridge to the other,
like big ribbons, I would say to -my
self, ‘Larry, here is a good place to do j
a little prospecting.’ These dikes tell
me that they are offshoots from ■ a
deeper intrusion and that the over- j
lying rocks have been fractured.';
Hence, if the intrusion happens to be;
mineralized—this mineralization can -
b? squeezed out of the intrusion into
the fractured rocks above somewhat
after the same manner in which the
dikes were injected.”
Jack began to sniff, not in derision,
but with alarm. Then he made a dash
for the stove. “Dog gone an Irishman
for a partner—you have burned ' the
beans!”
Ignorant Pater.
President Nicholas Murray Butler
of Columbia University was talking
to an Augusta reporter about a cen
sored film.
“The film was censored through ig
; norance," he said. “Evil was seen
j where evil didn’t exist. I’ll tell you
| a story.
“A farmer said to his daughter
when she came home from college for
her vacation:
“ ‘Land, but you’ve thinned down,
gal. Why, you must have lost close
on to 25 pound.’
“ ‘Close on to it, pater,’ said the rol
Iege girl, complacently. ‘I weigh just
107 stripped for gym.’
“The father rushed at the girl and
grabbed her by the throat.
“‘Who in Sam Hill’s Jim?’ lie
roared.
Hard and Guarded.
Bishop Bristol said at a dinner in
Washington:
“Old age mellows some of us while
others it makes hard and gnarled.
“ ‘Jethro,’ an aged woman said to
her aged husband, ‘we’ve lived to
gether nearly fifty years now.
| Heigho, it can’t last forever. It
won’t be long before one of us will
have to go.’
“‘Don’t worry, Hannah,’ the old
man soothed her. ‘Don’t worry, my
dear.’
“ ‘No,! she said, ‘but I was just
thinkin’, Jethro, >that when it does
happen, I’d kinder like to live in
i Miami.’ ”
TABLE OF DISTANCES BE
TWEEN NENANA AND FLAT
Miles
Nenana ... 00
Tavern Roadhouse . 17%
: Knight’s Roadhouse . 11%
'I Nineteen-Mile Roadhouse . 58
1 Diamond Roadhouse . . 76
Roosevelt . 89
Lake Minchumina . 115
Trappers’ Cabin . 182
Lone Star Roadhouse . 150
Telida Roadhouse . 169%
Slow Fork Roadhouse . 187
East Fork Roadhouse .) 206
I Berry’s Landing Roadhouse . 227%
Big River Roadhouse. . 241 !
McGrath . 263 j
Takotra . 280 j
Bid Goss' Roadhouse ... ... 291
Ophir ... 300 !
McGafferty .. 306 j
Brown Creek shelter cabin .318
. Fritz shelter cabin . 333
First Chance shelter cabin . 346
Schertneyer R. H. 360
Iditarod. 376
Flat ........ 384
Bonanzza sheler cabin, 12 miles
from Flat.
Crooked Creek shelter cabin. 19 j
miles from Bonanza.
Babeesch Moosehide Mitts and Boots
Furs Bought and Sold Clothing
All Kinds of Nice Fresh Groceries and Fruits
Canned Goods of All Kinds Beds and Bedding
A. R. Eldridge - McGrath
TAKOTNA ROADHOUSE
Best of Meats and Rooms
Where Everythin; la Homelike ami
Where Yon Are Cordially Welcomed
GOOD DOG HOUSES f BATHS
j Ivar Chilstrom - Prop.
Sough and Dressed Lum
ber of All Kinds
INNOK0 LUMBER CO.
r
1
I
I
j
How About
i
Job
Printing
?
Try
Kusko
Times
i
]
!