187
(46 $) General White Claim

Along the trail leading from the main Bugaboo Creek trail to the
Sirdar deposit, and at an elevation of about 1,540 feet, is a small open-cut,
on the General White claim, exposing magnetite, occurring at the contact
of a fine-grained diorite with crystalline limestone. The open-cut is badly
caved, so that no idea can be obtained as to the width of the magnetite
nor the trend of the deposit. The magnetite is fine-grained and slicken-
sided, and as far as exposed is free from sulphides. It contains dissemi-
nations of greenish contact silicates and serpentine.

Economic Considerations Relating to the Bugaboo Creek Deposits
as a Whole

As already intimated the belt of magnetite deposits in the Bugaboo
Creek-Gordon River district may possess a value not attributable to any
one of them by itself. The district in question is known to be underlain
by a partly unroofed batholith of diorite (Beale diorite of Clapp (17) )
in which are exposed many large and small roof pendants of limestone and
volcanic rocks of the Vancouver group. Some of these pendants are quite
small, whereas others are long and narrow, exhibiting the Cordilleran trend.
The Sirdar deposit is a complete replacement by magnetite of one of the
small roof pendants, whereas the Conqueror and Little Bobs-Baden Powell
masses are replacements along one contact only of what are believed to be
fairly large elongated roof pendants of limestone. The areal geological
relationship between these iron deposits cannot be deciphered on account
of the mantle of drift and thick cover of vegetation, but a detailed geological
map of the area covered by the Crown-granted claims would assist materi-
ally in the solution of this problem. Contact deposits by their very
nature are freakish and sporadic in occurrence, and they cannot be relied
upon to persist for very long distances either along their strike or down
their dip, as do true veins or mineralized shear zones. But they have the
tendency to recur at intervals both vertically and horizontally along or
near the contact of diorite and limestone. These intervals between
deposits can only be determined by exploration. Along the southwest
slope of Bugaboo Creek valley there are three well-exposed, partly
developed magnetite deposits within a length of 1 mile along the Cordilleran
trend—the Conqueror, Sirdar, and Little Bobs-Baden Powell—hbesides
numerous other smaller, isolated outcrops. To the writer’s mind, these
deposits are manifestations of a bountiful supply of iron solutions originally
in the crystallizing diorite, and constitute symptoms that may lead to the
discovery in this belt at some future date of larger and more closely spaced
lenses of solid magnetite. There is no conceivable geological reason why
the tracing out of such contacts as are visible at the Conqueror and Little
Bobs-Baden Powell deposits should not reveal other occurrences of similar
types within the above-mentioned longitudinal extent of one mile. ;

This possibility constitutes, therefore, the principal item of economic
interest in this belt of deposits at the present time. They are individually
worth exploration if a market for the ore can be provided, but the distance
from the coast, the comparative isolation of each deposit, and the small
tonnage of proved ore that is available render the group of small immediate
concern in the establishment of a new iron and steel industry.

17135—13