51

The shear zone has not been drifted along east of the crosscut adit. An
aplite dyke about 10 inches wide occurs along the northeast side of the
drift and comes within a foot of the vein in several places. It appears to
have been intruded prior to vein formation. A winze was sunk from the
drift in 1934 at a point 40 feet west of the crosscut tunnel. Douglas Lay,
in the 1984 Annual Report of the Minister of Mines, writes that the ore
continues in the winze to a depth of 40 feet and then pinches, but improves
again, and in the bottom, 80 feet below the drift level, there is a width of
about 24 feet of quartz well mineralized with bornite and chalcovite and
showing some free gold. The winze was filled with water when the property
was examined in 1935.

A 9-inch channel sample taken across the vein 35 feet west of the
winze on the south wall of the drift assayed: gold, 0-10 ounce to the ton;
silver, 1:76 ounces to the ton. A 20-inch channel sample of biotite schist
stained with malachite, taken across the roof of the drift about 20 feet east
of the winze where there was no quartz, assayed: gold, 0:26 ounce to the
ton; silver, 1-74 ounces to the ton.

At an elevation of about 1,045 feet and at a point 130 feet south of the
portal of the main adit, a 20-foot adit leads to a drift that follows the fault
or shear zone for 96 feet in a west-northwest direction. Along the drift the
shear zone averages 3 feet in width and in it quartz occurs in narrow, lens-
shaped bodies up to 18 inches in width. The two levels are connected by a
raise on the vein. A 9-inch channel sample taken across 4 inches of quartz
and 5 inches of schist, 32 feet from the face of the second adit on the north
wall, assayed: gold, 0-06 ounce to the ton; silver, 0-34 ounce to the ton.

Several ore specimens showing free gold were seen on a 15-ton stock
pile of ore near the compressor house. In each the gold is associated with
the steel-grey coloured chalcocite rather than the bornite. A sample
weighing 34 pounds taken from the ore pile by breaking off forty small
pieces of ore from different parts of it, assayed: gold, 1-46 ounces to the
ton; silver, 2-34 ounces to the ton; copper, 2:78 per cent. Another sample
collected in a similar manner from about 20 tons of ore in the ore bin,
assayed: gold, 0-24 ounce to the ton; silver, 1-06 ounces to the ton; copper,
1-50 per cent.

An aerial tramline, one-third mile in length, runs from the ore bin
down the mountain side to a small mill near the railway. The mill is
equipped with a small jaw crusher, a ball mill, and a Wilfley table. A
Fordson tractor is set up to furnish power.

Oxford Group

The Oxford claims, owned by H. R. Leacock of Prince George, are
on the southeast slope of Kitsalas mountain about 24 miles southwest of
Usk. They are reached by a foot trail about half a mile long that branches
to the west from the old road between Usk and Vanarsdol.

Several pits have been sunk along slip planes in andesitic lavas where
these rocks are impregnated with pyrite. A typical sample weighing about
4 pounds, taken from a large pit at an elevation of 1,400 feet, assayed only
a trace in silver with no gold. At an elevation of 1,900 feet, sixteen pits