211

“The stringers are narrow, from 1 inch up to possibly 6 inches. In
12 feet of rock-matter six stringers running north and south (magnetic)
were seen. The stringers running in the other direction are very irregular
and are more in the nature of bunches.

“The schistose and quartzose rock-matter between the stringers is
said to carry a little scheelite, but this is not visible to the eye. A sample
taken to determine this point, on assay, showed no trace of tungsten.
It is improbable that the schistose rock carries any appreciable percentages
in tungsten, so that from an economic viewpoint only the narrow stringers
carrying scheelite need be considered.

“Values. The small stringers carry small bunches of scheelite, which
in places are pure mineral. Assays of these selected specimens would,
therefore, give high results. If 6 to 10 feet of the scheelite-bearing zone
were mined out, the tungsten content would undoubtedly prove to be
quite low, although possibly sufficiently high to be economically worked.
Selective mining and hand-sorting of the pure scheelite might yield a small
production.””!

“The deposit as revealed by the underground working appears to
constitute a zone from 3 to 8 feet wide, following the northwest-southeast
strike of the country rock, which is here much metamorphosed to a mica
schist. Angus Macpherson, who had charge of the underground work,
informs me that masses of practically pure scheelite were found, at times
50 pounds in weight.

“The scheelite is coarsely crystalline, pink to brown where fresh, but
buff to cream where weathered on the surface as found in the gravels.
Along with the scheelite I observed, on examining the ore-pile, small
quantities of canary tungstite, and from some of the operators I learned
that wolframite had been reported. Besides these tungsten ores and the
two main gangue minerals, quartz and ferruginous calcite, pyrite and galena
occur in small proportions.

“Tt would be very difficult to form a correct estimate of the proportion
of scheelite contained in the zone of tungsten-bearing rock. Mr. Mac-
pherson considers, as a result of assays made, that the whole belt carried
about 8 per cent of tungstic acid. The 2 or 3 tons of ore which I saw were
probably much richer, but, as far as I am aware, no satisfactory assay
sample has been taken with a view to determining the richness of the belt
as a whole, and since no ore has been milled or concentrated, such estimates
may be very far from assays based on systematic sampling or concentrat-
ing.’”?

The workings of the Hardscrabble Creek deposit were inaccessible
during 1922 and were not examined. Specimens taken from the dump
showing vein and country rock matter, indicate that the mineralization is
of the B vein type. This conclusion is somewhat confirmed by the above-
quoted description of the property by J. D. Galloway.

1From Report by J. D. Galloway in Ann. Rept., Minister of Mines, B.C., 1918, pp. 135-136. F
& 2From report on ‘‘Tungsten Ores of Canada,’’ by T. L. Walker, Mines Branch, Department of Mines,
anada, 1909.