'

71

or 75 cents to the square foot of bedrock. A narrow bedrock channel on
the opposite side of the flat at the upper end was drifted. An attempt was
made by B. A. Lasell to work the ground in the upper part by hydraulick-
ing, but it was found that, although there is an abrupt fall of about 25 feet
into Antler creek, the bedrock in the channel slopes towards Cunningham
pass, and that the surface deposits contain many fairly large boulders.
Drilling to test the ground for dredging was done by the Yukon Gold
Fields in 1915. Two cross-sections of three holes each were put down in
the flat, one near the upper end and one about the middle, and showed
depths of 13-5 to 38 feet. The best hole showed an average value of only
11-9 cents. Some more recent testing of the ground by trenching and
rocking the bedrock gravels was done by Joseph Spratt, who dug a trench
about 125 feet long, 3 to 6 feet deep, to bedrock, across the flat near the
lower cabins. He secured several ounces of gold and states that the bedrock
gravels average in places about one dollar and a half a yard. Apparently,
therefore, the ground is very “spotted.” Spratt holds that deep ground
extends along the east side of the flat underneath the lower slope of the
hill, and that a part of this channel has never been mined. It is not clear
whether the borings established the truth of this or not, but the 38-foot
bore-hole showed that the ground is much deeper in some places than in
others.

Some gold was found in Cunningham pass on a rock bench on the
north side between the Yellow Lion dump house and the first creek to the
east, and in the upper part of the valley of this creek from 50 to 100 feet
above the level of the pass. Here the gold was on the glacial clay and,
therefore, must have been transported at least a short distance by the ice
and reconcentrated in the surface gravels by stream action. The rock
benches on the north side were also mined to some extent, but apparently
no deposits of importance were found. The gold found on the rock benches
was probably derived in the same way as the gold found on the clay.
Judging by the character of the gold found on the upper part of the small
creek and in Whiskey flat, the placer is typical glacial gravel; the pieces
are mostly small, and are much flattened and worn. The gold found in
the cracks and crevices in the bedrock in Whiskey flat is said to be coarser
and may represent remnants of an old pay-streak.

Leases of the ground in Cunningham pass were secured in. 1922 by a
number of local prospectors, Alfred Brown, Joseph Spratt, S. Porteus, and
others, who with commendable enterprise secured a drilling rig and pro-
ceeded to test the ground. A cross-section of seven holes was put down
across the pass 950 feet east of the Yellow Lion dump house (Figure 4).
The holes showed depths to bedrock of 19 feet in the hole above the road,
49, 42, 33, and 33 feet in the next four holes, and 22 and 20 in the last two,
which are on a bench on the south side. The best values were found in the
holes on the bench, one hole averaging 37 cents a cubic yard. Some gold
was also found in the bottom 24 feet to 44 feet in the deep ground. The
drilling was done by Alfred Brown, from whom the information regarding
depths and values was obtained. The materials passed through on the
bench on the south side are mostly gravels. On the flat there is a small
thickness of surface alluvium underlain by gravels and silt. There is
apparently little boulder clay, but some boulders occur. The bedrock