221

No. 3 suggest that they were originally parts of the same vein, dislocated
by movement along the ‘vein No. 2’ fault zone. The walls of the fissure
veins are free, indicating some post-mineral movement.

Typically, veins No. 1 and No. 3 consist of interbanded light brown
sphalerite, dark brown sphalerite, and quartz. Cream-coloured calcite and
white to dull grey massive quartz fill abundant fractures in the sphalerite,
and contain minute grains of chalcopyrite. Tetrahedrite and galena occur
as irregular patches in the sphalerite, mainly in the darker variety, and
as layers up to 1 inch wide in the sphalerite and along contacts of quartz
and sphalerite bands. Some covellite was also observed along these
contacts.

Microscopic examination of specimens from veins No. 1 and No. 3
shows the sphalerite to have been fractured, healed by quartz and calcite,
and then irregularly replaced by argentiferous tetrahedrite. Later, both the
sphalerite and the tetrahedrite, but principally the latter, were replaced
by galena. A still later period of fracturing was followed by deposition
of a second generation of calcite and a little chalcopyrite. Pyrrhotite was
identified as irregular masses in the quartz and in the tetrahedrite near
quartz. Its age relative to the other sulphides is unknown.

Microchemical analysis of the galena showed no evidence of silver.
The tetrahedrite, however, is the strongly argentiferous variety, freibergite.

Grab samples of veins No. 1 and No. 3 were taken by Douglas Lay in
1939 and by the writer in 1946. They assayed as follows:

Vei Gold, Silver, Copper, Lead, Zine,
Om oz./ton oz./ton per cent per cent per cent
No. 1—
1939isample: Jrashacewenss cece 0-02 76-3 0-6 0-4 8.
1946 sample................6. 0-01 91-3 1-01 8-70 30-15
No. 8—
1939 sample................-- 0-02 152-0 1-2 7-5 11-7
1946 sample......... cece 0-025 153-78 1-76 3-15 22-16

On the east bank of Berry Creek, an adit 160 feet long has been
driven in badly fractured, sheared ground along a brecciated quartz-
calcite vein with a maximum width, at the portal, of about 2 feet. The
vein is sparingly mineralized with sphalerite, pyrite, galena, and tetrahed-
rite. As seen in the back of the adit, the vein is lensy and discontinuous,
and within 100 feet pinches into small, pod-like bodies of crushed quartz.
Except near the portal, little evidence of mineralization was noted.

POLARIS GROUP (13)

Reference: Lay, Douglas: Aiken Lake Area, North-central British Columbia; B.C.

Department of Mines, Bull. No. 1, 1940, pp. 22-24.

The Polaris group, staked and explored by The Consolidated Mining
and Smelting Company of Canada Limited, consists of eight claims on
Polaris Creek, about a mile above its junction with Lay Creek. The
property is reached by a trail, 24 miles long, from the Jupiter workings.