72

Glacier Gulch North Side Group (50)

References: Ann. Repts., Minister of Mines, B.C.: 1926, p. 181; 1927, p. 187; 1928,
p. 163; 1929, p. 164; 1934, p. C5; 1937, p. C21.

This property, owned by S. F. Campbell, Grover Loveless, and Wesley
Banta of Smithers, is on the north side of Glacier Gulch on the east side
of Hudson Bay Mountain, 5 miles northwest of Smithers. The workings
are at an elevation of 2,900 feet about 400 feet above the Glacier Gulch
motor road.

Surface work by the owners in 1926 and 1927 disclosed four small
veins containing considerable zinc with variable amounts of gold and
silver. F. H. Taylor sank a shaft 23 feet on the larger vein in 1928
and found that it contained much less zine and silver at that depth. Dur-
ing the 1937 season the owners constructed a short tram-line from the
shaft to the road and got out a carload of ore.

The veins occur in voleanic rocks close to a fault contact with younger
sedimentary rocks that lie to the east. The volcanic rocks are fine-
grained, dark andesites. An albite porphyry dyke 12 feet wide intrudes
the andesitic rocks, but does not appear to have any connection with the
mineralization. The dyke is exposed on the steep face of the gulch (54-
degree slope here) about 75 feet west of the shaft. It strikes north 25
degrees west and dips 80 degrees east. A sheared zone follows along or close
to the west wall of the dyke, but contains no sulphides. The sedimentary
rocks lie 20 feet east of the shaft. Their contact with the volcanic rocks
is marked above this point by a narrow, steeply rising gully, but below
2,925 feet the contact is covered by talus. In the gully the contact
strikes north and dips from 60 to 70 degrees cast. The steeply rising
andesite walls on the west side of the gully are slickensided by fault move-
ment. The sediments are rusty weathering quartzite, greywacke, slate,
and conglomerate, with a number of coal seams near the base of the
formation. Two of these coal seams 50 feet east of the shaft are 12 inches
and 8 inches wide and are separated by 16 inches of shale. Two other
seams, 1 foot and 2 feet in width, respectively, were noted at points 50 and
100 feet farther east. All of these seams are dirty and none of them has
been opened by test pits. In this vicinity the coal-bearing strata strike
north and dip from 45 to 60 degrees east.

At the shaft (elevation 2,950 feet) the main vein outcrops along the
surface for a distance of 60 feet. It consists largely of dark sphalerite
with minor amounts of arsenopyrite, pyrite, pyrrhotite, galena, and chal-
copyrite. These sulphides are accompanied by a little quartz gangue. The
vein strikes north 10 degrees east and dips from 50 to 60 degrees west.
It ranges from 4 inches to 2 feet in width and has an average width of a
little under 1 foot. The vein is a fissure filling along a fault of small
displacement. The fissuring extends to the fault contact of the volcanic
rocks with the sedimentary rocks north of the shaft, but appears to be
poorly mineralized near this contact. The shaft is reported to be 23
feet in depth, and at a depth of 12 feet a drift extends 11 fect north of
the centre of the shaft. At the bottom of the shaft the vein consists of 9
inches of mineral, almost entirely pyrrhotite. The British Columbia
Minister of Mines report for 1937 states that a sample collected by D. Lay