180

No good sections of the clay are exposed, but it appears to be overlain by
boulder clay. The fine-grained and homogeneous character of the clay,
unlike that of the glacial silt, suggests that it may be pre-Glacial in age.
The gravels seen on bedrock in the workings at the Mathers shaft are mostly
Glacial, but may be partly pre-Glacial. The shaft is said to have passed
through about 11 feet of surface gravels underlain by boulder clay and
glacial gravels. At the Venture shaft the valley filling consists almost
entirely of gravels, and similar conditions probably exist for some distance
downstream. The following account of mining and prospecting on Peters
ereek is based mainly on information obtained from J. Gardiner, Beaver
Pass House, who holds one of the leases on the lower part of the creek, from
L. Ford, Barkerville, who was foreman at the Venture mine; and from
W. E. Thorne, in charge of the recent drilling.

Drifting the deep channel of Peters creek began in the seventies, but
only at the Mathers, Venture, and, possibly, at one other shaft at the mouth
of the first tributary above the Venture was mining actually done. Several
long tunnels, one of which is shown on Figure 30, were run, but they did not
reach bedrock. What is now known as the Mathers shaft was sunk in the
seventies nearly, if not quite, to bedrock. In 1905 the Premier and White
Star companies, under the management of J. G. Mathers, reopened the
mine and equipped it with a water-wheel and a 63-inch Cornish pump. The
long tunnel starting below the shaft was run by the same company in 1900
and 1901. In 1906 and 1907 about 300 feet of drifting was done from the
shaft. No further work was done until 1921, when the Construction
Mining Company, J. M. Steele, manager, again opened the mine and drifted
about 250 feet. Gold values as high as, or possibly more than, 6} ounces
to the set with 6-foot caps are said to have been obtained, but the average
was probably much less. Mining work on the Venture was carried on from
1908 to 1911. A shaft was sunk 20 feet to bedrock and 24 feet in the rock
and a drive of 80 feet was made towards the channel. It was then realized
that the tunnel was too low, and boring was done to determine the depth of
the ground. The borings showed it to be only 35 feet deep. An upraise
was then made from the tunnel and a drift carried downstream as far as the
grade of the bedrock would permit and the channel crosscut. About 100
feet of drifts, 6 by 7 feet, were made in the channel and a little over $500
in gold recovered. Although the shaft was equipped with a water-wheel
and a 10-inch Cornish pump, some trouble was experienced with water
because of the porous character of the gravels. In 1922 George C. Hoge,
Portland, Oregon, examined the ground on the creek from the mouth of
Campbell creek to Lightning Creek flats, covered by leases optioned to the
Construction Mining Company, and estimated that the ground contains
over 3,000,000 yards, averaging nearly 50 cents a cubic yard. One bore-
hole (shown on Figure 80) was put down to bedrock in the lower part of the
creek. The bedrock gravelsin the Mathers driftings were sampled, as well
as the materials from the surface down to bedrock in the shaft, and numerous
test pits were sunk in the surface gravels. In the spring of 1924 boring to
determine the dredging possibilities of the creek was done under the direc-
tion of W. E. Thorne for C. A. Banks, Vancouver, manager of the Kafue
Copper Development Company, which is operating the dredge on Antler
creek. One cross-section of three holes was put down about 1,200 feet