Mercury Deposits of British Columbia

BRITISH COLUMBIA DEPARTMENT OF MINES Hon. W. I. ASSELSTINE, Minister JOHN F. WALKER, Deputg Minister

BULLETIN No. 5 __

bY JOHN S. STEVENSON

1940

VICTORIA, B.C.: PhotwEset by CEmLW F. BANWLD.Printer to the Kine's Mat Exeellent Majesty. 1940.

PREFACE.

The presentreport includes geological descriptions 01: all the known occurrences of mercury in British Columbia. With the exception of the reported occurrence on the Homathko River, all the deposits were examinedby the writer during thefield seasons of 1938 and 1939. For thesake of complete- ness an. introductorychapter is includedthat describes the mineralogy,metallurcy and modes of occurrenceand economics of mercury.

The writer wishes to acknowledge the kind assistance given by the various mine officials and prospectors associated with theproperties visited. Acknowledgement is made of the hearty cooperation given by Messrs.Bronlund and Porter of theConsolidated Miningand Smelting Corrpany, and by Messrs. Fraserand Williams of the EmpireMercury Mine. Alan R. Snith, the writer's field assistant during 1938 and 1939, greatiy

facilitated the field work by hiscapable and hearty cooper- ' ation. CONTENTS.

Page. PREFACE,

1 1 2 2 3 4 4 4. 5 5 5 5

Condensers ...... 8 Coxbentration of Mercury Ores ...... 9 Economics of Mercury ...... 9 Production and Consumption ...... 9 Tariffs and Cartels ...... :t 2 Price of Mercury ...... :L 3 :14 11 5 ILLUSTRATIONS.

Frontispiece - Keymap of cinnabaroccurrences in British Columbia. Facing Page Fig. 1 - Tiorkings on thePinchi Lake cinnabar property of theConsolidated Mining andSmelting Company of Canada, Ltd ...... 20

'! 2 - Keymap, cinnabar'occurrences thein vicinity of. KamloopS Lake...... 35

I, . 3 '- Plan of north showings,Copper Creek cinnab ar property cinnabar 31

" 4 - Plan of central and southshowings Copper Creek cinnabarproperty . 38

" 5 - Geology of the Yalakom Riverarea after M. S. Hedley 60

" 6 - Detailedgeology vicinityin of Golden Eagle showings,Eagle Yalakom River 67

" 7 - Plan of workings, Empire Mercury Mines Limited : ...... 74

I, 8 . - ?lax of workings atSechart cinnabar property ...... -. 89

Plate I k - Camp of theConsolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada, Ltd., on Pinchi Lake ...... :...... 28

f I B - Portal of North Adit,'Pinchi Lake mer- curyproperty of the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada, Ltd. 28

I! I1 P. - CopperCreek cinnabarproperty, dumps or' north showings on right of picture ...... 31

I1 B - Small D - retortat CopperCreek cinnabar properky ...... 31

,I 111 A - Old Scottfurnace at Copper Creek cinnabar property ...... 70 ILLUSTRATIONS (Cont'd) Facing Page

Plate I11 B - EmpireNercury Mines Ltd., showing mill building,ground-sluiced trenches Nos. 3 and 3A (middlefore- ground) and portals of adit Nos. 7 and 2 (leftcentre) ...... 70

1V.A - Small D - retortat Tunkwa Lake cinnabarproperty, showing flues from condensers(outer stacks) and flues from fire-boxstacks).(innerfrom 73

,f IV. B - Mill building of EmpireMercury Mines, Ltd.,housing 10-ton Gould rotary

kiln ...... i ...... 73 INTRODUCTION.

In the following report the term mercury rather than the term quicksilver, will beused for the name of the metal. Where the term quicksilver appears in titles of bibliography or in quotations it will beucderstood to mean mercury.

Uercury Minerals

Although there are approximately twenty-five mercury min- erais,only one,cinnabar, is of commercialimportance. Eleven of thetwelve minerals described belowoccur on.ly sparingly and theremaining mercury minerals are extremely rare. The properties of these twelve minerals are listed below:

Cinnabar - Composition - mercuricsulphide, HgS = mercury, 86.2per cent:, sulphur, 13.8 per cent. Lustre adamantine. Colourscarlet-red to brownish-red.Streak, scarlet to reddish-browl.iiardness, 2 to 2.5. Fractureuneven. Tenacity, brittleto sectile. Specific gravity, 8 to 8.2.

NativeMercury - Lustremetallic, brilliant. Colourtin-white. Specificgravity, 13.6. Commonly occurs as small, liquidglob- ulesscattered through gangue or shearedwall-rock; probab1:y reduced from cinnabar by hydrocarbons.

Amalgam - Composition - an alloy of.silver andmercury of vary- ingcomposition; arquerite, an amalgam containingapproximately 85per cent. silver, found in Vital Creek, Omineca District, British Columbia. Color and streak,silver-white. Opaque. Hardness 3 to3.5. Fracture uneven. Brittle to malleable. Specificgravity 13.75 to 14.1.

Metacinnabarite - Composition - mercuricsulphide, HgS. Col- our, black.Occurrence, black crystals or more frequently massive, it is a secondarysulphide deposited by descending waters.

Calomel (Horn quicksilver) - Composition - mercurouschloride, HgCl. Lustre,wax-like. Colour, white, yellowish-grey, grey, brown, translucent to sub-translucent.Streak, pale-yellow:ish- white.Hardness, 1 to 2. ' Specificgravity, 6.5. An oxidation product. of cinnabar.Rare.

Montroydite - Mercuricoxide, HgO. Colour,red. An oxidatfion product of cinnabar.Rare,

-Eglestonite and Terlinguaite - Oxychlorides of mercury. Co:L-

-1- our, yellowish,turning to brown or green on exposure. Oxi- dationproduct of cinnabar. Uncommon, butfairly abundant at Terlingua,Texas.

Coloradoite,Tiemmanite and Onofrite - Primary;rare telluride, selenide, andsulpho-selenide of mercury,respectively.

Mercurial Tetrahedrite - A not uncommon form of tetrahedrite containing up to 17 percent. mercury.

GeologicalOccurrence of Cinnabar

Cinnabaroccurs.in a greatvariety of rock-types. How- ever, it is never of sedimentaryorigin, but is alwaysasso- ciatedwith some manifestation of igneousactivity, although the relationship may not be as evident as with other types of oredeposits. Cinnabar has been deposited under conditions of low temperature and pressure,therefore, mercury ores occur close to the surface that existed at the time of deposition.

Selativelyfew ore-minerals accompany cinnabar;the most common ones arepyrite, stibnite and realgar. The most common gangue-mineralsinclude opal, chalcedony, quartz, calcite and particularly in the Kamloops Lake area of British Columbia, .vein-dolomite.Carbonate-alteration, or carbonatization of thewall-rocks, is common; thistype of alteration is widespread in the Kamloops Lakeand Yalakom Riverareas of Brit- ish Columbia.

Habit ofOre

In most mercury mines the ore occurs in irregularly fractured or brecciatedzones, or otherwiseporous rocks. In theserelatively open-textured rocks the cinnabar occurs as thin;discontinuous stringers, or as scatteredblebs and small grains.In the larger deposits these brecciated zones, or porousmasses of rock,are capped or bounded on oneside by a relativelyimpervious layer which may consist of either clay gouge or otherwiseimpervious stratum of rock,such as a lava flow.

Such structural conditionspermitted the readypassage of cinnabar-bearing solutionsunder no great pressure,and, subsequentlycaused, the trapping and deposition of the sul- phi.de fromthese -solutions. The ore-bodiesare irregular and frequently of indefinite limits; althoughthe form may in .somedegree be controlled by the attitude of the enclosing rocks or faults.

