41

is sheared and altered over a width of 4 feet, and is traversed by a network
of quartz stringers carrying small amounts of pyrite, chalcopyrite, and
sphalerite. There is a similar alteration and mineralization of the basalt
along the upper side of the dyke over a width of 2 feet.

The quartz diorite dyke contains a sparse impregnation of pyrite with
associated carbonate alteration. Five test pits have been sunk on the shear
zone in a distance of about 300 feet along the creek bed. A large mass of
light grey, porphyritic quartz diorite outcrops on the west side of the
stream near the upper end of the shear zone.

Three channel samples taken across the sheared zone by the writer
showed very low assays for copper, silver, and zinc, and no gold.

At elevation 2,650 feet a cut about 100 feet northeast of the creek
exposes a brecciated zone in andesite with ramifying quartz veinlets
carrying a little pyrite. A 3-foot chip sample across it gave a negative
assay for both gold and silver.

Fiddler Group (31)
(See Figure 7)

References: Ann. Repts., Minister of Mines, B.C.: 1914, p. 189; 1916, p. 101; 1923,
p. 105; 1924, p. 93; 1925, p. 131; 1926, p. 125.

The Fiddler group is on Knauss creek, a short, north-flowing tributary
of Fiddler creek, about 4 miles west by wagon road from Dorreen station. A
quartz vein containing gold, silver, lead, zinc, and copper attracted attention
to this property as early as 1914, when Martin Welsh of Spokane first
bonded the property from L. C. Knauss and drove an adit 140 feet along
the vein. In 1916 the Fiddler Creek Gold Mining Company of Edmonton
drove a prospect adit 183 feet through gravel at a point 450 feet lower along
the dip of the vein, but work stopped soon after striking bedrock. This
adit has since completely caved in. In 1923 J. F. Duthie acquired the
property and continued the main adit along the vein. The following year
80 tons of ore were taken out to the railway. An average of all samples
taken during the sacking of the ore is said to have given: gold, 1-67 ounces
a ton; silver, 6 ounces a ton; lead, 6-2 per cent; copper, 1-3 per cent; zinc,
5-8 per cent. Further development work was done during the summers
of 1925 and 1926. In 1926 J. W. Treadway with three men shipped 100
tons of ore to the smelter. The first carload (35 tons dry weight) is recorded
as having returned: gold, 1-28 ounces a ton; silver, 5-3 ounces a ton; lead,
6-1 per cent; zinc, 3-8 per cent. The claims have lain idle during the past
ten years. Mr. Patmore of Prince Rupert is the owner.

The claims are underlain by rocks of the Hazelton group, comprised of
laminated argillites, bedded tuffs, and massive interbedded flows of ande-
site, which strike north 60 degrees west and dip from 20 to 30 degrees
northeast. They are intruded by dykes of pink, porphyritic quartz diorite
and by small, grey, feldspar porphyry dykes. The Fiddler vein or veins
occur in the argillite along slip planes parallel to the bedding a short dis-
tance below a massive andesite bed. Although the vein abuts against a
dyke of the pink quartz diorite at the portal of the No. 1 adit, it is younger
than the intrusive. The dyke is about 100 feet wide, strikes approximately