PROSPECTING POSSIBILITIES.

At the present time most of the ground in the Stanley area is held as Crown-
granted or recorded mineral claims. Most exploratory work in recent years has been
centred around the known veins, most of which were found a great many years ago.

Despite the fact that the lode discoveries were made many years ago, the Stanley
area still provides lode-gold prospecting possibilities. The possibilities are in prospect-
ing for veins or vein-zones whose eroded upper parts were the source of the rich placer
deposits. There is, however, no assurance that gold-bearing veins will be found, nor
that the erosion that released the placer gold did not completely destroy the gold-bearing
veins or leave only a few root-zones. The bedrock is so largely blanketed by drift that
no direct information bearing on this point is available.

Because of the drift-cover, prospecting is not easy and should be based on a sound
geological hypothesis. It is probable that any vein that outcrops has been examined,
prospected, and sampled already. Prospecting must therefore be directed toward
finding veins that are not exposed.

The three major faults, shown on the accompanying map, present lines along which
intensive prospecting across a narrow belt of but a few hundred feet width could be
undertaken. The control exercised by these faults upon rock fractures which subse-
quently may have been mineralized is not definitely known, but their influence appears
to have been fundamental. Until more information is available and until a more
precise hypothesis can be developed, it is considered that they present favourable lines
for detailed prospecting.

In particular, those stretches along the faults close to Lightning Creek and close
to the complex folding along the anticlinal axis on Lightning Creek, where the chances
of a favourable structural environment existing might be much greater, are believed
to offer attractive possibilities for finding additional veins.

That some veins do exist along Lightning Creek is shown by their presence in
Spruce Canyon, lower Van Winkle Creek, and the Montgomery ledge (Bowman, 1889,
p. 39), and others uncovered in the old Vancouver placer-workings. One of these in
the underground drift workings evidently was very rich, but whether it acted as a
natural riffle or whether it provided the gold itself cannot be determined with certainty.

The stretches along the faults near and south of the Slough Creek benches offer
prospecting possibilities which, based on the amount of gold recovered from the benches,
may not be quite so attractive as near Lightning Creek. On the other hand, the near-by
presence of a band or bands of black argillaceous quartzite, generally a favourable rock-
type for veins, should increase attractiveness for prospecting where the Nelson Creek
fault cuts the westerly extension of the black quartzite that is exposed along the canyon
of Devils Lake Creek.

On the Slough Creek benches several veins are exposed in the Ketch hydraulic pit
and a large drag fragment of slightly mineralized vein-quartz lying in the fault-zone is
exposed in a hydraulic pit east of Nelson Creek.

The thick and widespread drift-cover will continue to make prospecting, particu-
larly in the valley-bottoms, most difficult. At higher levels on the ridge-tops the drift
is thinner, and effective use could be made of bulldozer stripping. Actually in 1946 a
new gold-bearing vein was found by bulldozer stripping within a few hundred yards of
Perkins’ old cabin on Burns Mountain. In the valley-bottom, on the lower thickly
covered hillsides, or on steep slopes, bulldozer stripping is not feasible. There, resort
may have to be made to systematic “ post-hole”’ prospecting and panning of drift and
bedrock material. Every advantage must be taken of newly obtained information.
The difficulties are great and have been sufficient to prevent any important new dis-
coveries being made during the past sixty years. If, however, veins are present that
are commensurate in value with the value of placer gold already produced, then
correspondingly determined efforts should be made to find them.

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