-2- The deposits are comnonly associated with volcanic rocks and frequently with hot springs in .regions of volcanic activity. However, themercury-bearing solutions do notneces- sarily originate in thevolcanic rock themselves, but rathe:r in the same deep-seated magma-basins in which the volcanic rooks weredifferentiated; for thatreason, cinnabar deposi-.:s may befound far fromvolcanic or intrusive igneous rocks.

. The mostfavourable structure for a cinnabardeposit is one that will notonly give easy access to the mineralizing solutions,but will also trap and dam them so as to localizs and concentratethe cinnabar. Such op'en structuresare afforded by sandstone, or sandy-limestone,and by brecciated Imd fractured zones inother rocks. The damming structure is usuallysupplied by overlyinglava or argillaceoussediments such as shale, or by clay-gougealong a faultplane. The complete structure may not exist at the present erosion-level, but its previousexistence is certainlydesirable as anin- dication of largebodies of ore. It may bementioned that no largebodies of ore haveformed as a result of enrichment of smaller bodies by precipitation fromoxidizing solutions such as hasoccurred in some chalcocitecopper deposits.

The producingmercury mines in America are all lowton-- nageoperations; the largest mine, the New Almaden, treated not more than 400 tons per day when at the time of its maximum production; mostof the mines in the United States mine 20 to 100 tonsper day.

Because of thecharacteristic erratic distribution of cinnabardeposits, it is bothdifficult and costly to deve1o.p ore-reserves: as a result mostmines never have much ore blockedout, the amount ranging from enough for one day to sufficient, a-t themost, for one year'soperation.

The mining of cinnabar deposits differs little from tha.t .of otherlode-mining, and only such features of theore that. tend to'mcdify usual mining-practice are mentioned.

As a result ,of the common occurrence of cinnabar close to thepresent surface of ,erosion, open-pit and othersurface- exCaYatiOn types ofmin,ing are common. Owing to the brittleness Of cinnabar,abundant fines are made duringmining opera- tions and specialprovisions should be made to savethe fines, particularly in theconstruction of chutes. ,, ,. . ,, : Ventilation

Ventilation in a mercurymine should be good. At ordinary mine-temperatures there may be a volatilization of mercury

-3- from droplets of native mercury that occur in some deposits, but good ventilation will eliminate anypoisonous mercury fumes. It is to be notedthat the mineral cinnabar;which is thechief ore of mercury,does not give off mercuryfumes at ordinary mine temperature.

Sampling

Owing to the brittleness of cinnabarand its occurrence - asdiscontinuous veinlets and isolatedblebs, which areboth lar'ge and small, accuratesampling of cinnabardeposits is ex- tremelydifficult. Ordinary channel-sampling is reliableonly in low-gradedeposits, or in the unusual deposits in which the cinnabaroccurs evenly disseminated throughout the rock. Pan- ning of numerous samplesfrom rock faces is common in operat- ingmines, and when do'ne by anexperienced panner will give excellentresults; checks within a limit of error of 0.1per cent.mercury have been reported.

The metallurgy of mercuryore involves the breaking down ofthe ore-mineral cinnabar into elemental mercury either by roasting in the presence of oxygen orretorting in the absence of oxygen. In theroasting process the mercury is driven off asmercury vapour and the sulphur is oxidized to sulphur dioxide gas, S02; the mercury vapour is subsequentlycondensed to liquidmercury in cooling condensers, and the, sulphur dioxide gas escapesinto .the atmosphere. In the retorting process, lime is cormonlyadded to the ore to combine withthe sulphur of the sublimedmercuric sulphide to form calciumsulphide and sulphate and the mercuryvapour of the dissociat.ed sulphide is condensed in cooling condensers in the same way as in the r0ast'in.gprocess.

Chemistry

To aid in understanding the metallurgy of mercury, some pertinent chemical data will begiven. Mercury boils at 357.3 degrees C. (675.1degrees F.j undernormal atmospheric pressure.Cinnabar (mercuric sulphide) sublimes directly to mercuric'sulphide vapour readily at 580 degrees C., (1076degrees F.) at normalatmospheric pressure; the melting point of cinnabar is not knolrin, but it lies abovethe subliming point. WXen cinnabar is roastedin contact with an excess of oxygen, it ueginsto oxidize at about 230 degrees C. (428degrees P.) and at 450degrees C. (842degrees F.), oxidation is rapid; theoxidation takes place largely in the vapour phase. Re-. torting is carried out in the relative absence of oxygen and

-4- mercury is not releasedreadily from cinnabar until near the sublimationtemperature of 530 degrees C. (1076 degrees F.;.

Arsenic andantimony compounds are the only impurities which may befound in the ore that are sufficiently volati1.e tointerfere with the extraction of the mercury.Arsenic c.om- pounds are the most seriousimpurities in roastingprocesses becausethe boiling point of arsenictrioxide, which is 355 degrees C. (671degrees P,), is veryclose to that ofmercury, which is 357 degrees C. (675degrees F.). However, a.sligk.t modification of the treatment process. is usually sufficient, to overcome the contamination of the mercury by the arsenic tri- oxidevapcur. Antimony oxideshave boiling points much lower than those of mercuryand a relatively simple modification of thecondehser system will effect a condensation of the antimony oxides from the furnace gases at temperatureswell above the condensation temperature of themercury.

Types of Furnaces

Of the two main metallurgicalprocesses, roasting and retorting, roasting is by far the more satisfactory andusual pract.ice.

Severaltypes of furnaces and kilns are used in the roastingprocesses; these include the coarse-ore, Scott and Armak- Spirckshaft-furnaces, and two types of mechanicalroasters, namely Herreschofffurnaces and rotary-kilns. Of thesetypes of furnaces only two are in common use in America, the Scott furnace and therotary-kiln. The Armak-Spirck furnace, a similar type to the Scott, is usedlargely in Europe.

The main features of these furnaces will be briefly described.

Coarse-OreFurnace - The typicalcoarse-ore furnace is a sinple, internally-firedshaft-furnace that uses charcoal or coke mixed wiYn coarseore; the pieces of oreare preferably 'over 2 112 inches insize, fineore cannot be treated.This type of fllr- nace is rarely used in'herica. Scott 'urnace - The Scottfurnace ha's been,until a fewyears ago,used almost exclusively in America. The rotary-kilnhas beengradually superseding it.

The Scottfurnace is a largebrick structure, the outel- walls Of which are made of ordinary brick and the inner walls linedwith fire-brick. The furnaceconsists ofone or more pairs of narrowshafts which contain fire-clay shelves or tiers eachset at 45 degrees. The ore is fedinto the top of thei'urnace and it moves do-m by gravity in a zig-zagfrom tier to tier against the hot gases issuing from thefurnace- box throughports on theside. The mercuryvapour and SUI- phurdioxide gas pass off fromthe roasted ore through ports towardsthe top of the side of thefurnace.

Scott furnaces are favoured at many minesbecause they havehigh-feed efficiency, and, because of theabsence of mov- ingparts, a low maintenancecost. However, withores containing much pyrite,an excess of mercurial soot is formed which when absorbed by the furnace bricks creates a loss of mercury.Scott furnaces can be used for small aswell as largeoperations, as furnaces of as low as10-ton capacity have been s.atisfactorily operated.

Cermak-SpirckFurnace 1 The Cermak-Spirckfurnace, used ex- tensivelyin Europe, is 6 modification of the Scott. It is notused in America.

MechanicalFurnace - Of themechanical furnaces, the Herres- choff hearth-furnace and the rotary-kiln are the two important types.

