National Geographic : 1892 May 15
142 C. W. Hayes-Expedition through the Yukon District. pact greenish-black rock, traversed by many streaks of lighter green serpentine and white veins apparently of calcite. The rocks of the southern range which extends westward from St Elias differ widely from those exposed in Scolai pass. About Taral they consist for the most part of siliceous talcose schist with gray hornblende granite, which is apparently eruptive. Between Taral and the coast the prevailing rocks are bluish-gray quartzite or quartzite-schist. The moraines of glaciers along the lower course of Copper river flowing from the eastward are com posed largely of eruptive granites and granitoid gneiss contain ing inclusions of black slate and schist. All the sedimentary rocks between the Chittenah and the coast have been so thor oughly metamorphosed that their original bedding is wholly obliterated, and no statement can yet be made as to their prob able age. Rocks of Prince William' Sound.-Forming the shores about Prince William sound there is a series of black shales and thin bedded dark-brown sandstones. They are highly contorted and somewhat altered, especially the shales. The strike, wherever any regularity can be detected, is about north-and-south, and the dips are generally steep, often vertical. They bear a strong resemblance to the rocks of the Yakutat series described by Rus sell,* and it is not improbable that they are the continution west ward of that series. Fossil plants are reported to occur in these rocks at some points on Prince William sound, but none have yet been collected. While the series is perhaps, all Mesozoic or younger, any statement as to its age made at the present time must be regarded as purely hypothetic. MINERAL RESOURCES. Gold.-Placergold occurs widely disseminated throughout the Yukon basin, though only in a few places has it been found in sufficient quantity to make profitable working. The most im portant of these are bars along the Lewes between Teslin and Little Salmon rivers and on Forty-mile creek, a southern tribu tary of the Yukon emptying near the 141st meridian. Ten men were located on the bars of the Lewes, and, although the water * An Expedition to Mount St Elias, Alaska: Nat. Geog. Mag., vol. iii, 1891, p. 167.
1893 Feb 08
1892 Mar 31