64

work did not pay and no work of importance has been done in the property
since. It is interesting to note that while hydraulicking in the upper part
of the pit Joseph House, foreman for B. A. Lasell, found fossil wood
beneath the glacial clay. This is, so far as is known, the only occurrence
in the area of fossil wood in superficial deposits older than the latest glacial
deposits.

California, Stevens, and Beggs Gulches

These creeks flow into Antler creek from the northeast slope of Antler
mountain. They are all characterized by steep gradients and narrow
rock canyons in the lower parts and gentler gradients and broader drift-
filled valleys in their upper parts. California gulch is the smallest of the
three and little work has been done on it except near the mouth, where the
narrow bedrock channel was mined out. Stevens gulch was mined extens-
ively in the early days, especially near the mouth and in the middle part
from 3 to 14 miles above the mouth. Hydraulicking of ground that had been
already drifted for a considerable distance above and below the upper
cabin on the creek was carried on mainly by Chinese miners for several
years prior to 1910, but the work was always handicapped by a shortage of
water and by the presence of thick deposits of barren glacial clay overlying
the gold-bearing gravels on bedrock. The most recent work was done
about 1912 by the Bear Hydraulic Mining Company, who did considerable
hydraulicking at the mouth of the creek, mainly for the purpose of con-
structing a dam across Antler creek and raising the water sufficiently
high to turn it down Cunningham pass for hydraulicking at the Bear
claim on Cunningham creek. The dam, however, was not completed.

Beggs gulch differs somewhat from Stevens and California in that there
are two abrupt rises in the channel of the creek as well as the one near the
mouth. About one-fourth mile up there is a small cirque-like basin some
50 feet deep into which the stream falls and about one-fourth mile higher
up again the stream falls 100 feet over huge boulders. Here there is
supposed to be a buried channel alongside, and a tunnel said to have been
800 feet long was run up this channel many years ago, but whether any
gold was found is not known. A tunnel, known as the Pat Howley tunnel,
began in the upper part of the canyon near the mouth and extended up-
stream about 1,100 feet. A shaft 40 feet deep was sunk at the end of it,
a short distance above the middle falls'. One of the largest gold nuggets—
17 ounces— found in Cariboo is said to have been obtained in these work-
ings. The most recent work on the creek was done a few years ago
in the rock canyon near the mouth, where an attempt was made to mine
around and remove some of the huge boulders which partly block the
channel, but the creek has been practically abandoned even by the Chinese
for several years. Some gold was also found on Beggs gulch about 14
miles above the mouth where old workings exposed the bedrock at a depth
of 40 to 50 feet.

Judging by the amount of mining work done on the three creeks it
seems probable that considerable gold was obtained, but there is no way
of telling how much or whether the work actually paid, since most of the

1Geol. Surv., Canada, Map 366 (1895).