HerreschoffFurnace - In a Herreschofffurnace the ore is fed into the top of thefurnace and falls on to a series of superimposedhorizontal hearths. The materiai is stirred by rakes or rabbles set on radial arms that are revolved by a central shaft; these rakes stir the ore to theedges of each hearth and it dropsto necessarily lower hearths.In this man- nerfresh surfaces ofore-fragments are continually exposed to the rising hot gases that pass through the ore from a fire- box on theperiphery of thefurnace shaft. The escapinggases, mercuryvapour and sulphur dioxide, pass off through a port at the top of the furnace and into dust precipitators and condenser s.

Herreschoff furnaces are not widely used because the fuel- consumption is highand a considerable amount of dust is created by rakes.This dust must be precipitatedfrom the gas-stream before the gas enters the condensers, add:.ng again to the oper- atingcost.

Rotary-Kiln - The first recordeduse of a rotary-kiln was in 1903 at the Socrates Mine in California, but it was not. until 1918 with.the installation and continued operation of a rotary- kiln at the New Idria Mine in California, that their use be- came established. At thepresent time a rotary-kiln is the

-6- more cormon type of furnaceused on this continent.

A rotary-kiln consists of a revolving plate-steel tube set on a slope that. may rangefrom 112 an inch to 1 1/2 inches tothe foot. The tubesrange in diameter from 18inches to 5 feet and in lexth From 16 feet to 75 feet;corresponding capacities of singletubes range from 8 tons to 150 tons per twenty-fourhours. The dailycapacity ofany one furnace is alsodependent on the nature of theore, coarse ore over- roasting more quicklythan soft fine ore. The capacity of a plant may, of course,be increased by increasingthe number of ki1.m.

The ore is fed into the upper end of the tube, and as the tube revolves the ore workstowards the lower end against the hot gases rising from a. high-pressure oil-burner at the lowerend; thespeed of thetube ranges from one revolution in 1 l/Z minutes to 82 1/2 revolutionsper minute. The pner- curyvapour and sulphur'gases are drawnfrom the upper end of the tube through dust-precipitators and condensers.

A marked difference in operation between the Scott furnace and the rotary-kiln is, that whereas a roastrequires approximately 24 hoursin a Scottfurnace, it takesbut 30 to 50 minutesin a rotary-kiln.

Retorts - Retorting differs from roasting in that very little oxidation of thecinnabar occurs; the flames are around the ore-container and are never in direct contact with the ore ILS in roasting furnaces.

Retortsare cast-iron containers of either circular or D-shaped cross-section. They are commonly about one footin diameter, 15 feetlong, and arehorizontally-mounted either singly or in batteries in a singlefurnace.

The retort-charge may consist of ore, or if the material contains much pyrite,lime is added to combine withthe excess sulphur;otherwise mercuric sulphide, and notmercury, will be deposited in the condenser.

Retorts are the earliest type of furnace used, and it Ls reported that the Chineseoperated them exclusively, but th<$y arenot in common use at present. They arelargely used in thevery early stages of developmentof a property,for the treatment of specialhigh-grade ore, or as an accessoryto a larger'lurnace-plant for the treatment of mercurial soot. Theirdisadvantages are, high construction-costs per unit- capscity and highlabour- and fuel-costs. Condensers

The mercuryvapourthat comes from the furnaces, kilns or retorts is first passedthrough dust-collectors to clean it from dust and thenthrough condensers, first to COO1 the. gas-stream and then to condense the mercury.

The dust-collectors are of two types, the Cyclone type in which the velocity of the gas-stream is greatly reduced and thedust-particles settle by gravity,and, the Cottrel type, whereby the dust particles are electrostatically precipitated.

The gas-stream issues from the furnaces at about 300 degrees C. (572 degrees P.) and is cooled by contactwith the coolwals of thecondenser; it is, of ccwse,desirable that theconductivity of thecondenser-walls be as high as possible.Practically complete condensation of the mercury-vapour can be accomplished if the final temperature of the gas-stream is about 30 degrees C. (86 degrees P.). Afterpassing through a cyclone-chamber the velocity of the gas-strehn is greatly reduced from thatpossessed by it at the time of issuance from .the furnace, so that at the cooler temperatures. at the end of thecondensing system, the mercury, cooled, to a mist of droplets, will readily condense as liquid. in the conical-shaped bottoms of thecondensers.

Condensers are made fromeither brick, wood, glazed tile or acid-resistant metal alloys; glazed tile and alloys are in common use at present.

The mercury is tapped from the condensers into cast-iron pots and Prom these into 76-pound wrought-iron or pressed-steel flasks for shipment:

Mercurialsoot commonly coliectsin the condenser-systems, and is usually collected from thecondensers once a month. Thissoot consists of smallaggregates of mercurydroplets and dust, or of mercury compounds anddust. The mercurydroplets and dustcan be cleaned by raking or trowelling on a smooth 'surface; these mercury globules will coalesce and can then be collectedinto a pot.Dust containing mercury compounds must be retorted; this is usually done in small D-retortsaccessory to the main plant.

Comonly,the mercury as collected from thecondensers, wiil contain a smail amount of base-metal amalgam. Thiscan becollected by slightly aerating the mercury, whereby the amalgam will collect on the surface and canthen be skimned off. This is simplerthan straining the full pot of mercury-

-E- through a chamois cloth

-Concentration of Mercury Ores Numerous attempts have been made to concentrate mercury ores by the same methods as are used in the COnOentration Cf the ores of goldand the base metals; but results have not beencommensurate withthe time and money spent.Reasonably good results can be obtained by flotation or by a combination of gravity-concentration and flotation, but the marked ten- denoy of cinnabar to form abundantslimes makes highrecover- iesdifficu.lt. It mustbe remembered thatthe concentrate . when obtained,must be roasted or retorted to recoverthe Eer- 'cury from thecinnabar concentrate. At thepresent time, processes of concentration of mercuryores have not been so per- fected as to replacethe direct furnace-treatment of the ore.

Economics of Mercury

Production and Consumption

The chiefmercury-producing countries are Spain, Italy and theUnited States; smaller producers include Mexico,China and Russia.Spain, Italy, and Russia are reported to control three-quarters of the worldproduction (Mining and Metallurgy, May, i939). The majorconsumers arethe United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Franceand Japan; the most noticeablerecent development being the increase in rate of consumption in the United Kingdomand Germany in 1938,over the high rates of 1937.

The increasedconsumption of mercury in 1937over that of 1936 was accompanied by renewed activity in mercury mining. The mines in Italy andSpain are reported (as of February,1940) to beoperating at capacity. Italy responded by increasing its production in 1937 and maintained the increase in 1938and 1939 to more than ho and a half times the average for the preceding fi.veyears. Even withthe cessation of theSpanish war, It,aly will probablycontinue to supply a iargerpart of theworld's productionthan she has in the past., Spanishproduction ha,$ continued to increase since the Civil Xar, reaching a record monthlyproduction of 22,000 flasksin December,1939. It may be noted that the Aimaden district in Spain w-as never the scene of fighting and the mineequipment is reported to have beenhanded over to GeneralFranco in perfect'order. The mfines in the United States were very active in the first half of :1937, but a decline in demand and decrease in the price caused a drop in the rate of production from these mines during the latter half of 1937.Hmever, production increased from 16,508 flasks

-9- in 1937 to17,991 flasks in 1938 and, an to estimated production of 18,343 flasksin 1939.

Germany has recently attempted to develop domesticre- sources, but has been unable to curtail the amount of her imports .

Normal international 'tradewas some-what hampered by the civil war.in Spain, but smple supplies have always been available.

