103

NEW WESTMINSTER MINING DIVISION
(26) Harrison Lake, Northeast Shore

LOCATION AND HISTORY

A group of five Crown-granted claims, owned by Mrs. Dixon, Van-
couver, B.C., are situated along the northeast shore of Harrison lake about
17 miles from Harrison Hot Springs. The claims were acquired on the
supposition that valuable deposits of iron ore were present on them and
several pits, open-cuts, and three tunnels, have been made in an endeavour
to develop the property.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

The property was examined by R. E. Hayes and F. F. Osborne, field
assistants, from whose report the following notes have been compiled.

Harrison lake is walled on both sides by steeply rising mountain
slopes. In the immediate vicinity of the claims the lower slope rises in a
series of step-like declivities along the lowest of which are the several
tunnels and pits which have been opened on the claims. These workings
are disposed over a length of 1,000 feet along the face of the first rise which
is cliff-like, in part overhanging, and ascends abruptly to a height of 200
to 300 feet above the lake-level. Towards the east the workings lie within
100 feet of the shore. At the west limit they are distant 300 feet from the
lake. The easternmost working is a tunnel open for a length of 50 feet
to where it has caved in. West of this the workings consist of a shallow
pit, a tunnel 26 feet long, two pits one 6 feet the other 15 feet deep, and a
third tunnel 48 feet long.

The rocks in this vicinity as exposed along the lake shore and along
the steep slope in which the various openings have been made, consist of
highly fractured schistose sediments. The rocks on fresher surfaces are
mostly dark slates and very fine-grained quartz sandstones or sandy shales
with close-set schistose partings coated with colourless mica. An occasional
bed is coarser-grained, paler coloured, and carries some carbonate in the
matrix. The surface of the rocks of nearly every exposure is stained yel-
low, brown, or red by iron oxide which in places follows along parting planes
to a depth of several inches or more. Small streams issuing from the talus
at the foot of the first cliff-like rise and from the tunnels stain and coat
their beds with iron oxide. The tunnel floors are covered with a limonitic
mud in places nearly 1 foot thick, the walls are stained yellow, and here
and there in the rock walls are small lenses of limonite. The largest lenses
are only a few inches thick and several feet long.

The source of the limonite and other iron oxides has not been determ-
ined, but it is very apparent that no body of iron ore exists on the mining
claims and that the limonite, etec., are products of weathering deposited
on the surface, and along parting planes in the greatly fractured bedrock.
Since the rock partings parallel the schistosity of the rocks, the streaks
and small lenses of iron oxides parallel one another and present an appear-
ance somewhat like that of beds or regular “leads.” This deceptive appear-
ance has led to the staking of the claims and, apparently, governed the
plan of prospecting them.