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creek, the other heading in the northwest slope of Van Winkle mountain.
The valley of the creek is comparatively narrow and steep-sided down to
the “Little canyon” 43 miles below the forks. The “Big canyon” begins
about one-quarter of a mile above Little canyon and extends upstream for
about a mile. The stream flows over bedrock in both canyons, but the
canyons are only a few feet deep and the valley bottom, though partly
blocked by hills and ridges of drift deposits, is much wider than in the
upper parts where the bedrock is almost completely concealed by glacial
drift in which the present stream channel is cut. Below the lower canyon,
in which there is a fall of 40 feet in about one-quarter mile, the stream
flows across the broad flats of Swift river. A wagon road, now in disuse,
extends from Stanley and down Fountain creek to Swift river.

In the early days the canyons of the creek were flumed and the bedrock
was cleaned, but there was, apparently, no attempt to mine the buried
channel of the creek until 1905 when the Fountain Creek Mining Company
was organized by J. D. Peebles for this purpose. Angus McPherson was
foreman and mining development work was carried on for four or five
years. Two shafts were sunk on the main branch, one about one-half
mile above the forks and a second a few hundred yards above the forks,
but were lost because of underground water pressure. A third was sunk
52 feet to bedrock and 23 feet in bedrock at the forks, and a tunnel was
driven upstream about 500 feet. The tunnel was above bedrock except
near the shaft and near the upper end where the channel was crosscut.
J. F. Williams, who had an interest in the work, states that small amounts
of fairly coarse gold were found, but no definite pay-streak. The tunnel
was run mostly in clay, but gravels were found in places beneath the clay.
The shaft was equipped with a water-wheel and a 10-inch Cornish pump.
Development work was also done, about 1914, a short distance above the
Lower canyon by Julius Powell and J. F. Williams. Williams at present
holds the properties on the creek. A tunnel about 300 feet long was run
into the bank below the basin on the east side of the stream to determine
whether a buried channel of the creek occurs alongside the present channel.
A ridge of glacial gravels and boulder clay, the highest part of which is
about 100 feet above the creek, extends diagonally across and up the
valley on the east side of the stream, and the tunnel was driven beneath
the ridge and started on a rock bench a few feet above the level of the
creek. The tunnel was not on bedrock all the way so that it is possible a
buried channel exists, but very little gold appears to have been found in
running the tunnel. Fine gold occurs in gravels along the sides of the present
stream for a short distance upstream from where the tunnel was run and
was derived by erosion of the gravel banks farther up the gravel ridge into
which the stream has cut between the two canyons. Some gold was found
in places on the rock benches where the rock is hard and rough, on the east
side of the creek opposite and below the end of the gravel ridge, where it
has been cut away by the stream. It would appear, therefore, that the
gold was derived by erosion of the gravel ridge through which the present
stream has cut, and, as a thickness of about 80 feet was probably cut away,
the amount of concentrates of gold in the stream bed, unless they were
much higher than has generally been supposed, indicates that the average

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