- 10 - "World Production of Mercury 1935-38, by Countries

(Compiled by R. B. Miller of theUnited States Bureau of Mines) -r 1: > 1: s 19: 1938 Country Flasks Metric Flasks Metric Flasks- Metric tons tons tons

Algeria .I. .~. 116 4.0 160 5.5 Austria '. 12 .4 3 .I 134.0 4.5 Bolivia(2) 422 14.5 224 7.7 1.8 .6 ~.. ... China(2) 1313 45.3 2460 84.8 1736 59. 0 65 2.2 Chosen 4 .1 2 .1 2.0 .l (1) (1) Czechoslovakia 2004 69.1 1076 64.7 (3)2750 (3195 3)2890(3199.6 Germany 116 4.0 1093 37.7 1741 60 (1) (1) Italy 28191 971.8 42732 1473.1 86719 2300.0 6671.9 2300.0. Japan 148 5.1 436 15.0 580 20.0 (3)580(3)20 Mexico 6277 216.4 5307 183.0 4936 170.2 8519 293.7 ?Jew Zealand 7 .3 ...... 18 .6 (3)lO (3).3 Clueensland 17 0.6 78 2.7 12 .4 (1) (11 Roumania 1 .1. (3)2.3 (31.1 (1) (1) (1) (1) Spain 35559 1225.8 13142368.4 (3)1461 (3)42342 (2)1460 400001378.9 Tunisia 25 .8 72 2.5 26 .9 201 6.9 Turkey 25 .9 836 20.8 484 16.9 (3)596(3)20.5 U.S.S.R. 8700 ;3)300.0 8700 300.0 8700 300 (1) (1) United. States 17518 603.9 16559 517.2 17991 620 17991 620.2 Canada ..~ ...... 100339 3459.1 122874.7 4236.48 (1) (1) (1) Data not yet available. ___Note: 1 metricton = 29.008 flasks of (.2) Exports. 76 pounds. (3) ImperialInstitute, London, and Metallgesellschaft. In Canada the only production in 1938 came from theproperty of the EmpireMining Company in the Bridge River area: production for the year amounted to 10 flasks of mercury.

In 1937one hundred and one mines, and in 1938,ninety- onemines in various parts of theUnited States produced mercury:the production by states(Minerals Yearbook,1938; p. 602:and 1939, p. 662), is givenbelow for both 1937and 1938:

Prod-ucing Flasks of Value State Mines 76 lbs. 1937 1937

9743 $878,624.00 Oregon 42 64 384,527.00 4,610 Arkansas, Texasand Washington 2266 204,348.00 Nevada 1.98 17,855.00 336 Arizona 37 3,337.00 ...

17,991

The Canadianconsumption of mercury is indicated directly by herimports. In 1938 imports amounted to 49,584lbs. equivalentto 652 flasks, and in 1939 to 109,232 lbs.equiva- lent to 1,437flasks. The UnitedStates consumption of mer- curyin 1938amounted to 19,600;and in 1939 to anestimated

19,280 f iasks ~

Tariffs and Cartels

At present(April, 1940) the United States maintains an import tariff of 25 centsper pound on mercury. This was im- posed late in i922 to protect domestic producers, but despite this tariff, Europeanproducers were able to get a large part of theUnited States market. In 1928 a,European Cartel, the Mercurio Europio with Spain and Italy the most important members, was formed to control the price of mercuryand to keep thisat as high a levelas possible. During the Spanish Civil War and for some timeprevious, the Cartel was inqperative, but it began tofunction again in.May, 1939,and to handle the productfrom both countries, chiefLy through its s,alesoffice in London. It is understood that reports concerning the mov- ing of the sales offi.ce toBrussels, Belgium,have not as yet materialized(April, 1940). Both theSpanish and Italian pro- ducingmines are under the direct control of their respective governments .

- 12 - The price of mercury has fluctuated considerably during thepast few years. Because of thetariff of 25 centsper pound on mercuryimported into the United States, there is a differential between the Mew York and London prices; this differential varies from the tariff of $19 a flask,and is de- pendent on therelative prices in New York andLordon. Between September,1936 and October,1937, there was a pricedifferen- tial in favour of selling mercury in theUnited States market, exceeding $19'per flask, but in November and December of that yearthe price.differentia1 fell below the tariff rate.

During1939 the price of mercuryhas fluctuated wide1,y. With the inception ofwar in September,1939, the price rose considerably for several weeksand reached a climaxtoward the endof January, 1940, with the announcement that London hadpurchased 10,000 flasks at a price of $200per flask f.0.b. Italy,although the Cartel posted a price of $205 perfla.sk c . i . f. New York, duty unpaid.

Dealers in the United States fear that the various in- creasesare due wholly to manipulakion, and as a result most business in mercury in the United States is beingdone on a short-term basis.

Average yearlyprices per flask (76 pounds) of rnercuriy at Xew York and London, andexcess of New York pricesover London pricesfor period 1922 - February,1940 (Minerals Year- book,1935 - 1939, E; & M. J., February,1940, and E. & M.J. Metaland Mineral Markets, February, 1940) follow:

- 13 - - Sxcess New York Year Ne-N York London of - T over London 1922 $ 58.95 $ 51.57 $ 7.68 1923 66.50 46.83 19.67 1924 69.76 52.93 16.83 1925 83.13 66.90 16.23 1926 91.90 76.15 15.75 1927 118.16 104.01 14.15 1928 123.51 108.54 14.97 1929 122.15 108.11 14.04 1930 115.01 105.9:t 9.10 1931 87.35 89:76 (Kinus)2.41(bndon exces: 1932 57.93 48.24 9.69 1933 59.23 41.64 17:59 1934 73.87 56.15 17.72 1935 71.99 60.74 11.25 1936 79.92 64.33 15.59 1937 90.18 69.65 20.53 1938 75.47 66.92 I 8.55 1939 103:94 (E. and M.J., Feb. 1940) 1940 Jan. 175.00 (E. and M.J., Feb. 1940) Feb. 175.00-183 (E. and M.J. Metaland Mineral - Marketsfor February,. 1940)

Grades :of Mined Ore and Production Costs

For purposes of comparisonbetween the three mainproduc- ingcountries the average grades of ore as mined over a period of yearsare given below:(Schuette, 1937, p. 68).

Grade Periodto 'Nhich Grade I % Mercury FigureApplies Almaden mine(main producer inSpain) 5.00 1931 to 1934

It.aly 0.79 i930 to 1934

United 'States 1930 to 1936 0.35

Concerningcosts of productionper flask,Ransome (1939) says of Californiacosts: "This cost for present-dayquick- silver mining'in California varies from $30 to as much as $100 andmore; theaverage cost of production is approximately $65 perflask."

- 14 - Uses "

Formerlymercury was much used for amalgamation in the treatment of goldores, but with the increased use of cyani,- dation andimprovements made in the recovery of mercury froln amalgamationprocesses, the amount of new mercuryused in amalgamation has decreased considerably within the past few years. By farthe greatest amount of mercury is now used i:n electrical instruments andapparatus and in the manufacture of variousdrugs and chemicals. A few of its varieduses in- elude:the manufacture of mercuricfulminate, a compound used inpercussion caps and detonators;as a processingsubstance in'the manufacture of felt; as a constituent in mercury-vapour lamps,arc rectifiers and oscillators, and, the mostrecent use is in the newlydeveloped mercury (met) boilers, where mercury is usedinstead of water.

