——m—————,

89

sluice boxes. Water was then brought on the ground by a pipe-line and
as it was found that the bedrock dipped towards the south away from the
draw, an hydraulic cut was started near the upper end of the old pit and
extended upstream towards the new discovery ground for about 500 feet.
Apparently little gold was found, and work was discontinued in 1924.

The deposits overlying the bedrock in the lower part of Grouse creek,
so far as seen in the sections exposed, are all glacial, consisting of sands,
gravels, glacial silt, and boulder clay. In many places at the base of the
deposits there are large broken and crumpled masses which were evidently
torn from the bedrock by the glacier and there are many depressions in
the bedrock itself formed by ice erosion. The gold recently discovered
occurs on a hard layer of stony clay 1 or 2 feet above the bedrock. The
pay was overlain by a few feet of sands and gravels and may extend for
some distance upstream, but is not in a definite rock channel. It is probable
that the lack of continuation across the Grouse Creek flats of the rich pay-
streak in the Heron ground above was due to the effects of glacial erosion
and possibly also to there having been several rock channels on the flats,
the stream shifting from one to the other and scattering the gold.

The water available for hydraulicking on the creek amounts on the
average to about 400 miner’s inches throughout the hydraulic season,
assuming that the surplus during the freshet can be stored. The amount
can be considerably increased by a ditch to Racetrack creek.

Lower Antler Creek

Lower Antler creek (Figure 12) below the mouth of Grouse creek
flows northeast in a broad, flat-bottomed, and drift-filled valley for 14
miles or nearly to the mouth of Cariboo creek, a large stream coming from
the east. A short distance above the mouth of Cariboo creek there are
two small rock canyons through which Antler creek flows and bedrock is
exposed in the bottom of the creek in one of them, and along the west bank
for some distance upstream. From Cariboo creek down to Russian creek,
fairly wide alluvial flats and comparatively narrow rock canyons alternate
along the creek. Empire creek, a fairly large steep creek coming from
Waverley mountain on the west, enters about half-way down. For 14 miles
down stream from the mouth of Russian creek the Antler flows in a narrow
rock canyon 100 to 150 feet deep. Below the canyon the main valley widens
greatly and the stream flows for several miles in a narrow, deep valley cut
in drift and bordered by terraces. The river banks gradually lower and
for several miles above the junction with Bear river at the foot of Bowron
(Bear) lake the stream flows in a broad, flat-bottomed valley along which
terraces cut in drift occur at various elevations up to 100 feet or more
above the valley flat. Antler creek at the mouth of Russian creek is a
fairly large stream about 30 feet wide and 2 to 3 feet deep even in the dry
season; during the freshet it is a rushing torrent, as the gradient in the
narrow parts is fairly steep. In the upper flat part below Grouse creek
the fall is only about 40 feet in 14 miles.

Mining was carried on for many years along the benches on Antler
creek, especially along the west side for some distance above and below