24

ECONOMIC CONSIDERATIONS

Nowhere along the mineralized zone is any large body of magnetite
displayed. The largest visible mass of ore is 12 feet thick and this body
in a distance of no more than 30 feet decreases in width to less than 4
feet. Much of the magnetite-impregnated material is low grade. The
bands of purer magnetite in places may be seen to thin to nothing and
wherever the mineralized zone is exposed it is manifest that the individual
streaks, patches, and bands of magnetite or magnetite-impregnated rock
do not continue far along the strike. The situation at the head of the
bay just south of the first described group of magnetite exposures seems:
unmistakably to indicate that mineralization is lacking along considerable
lengths of the general zone. This conclusion is further substantiated by
the general lack of exposures along other sections of the zone, for magnetite
is resistant to weathering and where it is extensively developed it tends
to form elevations which probably would project through the drift covering.
The exposures are distributed over a length of nearly 4 miles and the number
of the individual exposures is considerable. They possibly present a fair
sample of the mineralized zone and if they do, no body of iron ore of
merchantable size is present.

(3) Stuart Anchorage, Pitt Island

LOCATION

The Royal mineral claims have been located to include certain out-
crops of magnetite on the east coast of the north end of Pitt island. About
7 miles southeast of the head of the island, a short distance south of Stuart
anchorage, a low point projects eastward about 4 mile and is penetrated
by two narrow bays trending southeast. The mineral location is on the
costo shore of the more easterly of the two bays about halfway to its

ead.

The iron ore occurrence has been known for some years and was briefly
reported upon, in 1915, by W. M. Brewer.

GENERAL GEOLOGY

Pitt island lies within the limits of the Coast Range batholith, but,
as indicated by V. Dolmage?, Triassic or Carboniferous schists and lime-
stone of the Prince Rupert formation occur in the vicinity of Stuart anchor-
age. Near the magnetite outcrops, the rocks consist of a schistose series
in which the planes of schistosity and of bedding nearly coincide and
strike southeast. The rocks, save for a few, thin, discontinuous beds of
crystalline limestone, consist largely of finely granular, banded quartzoses,
biotite gneisses, or schists varying from pale grey to nearly black according
to the amount of biotite and other dark-coloured constituents that may
be present. The rocks, presumably, are mainly deformed sediments.
They are cut, transverse to the direction of schistosity, by dykes of fine-
grained granite.

1 Brewer, W. M.: Ann. Rept., Minister of Mines, B.C., 1914, p. 150.

2 Dolmage, V.: ‘‘Coast aad Islaads of British Columbia between Douglas Channel and the Alaskan Boundary’’
Geol. Sury., Canada, 1922, pt. A. =