- 15 - THE USES OF QUICKSILVI (Jenkins and Ransome, 1939)

Industries Using Form in Which QuicksilverAppr0x.g Specific Use or Product of Total Quicksilver is Used .~ I ...... Pharmaceuticals ...... :...... Dental Preparations Redistilled Quicksilver Chemical Preparations CalomelDrugs and Preparations Chemicals Chemical Red and Yellow Mercuric Oxide ...... Corrosive Sublimate...... I i ... j;/ Y DisiflectantSeed Metallic Quicksilver Compoundsand

Explosives ...... Detonators Fulminate of Mercury ...... ~ 19% I Gas Pressure Gages. . Flow Meters...... 9% Industrial and Control Venturi Meters I InstrumentsVacuum Pumps i ...... ,Heat Control Devices Metallic Quicksilver !Automatic Motor Switches 'Mercury Vapour Lamps ElectricalApparatus Rectifier Tubes Certain.. Typesof Batteries Paint ...... IVermlllon ...... Hats ("Fur Cutter's'' trade) . Felt ...... Ifiercuric Nitrate ...... 5% ChemicalIndustry ...... CausticSoda ...... Metallicguicksilver ...... 3% Acetlc Acid Mercuric Salt as CatalystAcetlcMercuricAcid as Salt ...... p~USES OF QUICKSILVER (Continued)

Industries Using Specific Use or Product Form in’A%ich Quicksilver kpprcx .% Quicksilver is Used cf Total Industrial Laboratories General Laboratory Use Science Labs. in Schools and 2% Universities_ ...... Metallic Quicksilver Gold Nining ._ Amalgamation ...... :._ Quicksilver Metallic 1% Cleaning Chemicals._ Quicksilver Amalgam Manufacture of Fireworks .I...... Sulphocyanate of Mercury Harine Antifouling Paints Red .Oxideof Mercury :Vood Preservative ...... Mercuric Chloride I Quicksilver Compound t- Miscellaneous Uses Bearings for Lighthouse -4 Lenses I Refining of Lubricating Oils Supersensitizing Photographic Metallic Quicksilver Film ) Meroury Boiler Printing Processes DESCRIPTION OF DEPOSITS.

-Pinchi Lake

The mercury property at Pinchi Lake (Plate I A) owned by theConsolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada, Lim- ited,comprises the following mineral claims: Mercury Nos. 1 to 3, Pinchi Nos. i to -4, Dugout Nos. 1 to -8,Chief Nos. 1 to -2 and fractions. I The discovery of cinnabar was made in the summer of 1937 by J. G. Gray of theGeological Survey of Canada, and is described byhim on p. 9 of Paper38-14, 1938. However, theori- ginalclaims, the Mercury Nos. 1 to 3, werenot staked until May, 1938, by A. J. Ostrem,George Nielson and A. R. Brown; these were optioned in that year by theConsolidated Mining andSmelting Company of Canada,Limited, and the remaining claimsstaked the same year.Since that time this company has erected a comfortable camp on thenorthern shore of Pinchi Lake (Plate I A).

The discovery showings are along the top of a prominent limestoneridge 700 feet aboveand adjacent to the nosthern shore of Pinchi Lake approximately 6 milesfrom the north- western endof the lake.

The property may bereached from Fort St. James'at the southern end of Stuart Lake, by one.of two land-water routes. Of these the better and the one in common use in 1939, is via Stuart Lake for 13 miles to Pinchi Lake IndianReserve, thence by an unimprovedwagon-road on good grade for 4 1/2 miles to thesouthern shore of Pinchi Lake. From thispoint the di,s- tame by -water is about 2 miles to the company's camp on the northernshore of thelake, behind a small island,beneath the showings. Alternatively,the property may bereached by a trail andpoor wagon-road, 8 milesin length, branching westerly from the Fort St. James-Manson Creekroad at a point about 17 milesnorth of Fort St. James,and connectingwith a point on thenorthern shore of Pinchi Lake, about 7 miles dis- tant by waterfrom the company's camp. By farthe 'quickest way toreach the property, however, is by airplane from Fort St. James,where planesare usually obtainable. The air-line distance is about15 miles.

The Pinchi Lake cinnabardeposit consists of a'kinnabar- bearingfracture-zone that cuts a series of dynamicallymetamorphosed.sediments. The rocksinclude limestone, cherty quartzite,quartz-mica schist and a little glaucophaneschist.

- 18 - These rocks strike more or less uniformly north-westerly and dip north-eastward, but in the vicinity of the showings they havebeen warped into a structure that the writer interpretis as a combined anticline and synclinethat strikes northerly and plungesfrom 25 to 60 degrees in the same direction. The fracture-zonestrikes north 60 to 70 degreeswest, at timer; parallel to the bedding but cutting across the strike of the folds.This fracture-zone is characterizedunderground by extreme faulting and associated brecciation over widths ranging from 6 inches to 4 feet,and, characterized on the surface by disconnectedoutcrops of brecciatedchert, the widths of brecciationranging from 2 to 10 feet. The length of thefracture- ; not of uniform mineralization, may be summarized as

Length of definite fault-zone andassociated breo- ciation as seen in the main drift of the north adit - 230 feet(as of June 11, 1939).

Length of fracture-zone in the showings on Dis- covery Hill as indicated by fairly closely- spacedstrippings and outcropsexposing brecciated rock - 750 feet.

Overall distance between outcrops of brecciated rock at extremities of partly-prospectedarea and separated by longunprospected areas of drift - 4,000 feet.

Cinnabaroccurs most abundantlyin highly-brecciated fault or fracture-zonematerial. of both the south-easterly and north-westerlyworkings over widths corresponding to those of thefracture-zone, and, in cherty quartzite of thenorth-westerlyworkings over widths ranging from 1 inch to 4 feet.

The showings are along the top of a limestoneridge, approximately 700 feet high that parallels the north shore of thelake. The southerlyslope of theridge begins to rise steeply a fewhundred feet backfrom the wooded shore of the lake and rises on a sloperanging from25 to 30 degrees to a relatively. round-topped ridge at 700 feet above thelake. For themost part, the hillside consists of talusslopes andlow bluffs,clothed in part by a densecovering of smalltimber. The showingsthemselves are on the highest knoll of the ridge andon thenorth-westerly slopes of a lowerknoll approximately one-quarter of a milenorth-westerly. The ground inthe immediate vicinity of the discovery-showings constitutes the rounded top of theridge, approximately 200 feet in width, and breakingoff to steep talus slopes on either side.

- 19 - The workingsconsist of 2 adits, a Northand a South,of whichthe North adit (Plate I B) is the more important, and strippings andtrenches (& Fig. 1).

Inthe following descriptions, when it is necessaryto locatepoints, they can be found in one of three ways:

(1) By referenceto the trench number as it appears on Fig. 1.

(2) By reference to either oneof the two adits, the North adit, or theSouth adit.

(3) By reference to a gridsystem of eo-ordinates wit'n the origin near the portal of the North adit. It is to be noted that this grid has not been laid out on theground, it is forplan reference only. (See- Fig. 1.) .. The hill referred to as Discovery Hil.1 in the description trendsnorth-westerly and.the round top of it lies between the Northand South adits. The discovery of cinnabar was made on this hill.

