65
Mammoth Claim (45)

The Mammoth claim is on the divide between Toboggan Creek and
Silver Lake, at an elevation of 5,000 feet. It is on the south side of the
new trail to the Silver Creek group above Schufer’s camp.

A vein has been traced in voleanic rocks for 300 feet by four open-cuts.
The vein strikes west and dips steeply south. At the most easterly cut
the vein averages a foot in width and consists of pyrrhotite, arsenopyrite,
and sphalerite, with a little galena. In the more westerly cuts the vein
narrows to 4 inches and consists largely of quartz with considerable pyrite
and a little chalcopyrite.

Silver Creek Group (46)

References: Ann. Repts., Minister of Mines, B.C.: 1908, p. 64; 1913, p. 108; 1916, p. 123;
17, p. 114; 1918, p. 118; 1919, p. 103; 1920, p. 90; 1926, p. 129; 1927, p. 137;
1935, p. C39. Geol. Surv., Canada, Sum. Rept. 1925, pt. A, p. 139.

The Silver Creek group (See Figure 8), owned by Peter Schufer of
Smithers, B.C., is on the northwest slope of Hudson Bay Mountain 8 miles
due northwest of Smithers. There are six claims in the group, Copper
Queen, Iron Mask, Texado, Lily Fraction, Iron Vault, and Van Anda.
The property is reached from Smithers by motor road and a 4-mile long
tractor road that was improved during the 1938 season by the Department
of Public Works. The tractor road extends from elevation 2,400 feet at
Toboggan Creek to the mine workings at elevation 5,500 feet. The mine
camp is at elevation 4,700 feet, at the head of Toboggan Creek.

The property was staked in 1908 by P. Schufer and L. Woods,
following the discovery of pyrrhotite-sphalerite ore. Hudson Bay Mining
Company bonded the group in 1910 and carried on development work
until 1914. In 1917 the owners shipped 9,205 pounds of ore from a newly
discovered deposit to the Trail smelter, which assayed: gold, 0:26 ounce
a ton; silver, 246-1 ounces a ton; lead, 41-8 per cent; zinc, 18:8 per cent.
The following year, a 30-ton carload of similar ore shipped to the Silver
Standard mill for concentration averaged $175 a ton gross in all values.
British Canadian Silver Corporation, Limited, explored the silver-lead
occurrence in 1926 with a 200-foot drift; W. R. Wilson and Sons carried
out further work during 1935 and 1936.

On the Iron Vault claim, dark green and purple andesites with some
interbedded tuffs are separated from a series of greenish tuffs by a band
of fossiliferous limestone. The green tuffs pass upwards to the south into
a thick formation of purple tuffs. The tuffs are mostly fine grained and
massive, but some beds are well laminated. These bedded rocks strike
easterly and dip from vertical to 50 degrees north. The top of the series
is believed to be to the south, so that where the dip is to the north or
northeast the strata are overturned. These rocks are intruded by a stock
of granodiorite outcropping at the south end of the Iron Mask claim and
extending westerly across the Copper Queen and Lily Fraction claims.
The stock ranges from 400 to 1,000 feet in width and approaches 3,000
feet in length. The granodiorite is cut by a lamprophyre dyke 30 feet
wide and dipping at a low angle to the south.