Page 748 - calmining1890

696 REPORT OF THE STATE MINERALOGIST.

gold, are being prospected and worked in different sections; others tha
have been opened and worked for several years have yielded and ai
yielding handsome returns to the owners. Cinnabar, chrome iron, coe
(lignite), and limestone are found in several townships of the count}
The small streams heading in the high ranges of the Scott, Trinity, an
Salmon Ranges of the north among the numerous lakes form the head
waters of the Trinity.
The Trinity River in its course southerly presents evidence of th
great erosive power of the flowing waters. From the section where Coffei
Creek, one of the main tributaries, flows into the Trinity, the great bank
of auriferous gravel commence, parallel with the present river as far a
Swift Creek, in Sec. 9, T. 36 N., R. 7 W. The bed of the river formerly
flowed west of the town of Trinity Center, at an elevation of severa
hundred feet above its present channel, thence taking a southwesterly
course through the range of mountains known as the Buckeye Rango
(T. 34 N., R. 9 W.) on to Weaver Basin (T. 33 N., R. 9 and 10 W.)|
Through this section, Trinity Center to Weaver Basin, is presented the
only evidence of ancient river channels, the ancient river emptying intc
a great lake at the present Weaver Basin.
r
The auriferous material of the W ard Mine, on Oregon Gulch, and thai
of Dutton's Creek (T. 33 N., R. 10 W.) has the appearance of being
identical with that of the channel on the Buckeye and Brown's Mount-
ains. The material filling this channel is composed of volcanic breccia
and rocks of all formations and ages; angular, irregular, rounded, and
triturated, with conglomerates, clay, and sands. The bed of this ancient
stream is several hundred feet above the present river bed of the Trinity,
as well as that of Weaver Basin. The water lines and sedimentary
deposits on the mountain sides illustrate the great depth of the waters
of the lake and their outlet through the Oregon Mountain Range, the
natural and direct course to the channel of the Trinity, in T. 33 N., R 11
W., the present site of Junction City.
The bed of Weaver Basin is a cement, several hundred feet in thick-
ness, below the auriferous gravel deposited from the ferruginous, siliceous,
and calcareous matter carried down by the waters, erosions of the various
formations along the channel settling in the basin there cementing.
The absence of coarse material leads to the hypothesis that this cementa-
tion took place prior to the filling of the cement channel with auriferous
sands and gravel. The northern bedrock of the Ward Mine with its
gradual inclination toward the south from the divide on Oregon Gulch,
the western rim of the basin — smoothly polished, the angular and irregu-
lar material forming the auriferous covering to the depth of from fifty to
several hundred feet, with the disturbed appearance of the southern rim
of the mine, broken, shattered, and crushed as though some great press-
ure had been thrown against it from the northeast — points to a greater
power than that of flowing water, leaving the impression of glacial
action.
The filling of the channel, the deposits of debris in the lake upon
the cement, and the final closing of the Oregon Gulch outlet, forced the
waters over the divide to the south, the present Weaver Creek channel,
the waters having eroded the channel to its present level through the
soft rocks of talc and schistose slates of that section. The modern
streams formed from the "resistless erosive power of water" received
their auriferous filling from the detrital accumulations of the 'ancient