The rocks, in and adjacent to th.e area of the workings comprise:unaltered and altered crystalline limestone, micaceous,cherty quartzite, quartz-mica schist, glaucophane schist,serpentine and andesiticgreenstone. With the excep- tions of the serpentine and greenstone the.rocks form a group of dynamicallymetamorphosed sediments .that strike north- westerly and dipnorth-eastward, except where' disturbed by minorwarping in thevicinity of theore-zone. The sequence from the lake shore north-easterly across the strike towards Discovery Hill is asfollows: fi.rst, a 'lake-shore bandof un-

altered and unmineralized, ' crystalline limestone, approximately 300 feet in exposedwidth; second, a band of schist,approximately 1,000 feet,in width, although this is mostly quartz-micaschist, a band of glaucophaneschist of anindi- catedwidth of only 150 feet, occurs on thesouth-west adjacentto the limestone; third, a lens of' laminated,micaceous, chertyquartzite, the scattered exposures of which indicate a width of approximately 300 feet in thewidest part; fourth, a thin lens of limestone that is approximately 40 feetwide in the vicinity.of a point 800 feet south and 100 feet east of tie northad.it (E Fig. I), but narroxxs to a fewlone outcrops north-westerly in the viclnity of 0 feet south and 600 feet west; fifth, a thin band of limyquartz-mica schist of variablewidth, but approximating 100 feet, and lastly, a band .of highly-altered, mineralized limestone approximately 400

- 20 - feet in exposedwidth and foking the top of Discovery Hi:Ll. Serpentine forms, the bulk of PinchiMountain, the south--westerly,slopes of whichbegin approximately 2 milesnorth-westerly from the North adit.Serpentine also occurs at a pointap- proximately 1700 feet south and 2400 feet east of the Nor-th adit (* Fig. l), where it forms a loneoutcrop in a large drift-coveredarea. Andesitic greenstone occurs as the main rock of a low hil? approximately 1500 feet north-easterly from theNorth adit.

As previouslystated, there are two mainbands of limestone and One small lens. A band of unaltered limestone, approximately 300 feet in exposedwidth, extends north-westerly alongthe north-easterly shore of Pinchi Lake,and a band,ap- proximateLy 400 feet, in exposedwidth of altered mineralized limestone,forms the crest ofDiscovery Hill approximate1;y 1700 feet north-easterly across the strike from thelakeslnore- band. A narrowlens of relativelyunaltered limestone occurs on the .south-westerly slope of Discovery Hill between laminated cherty quartzite on thesouth-west and quartz-mica schist on thenorth-east. This.lens is approximately 40 feet wide at a point SO0 feetsouth and100 feet east of the North adit (see- Fig.l), but narrows to a fewoutcrops, largely silicified, in 'the vicinity of a point 600 feet west of the portal of the North adit.

Where relativelyunaltered, the limestone is white or more commonly mottled-grey and white; it is definitely cr:ys- talline and of medium-grain. The completerecrystallization of thelimestone has destroyed all evidence of bedding,except where preferential chertification has given the rock a banded appearance,the colour bands corresponding to the original bedding-planes of thelimestone.

Although the rock in thelakeshore-band of limestonehas been reiatively unaltered, on Discovery Hill it hasbeen ex- tensively altered by silicification and ankeritization.

Silicification has resulted in the formation of irregular areas of massivechert and areas in whichchert-ribbons al- ternatewith thin limestone bands. Massive chert ocours in three main areas, first, a veryconspicuous bluff above the South adit, second, a OW bluffextending from the vicinity of ZOO feet south to 200 feeteast, and a third area of scat- teredbut probably connected occurrences.in Nos. 6 to 10 trenches of thenorth-westerly group of trenches.Ribbon- chert is very sporadic ,in its. distribution andoccurs in patchesindiscriminately scattered within areas of limestone; there is a tendency,however, for thistype of silicification

- 23 - , to be more prevalent in the transition-zone between the limestone band of Discovery Hill and the quartz-mica schist to the south-west.

Where well-developed,the chert is verymassive and con- spicuouslyjointed by closely-spacedfractures, so that out- cropsproduce an abundant talus of smallangular fragments. The chert varies from white to smoky-grey in colour and in placeshas a definitecolour-banding ranging from 1 inch to 3 inchesin width, which reflectsoriginal bedding planes in the replacedlimestone: folding, particularly drag-folding, is oftenplainly visible in such colour-banded chert. The ribbon-chert differs from the massive chert only in habit; in- stead of as large areas of uniformlymassive material, it occurswithin limestone as parallel, sinuous ribbons ranging from 1/2 aninch to 2 inchesin thickness and separated by l/2 aninch to 2-inch bands of eitherunaltered or ankeritized limestone.

Most of the chert lying along the strike of the main fracture-zone has beenconspicuously brecciated. Outcrops of such materialrecognizable by theirhackly surface, are formed as a result of the difference in resistance to weather- ingas between the broken pieces of chert. The chertfrag- ments range from pieces barely'visible to the nakedeye to pieces 1 inchin maximum dimension. They arevery angular and are set in a matrix of finely-pulverized material, usually consisting of angular,strained quartz grains, but often'containing. some sericite.Fragmental chert occurs occasionally in a limestonematrix, the carbonate grains showing conspicuous cleavage-plane. slips. The brecciation of thechert is probably related to movements along the main fracture-zone whichprobably gave access to the solutions responsible for thesilicification, or chertification, of thelimestone.

The limestone in an irregular area along the strike of the main fracture-zone has been varyingly altered to masses of ankeriticcarbonate. Such alteration, is markedby buff to brownish-weathering outcrops which are in distinct contrast to the white and light-grey outcrops of the unaltered limestone.Slight alteration is markedby mottled-brown and whitesurface, and more complete alteration bymore uniformly brown surfaces. The ankeritizedlimestone is crystalline and massiveto the Same degreeas the unaltered limestone, but it tendsto befiner-grained. Relict areas of ribbon-chertwith- in areas of ankeritized rock indicate that ankeritization was a laterprocess than silicification. Its arealdistribution indicates that ankeritization is related spatially to the fracture-zone,which probably served as a channel for the al-

- 24 - teringsolutions.

Ankeritizationas seen in the North adit, does not extend into thehanging-wall of thefracture-zone, but extends intothe foot-wall for a considerabledistance. The alteration is intense for 20 feetinto the foot-wall, and then becomes spotty and much less intense for theremaining distance of 120 feet to the portal.

Chertyquartzite, commonly containing enoughmica to im- part a definitelylaminated habit to its texture,occurs in scatteredoutcrops that suggest a lens-shaped body extending southerly and south-easterly from the north-westerly showings and narrowingfrom approximately 300 feet at the northerly end to a few scatteredoutcrops, toward the south, in the vicinity of a point 500 feet south to 300 feet west of the North ad.it (- see Pig.1). Both massive and laminated quart2it.e occurs in the Morth adit in a shortworking that extends for 25 feet south-westerlyfrom a point 35 feet from theface. Sandy quartzite occurs as a lenticular band rangingfrom 1 inch to 18 inchesin thickness over a length of approximately EO feet in No. 12 trench. The materialin this band consists of 1.ight- coloured,sugary quartzite, mottled brown by rusty-weathering carbonategrains evenly scattered through the rock. The quartz grains range from medium to fine in size and all show the ef- fects of dynamicmetamorphism in either strain'shadows or granulation of thegrains; all evidence of original sandgrains. hasbeen destroyed. This crushed quartzite contains an ahun- dance of evenly-disseminatedcinnabar grains.

The well-laminated quartzite consists of 1/4-inch to l/2-inchbands of' chertyquartzite separated by thin layers or partings of fine,white mica. Where adjacentto limestone:, 1/16 to 1/E of an inch layers of lime frequently alternate with the quartzite.

The quartziteprobably represents a purer and less argillaceous sandstone than the quartz-mica schist.

Limy phases of the schist occur along the south-westerly border of theDiscovery Hill limestone band: some of these contain so much carbonate,frequently ankeritic, that they are perhaps,bettercalled lime-schists.

