55

bottom is roughly 100 feet above Skeena river and occupies a small area of
depression on a wide gravel bench that extends east to the river. In a
trench 12 feet wide and 300 feet long, excavated across the deposit, the marl
is well over 10 feet in depth. It is very white and pure and contains minute
fossil shells throughout. The deposit is concealed beneath a thin layer of
moss and humus, and is also covered by birch, poplar, cedar, and balsam
trees up to 10 inches in diameter. The marl is laminated and dips 4 degrees
west towards the present lake bottom. The lake bottom is about 400 feet
across and is overgrown by marsh grasses. Test pits indicate that the marsh
grass and several feet of underlying soft black muck cover a considerable
depth of additional marl.

The following determinations were made by F. J. Fraser of the Geo-
logical Survey on a sample of the dried marl collected by the writer:
calcium oxide, 53-4 per cent; insoluble matter after ignition, 3:0 per cent;
iron and aluminium oxides, 0-4 per cent; phosphate, none. The calcium
oxide as determined corresponds to 95-1 per cent of calcium carbonate.

Gee Kid Claim (43)

The Gee Kid claim, 4 miles north of Cedarvale, was staked by J. H.
Reid of Woodcock during the summer of 1936. It covers a marl deposit on
a gravel bench at elevation 1,000 feet, about one mile north of Wilson creek
and one mile west of the highway between Cedarvale and Woodcock. The
gravel bench is about 600 feet wide and follows along the base of the
mountain for a considerable distance. At its outer edge the bench drops
away quickly to lower ground.

Marl occurs in a shallow lake about 600 feet long and 300 feet wide
on the gravel bench. The lake ranges from 1 to 3 feet in depth, and has two
small streams entering it and one outlet stream.

About 400 feet farther northeast marl has completely filled what was
formerly a small lake basin over an area about 300 feet in diameter. This
old lake bottom is now comparatively dry although the outlet stream from
the lake described above flows across it. The marl is covered by a foot of
peat, but its presence is disclosed by numerous test pits. A pole shoved
down through the marl in the test pits shows an average depth of about 6
feet of marl.

The deposit could be readily drained by digging a trench eastward
across 200 feet of gravel to the edge of the bench.