weconnett, } FINLAY RIVER. iNet Deserters’ Caiion is situated about ninety miles above the mouth of the Finlay River, and is the first interruption to its navigation. This cafion is about half a mile long and in the narrowest places scarcely exceeds a hundred feet in width. It is cut through hard conglomerate and sandstone. The walls, except at the lower end, where there is a steep conglomerate cliff, are not very high. The channel is crooked and is interrupted by several bad riffles. Deserters’ Cafion can be run at certain stages of water but its navigation is dangerous. A good portage-track half a mile in length has been cut out by the In- dians along the west bank. Above Deserters’ Cafion, the Finlay makes a couple of great bends to the west, above which it receives the A-ki-é River from the east. At the bends high cut-banks of boulder-clay, silts and gravel, are exposed. The white limestone mountains seen from Fort Grahame are now directly west. This range commences west of the Caiion and extends north-westward. It evidently, from its condition, marks a line of dis- turbance and probably of faulting. The range immediately east of the valley is still composed of gneiss and mica-schists, but farther back, bare sharp crested mountains come into view, which are probably built of limestone. The Akie River has not been explored. It enters the Finlay in two branches, the larger of which is one hundred feet wide; its valley is wide and cuts straight back into the mountains for a distance of about twelve miles; it then bends to the north, but sends a branch southward. The wash in the bed of the Akie is principally limestone and does not contain gold. Above the mouth of the Akie, the Finlay pursues a very tortuous course as far as Paul’s Branch, a distance measured in a straight line of about twenty-one miles, but following the course of the river for thirty-five miles. In several points of this reach, the river is bordered by high gravel and boulder-clay banks, in some cases exceeding 250 feet in height. The valley maintains a width of from five to six miles for part of the distance, but six miles below Paul’s Branch, a range rises up west of the river which narrows it in to about three miles. The ranges bordering the valley on both sides have a height in this latitude of about 3000 feet above the valley. Paul’s Branch is a small stream about thirty feet in width. Its valley is narrow and caiion-like where it breaks through the gneissic range that borders the Rockies on the west, but widens out when it reaches the softer rocks behind. No gold was found on Paul’s Branch, but good prospects were obtained from a couple of streams which enter 9 a Deserters’ Caiion. White moun- tains. Akie River. Paul’s Branch.