The mainbody of quartz-micaschist occurs as a band ap- proximatel.y,1,000feet in width, that lies betweenand is con- formablewith the two mainbands of limestone.Scattered outcrops of thissohist-band extend along the strike for a mj,ni- mum distance of 12,000 feet from an outcrop at a point whj,ch

- 25 - is 700 feet south and 1,200 feet west of the North adit (see Fig,1) to an outcrop at a point which is 6,000 feet north and8,509 feet west of the North adit(see -Fig. 1). In this distance the strike' varies from north 80 degrees west to north 45degrees west and the dips from 45 degrees to 60 degrees northwardand north-eastward. A secondnarrow band of schist, approximately100 feet in width, occurs between the Discovery Hill band of limestone and thelimestone-lens to the south- west;in addition to the quartzose phase, the schist of this band tends to belimy in some outcropsnear the main limestone.

The quartz-micaschist is characterized by whitish- weatheringoutcrops of schistoserock, the schistosity of which is frequentlybadly contorted. The rockitself, consists of lens-shapedaggregates of quartzgrains surrounded by finer grains of quartzand by weaving shreds of fine-grained whitemica. The quartz-grains all show strain-shadows,are badlyfractured and have been largely broken into the smaller angulargrains that form the matrix for thelarger grains. A small amount of material was noticed in which granulation was so advanced that the schistose texture had given way to a de- finitel-y-laminated habit.

Light-green,highly micaceous schist occurs as squeezed lenses in the limestone of the main crosscut of the North adit and towardsthe'westerly end of No. 5 trench.In general, the material of theselenses is verymicaceous and contains little quartzand carbonate; the lenses probably represent ar&.llaceous material,that has been squeezed and has flcwed into lenses duringfolding of theenclosing limestones. A small amount of light-greenschist containing an abundance of limeand some quartz occurs in the North adit in a shortworking that extends for 25 feetsouth-westerly from a point 35 feet from the face of the main crosscut and in the face of the west drift in the same adit; this schist has not beensqueezed to the same extent as the more purelymicaceous.

Outcrops of glaucophane schist were seen in the vicinity of a point 1500 feet north to 4000 feet west of the .North adit an.d on the south-westerly side of the main quartz-mica schist band. The outcropsform part of a bandapproximately :1.50 '. feet in width that iies in a slight d.epression adjacent to and north-easterly from a prominentbiuff of thelake-shore limestoneband. Quartz-mica schist iies adjacent to the glaucophane schist on thenorth-east. The rock is dark-greyin oolcur,finely schistose, but badly crumpled and sheared. It oonsists of shreddyglaucophane wrappmg around badly sheared andbroken pyroxene and olivine. A small amount of glaucophane was seen in an outcrop of grey schist in the vicinity of 800 feet south to 1200feet; west or approximately 2800 feet south-easterly along the gen- era1 direction of strike from the last-mentioned occurrence. There may be a stratigraphic connection between the two 00- currences,but this is notdefinitely shown.

Serpentineoccurs as an isolated outcrop, surrounded by drift on all sides, in the vicinity of a point1700 feet south to 2300 feeteast of the North adit. The outcrop forms a south-westward-facingescarpment, approximately 40 feethigh on the westerly and northerly faces; with a semi-circular length of approximately 700 feet.

The nearestoutcrops, with the exception of one sma1:l chertoutcrop 150 feet south-westerly from it, arethose of theDiscovery Hill limestone,1500 feet north-westerly.

The outcropconsists mostly of buff-coloured,reddish- weathering serpentine that has been completely silicified and carbonatized. However, unalteredserpentine, or definitely greenserpentine, occurs in small patches on thenorth-easter- lyperiphery of theoutcrop.

The altered serpentine is light buff-coloured and frequently spotted with light green clusters of mariposite a:2d occasionalgrains of chromite;the exposed surfaces weather to a characteristicreddish-brown, hackly surface. The rock consists of lensesand streaks of shreddycarbonate grain:s al- ternating with streaks of fine to medium-sized grains of quartz. The quartz grains are clear, relatively unstrained andun'5roken; the cataclastic texture common to the schist and quartzite, is lacking. This suggeststhat the development of quartz in the serpentine is later than the main folding of the sedimentary rocks and also later than the crushingassociated with the main fracture-zone.which, combined.with the occurrence 0:' occasional l/8 to l/4 of aninch slabs of cinnabar,suggests theproximity of thisserpentine outcrop to thefracture-zone responsible for both silica-bearing and mercury-bearingsolu- tions,

A1.though greenstonedoes not occur in the inmediate vicinity of 'cne workings, it forms a low hill that lies approx- imatelyi500 feet north-easterly from the North adit. This occurrenceconstitutes the south-westerly side of a north,- westerly-trending band of greenstone.

Regionallythe main structure is a belt of dynamically metamorphosedsedimentary rocks that strikes north-wester:Ly

- 27 - and dipsnorth-eastward, forming part of a limb of a major fold, the remaining parts of whichdo not ocme within the presentmap-area. Locally, however, inthe vicinity of the ore showings, this limb has been warped- into what the writer interprets as a small anticline and syncline that plunges northward diagonally down the regional dip.

A study of strikes and dips of ,bedding-planes,and of the relation of theaxial planes of several small drag-folds to bedding,has 'led to the conclusions that - (1) warpinghas resulted in a combined anticline and syncline,the orest and trough of which are in the vicinity of No. 12 trench, and the south-westerly end of No. 20 trench(see Pig. l), respectively; (2) thesefolds strike northerly andplunge in the same direction at angles ranging from 25 degrees to 60 degrees.

The secondimportant structural feature is a strongcin- nabar-bearingfracture-zone, marked undergroundby conspicuous faulting, and brecciationranging from 6 inches to 4 feet in width, andmarked on the surface by a zoneand scattered outcrops of brecciatedchert. The strike of thefaulting undergroundand of the zone of brecciatedoutcrops on the surface, ranges from north.60 degrees west to north 70 degrees west, and dip of the faulting from45 degrees to 65 degrees south-westward.Although the strike of this zone is nearly parallel to the bedding in some places, particularly in the drift of the North adit, it cutsthe bedding elsewhere, and in general is transverse to the axial direction of theloc.al anticline andsyncline.

The zone of outcrops of brecciatedchert, and in places of brecciated limestone varies from 2 to 10 feet in width. Outcrops of br'ecciated chert. occur on the general strike of thefracture-zone from No. 14trench south-easterly to No. 20. trench, as seen in r"ig.'l; this zonevery probably continues approximately 2000 feet south-easterly to an outcrop of de- Finitely-brecciatedchert that occurs 150 feet south-westerly of thecinnabar-bearing serpentine knoll mentioned in the description of therock-types.

The nature or the lineal extent of the fracture-zone may besummarized as follows:

(1) Length of definitefault-zone and associatedbrec- ciation,as seen in the main drift of the Worth adit - 230 feet (as of June 11, :1.939).

(2) Length of fracture-zone as indicated by fairly closely-spacedstrippings and outcrops of brec- ciatedrock - 750 feet. - 2% - A. Camp of the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada, Limitsd on Pinchi Lake.

B. Portal of North Adit, Pinchi Lake mercury property of the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada, Limited. PLATE 11.

A. Copper Creek cinnabarproperty, dumps of northshowings on left of picture.

B. Small D-retort at Copper Creek cinnabar property. ' (3) Overalldistance between outcrops of brecciated rock at extremities of partly-prospected area and separatedby long, .unprospected areas Of drift,approximately 4000 feet.

The north-westerlyextremity of prospectingdone on this partly-mineralizedfracture-zone, is marked by No. 14 trench, where cinnabar occurs in.brecciated rock associated with 11 verticalshear. The south-easterlyextremity is marked b;y an outcrop of brecciatedchert, 150 feetsouth-westerly of occurrences of cinnabarin altered serpentine.

