4
PREVIOUS WORK

Parts of Cariboo district were examined geologically by G. M. Dawson
in 1876 and 1894. The results of his work and summaries of the history of
placer mining in the region are given in the Report of Progress, Geological
Survey, Canada, 1876-77; in the Annual Report for 1887-88, part IDE, and
in the Summary Report, 1894. The first systematic investigation of the
rocks, veins, and placers was by Amos Bowman in 1885-86. The first part
of Bowman’s report, dealing chiefly with the general geology and the
possibilities of lode mining in the district, was published in the Annual
Report, Geological Survey, Canada, 1887-88. The second part, in which
it was intended that detailed descriptions of the principal auriferous creeks
should be given, was not published. A number of detailed maps of the
creeks were prepared by Mr. Bowman, but in June, 1894, he died without
having written any descriptive matter to accompany them. The maps,
however, were published in 1895 by the Geological Survey with an explan-
atory note by G. M. Dawson. The question of the origin of the placer
gold was discussed by A. J. R. Atkin! and has been incidentally referred to
by several other writers who have examined parts of the district. W. Fleet
Robertson made an exhaustive study of the veins and placers in 1902.?
In 1918, B. R. MacKay? began an investigation of Cariboo district and
continued the investigation during the succeeding year. In 1920, a topo-
graphical map of Barkerville area, No. 1961, scale one mile to the inch,
was made by D. A. Nichols, Topographical Division, Geological Survey.
Much of the available information regarding mining operations in the
district is contained in the Gold Commissioners’ reports, and in the more
recent reports of J. D. Galloway.’

HISTORY OF EARLY MINING

The history of mining in the district prior to 1878 is given in con-
siderable detail by Bancroft® and also by F. W. Howay and E. O. 8. Scho-
field.6 Interesting data on the subject are to be found in numerous other
publications and manuscripts which, including the early reports of the
Gold Commissioners, are available for reference in the excellent Parlia-
mentary library at Victoria, B.C. A few rare volumes and manuscripts
on Cariboo are available for reference in the Public Archives at Ottawa.
These old reports, as well as the later reports and Bowman’s maps, are of
interest and importance because they furnish the main evidence as to which
creeks were thoroughly tested in the early days of mining, a question which
has arisen many times in the past, and will doubtless arise in the future
because of the peculiar condition existing in Cariboo—the presence of
glacial drift overlying the gold-bearing gravels.

The following account of the events which led to the discovery of
placer gold in Cariboo, and of the mining work done during the first few

1“The Genesis of the Gold Deposits of Barkerville (British Columbia) and the Vicinity’’; Jour. Lond. Geol.
Soc., vol. 60, pp. 389-393 (1904).

2Ann. Rept. Minister of Mines, B.C., 1902.

3Geol. Surv., Canada, Sum. Repts. 1918, 1919, pt. B.

4Ann. Rept., Minister of Mines, B.C

’Bancroft, H.H.: ‘‘History of British Columbia” (1887).
6British Columbia from the Earliest Days to the Present’’ (1914).