The distribution of cinnabar is more or less coincident withthe fracture-zone. The heaviestconcentrations of cin- nabaroccur where brecciation and shearing of the fracture- zone material appears most intense and the limestone most siliceous.This type of oreconsists predominantly of scattered grains and clusters of grains, and, to a lessextent, 0: uniform mineralsheets. The cinnabaralso occurs in weaving wisps or streamers of variable width with,in very finely-com- minutedmaterial between largerbreccia-fragments. The ore- zone brecciaconsists of angularfragments of chert set in a pulverizedmatrix of finegrains of quartz,carbonate and sometimes epidoteand sericite--the texture is definitely -that of a crush-orfault-breccia and as such forms a very good host for thecinnabar. Samples takenacross 1-foot and 18-inch widths of brecciawell charged with cinnabar have assayed: Mercury, 1.09 percent. and 1.43 percent.

The widths of bettermineralized rock more or less cor- respondwith those of thecrush-or breccia-zone, and are usu- allyvery poorly defined. In general,the widths of good mineralization rangefrom 6 inches to anobserved maximum of 4 feet. The onlyplace where a confiningwall is evident is underground inthe main drift of the North adit. Cinnabar doesnot occur in the foot-wall of themain fault, although it extends for irregular distances.into the hanging-wall.

The concentration of cinnabar is definitely variable alongthe length of theshear. The main and bestarea of mineralization being that in the brecciated material extending from the east end of No. 8 trench westerly to the middle of No. 5 trench, a distance of.140 feet; in this distance the exposedwidth of mineralization rarges from 1 inch to.10 feet. Representative samples .taken by the writer and considered to be more or lesstypical of this zone,assayed from: Mercury, 2.5 to 7.02 per cent. over 10-foot sections (for details -see pig. 1).

- 31 - Althoughcinnabar occurs outside the mainzone of brecciation, it is onlyin smal.1 quantities. Samples taken by the writer in sections adjacent to but outside the mainzone of brecciation,assayed from: Mercury, a.trace to'a high of 0.75per cent; they averaged, Mercury, 0.1 percent.

The deposition of cinnabar in the westerly group of trenches is notonly related to brecciated rock, but also to the occurrence of a heavy bed of more or less crushed quartzite where the best grade of ore in this group of workingshas beenfound todate (June 10, 1939),in Mo. 12 trench (see Fig. 1). Two samplestaken across 12-inch widths of this bed assayed:Mercury, 0.56 percent. and 2.96 percent.

At.otherplaces, such as in Nos. 11 and 15trenches L."seeFig. l), cinnabar is disseminatedthrough the ribbons of laminatedquartzite.

Minuteamounts of stibnite were seen in a small"outcrop" of high-gradenear the discovery-post; it is not a character- istic mineral of the deposit.

In addition to cinnabar a small amount ofuncrushed, hy- drothermalquartz occurs, close to, butnot in the fracture- zone. Narrow irregularlenses and stringersof watery quartz up to 3 inches thick occur in the vicinity of a pointwhich is 450 feet south arid 540 feet east of the North adit (see Fig. l), and at a point on the west wall, 100 feet from the portal of the North adit.

Calcite stringers are commonly associated with the cin- .nabar;these are definitely later than the ankeritization of thelimestone, but more or less contemporaneous with the cinnabar.

Favourableconditions for ore-deposition, as opposed to sparseoccurrences ofore;appear to havebeen in part,

(1) The presence of highly comminuted, crushedand brecciated material related to the fracture-zone.

(2) The occasionalpresence of crushedquartzite, as in No. 12 trench.

(3) ' Possiblythe ocourrence of schistoseand, therefore, relativelyimpervious phases of thesediments that seem to haveacted as local barriers to rising solutions and aided in the ooncentration of cinnabar intoore-shoots.

- 32 - The type of groundrepresented by (1) and (2) is rela-. tively porous andwould offer no resistance to the passage of mineralizingsolutions. Mo rock-types or structure,other thanpossibly some sohistosephases, definitely suitable to serve as a trap for the. concentration of the ore-solutions, and,therefore, suitable for theformation of ore-shoots, wereevident at the time of the writer's examination. It j.s possible that the relatively flat-lying Tertiary lavas, remnants of whichoccur north and south of Stuart Lake, served as the ultimate trap for the rising mineralizing solutions: the nearest lava remnant is the eastward-sloping cuesta that form HunitlinMountain, approximately 11 miles in an air-lj.ne north-easterly.

".Kamloo~ Lake and Vicinity Occurrences

Cinnabaroccurs at several places within a belt approximately.8miles wide that extends for 11 miles northerly and for approximately the same distance southerly from the west end of IiamloopsLake (fig. 2). The depositsconsist of shear- zones and dolomite veins that contain varying amounts of cinnabar. The rocksare greenstone of theNicola group, which, in the vicinity of the deposits, haveusually been intense:ly altered by ankeritization. The occurrencesinclude the fo'!- lowing deposits: CopperCreek CinnabarClaims; Hardie Moun- tain CinnabarDeposit; Sabiston Flats; Davis Showings; Criss CreekShowings (Mercury Mining Syndicate) ; Charbonneau Show- ingsnear Savona Station on theCanadian Pacific Railway; showings in.the vicinity of Tunkwa Lake (Fig. 2). These are described in detail in, the following text.

COPPER CREEK The most recentinformation concernin,: CINNABAR CLAIMS. the cinnabarclaims near the mouth of CopperCreek indicates that they were last owned by theCinnabar Mining Company of B. C., formerly care of Davis,Marshall, MacNeil and Pugh, 626 PenderStreet, Vancouver.These claims wentiinto tax-sale in 1938, the dtlte of redemptionexpiring November 7, 1939.

The property is situated on the slope of the hillside immediately to the north from Copper Creek Station, a flag- stop on the CanadianNational Railway on the north shore of' Km>Oops Lake,approximately 5 miles easterly from thewest end of.the lake.

There are two means of access,one by CanadianNational Railway from Savona, and one by auto-roadfrom Kamloops. The distance is 32 miles by roadfrom Kamloops pastTranquille, up theTranquille River and down Carabine(Copper) Creek to Fig. 2. Key map, cinnabar occurrence, in the vicinity of Kamloops Lake. Areal geology adapted from Dawsonwith modifications around Kamloops Lake by Drysdale.

Copper Creek Station; this roadis steep, narrow and thesurface clayey and shouldnot be attempted with a motor-carin wet weather.

The workings are situatedon an open hillside which slopes smoothly south-eastwardto the level of Kamloops Lake; the slope changing gradually from approximately30 degrees at the elevation of the worktngsto only a few degrees nearthe lake (Plate I1 A). The only coveron thehillside is a small amount of range-grass, sage-brush, and in the few draws, pine trees,

Geologically the deposit consists of cinnabar-bearing dolomite fissure-veins. These dolomite veins occur chiefly

- 34 - within and parallel to the walls of conspicylousbrown-weat.her- ingand highly-altered andesitic dykes that out a series of fragmentalvolcanics and intercalated sills. Faulting of all theserocks has been extensive and spreadover a longtimc- interval. The dykes,which occupy faults,obviously tended to localize the later faults that were followed by the do1.o- mite-cinnabarireins: the most recent faulting has tended to displace both the veins and the enclosing rock-types.

In brief,the workings consist of a labyrinth of drifts, crosscuts, raises and short shafts.These workings are in three main groups, southerly and centralgroups (Fig. 4) at an altitude of 1700feet (Kamloops Lake1125. feet), half ~i milenorth-westerly from CopperCreek Station, and a northerly group(Fig. 3) at approximatelythe same elevationbut half a mile northerly from the southerly group; the relative positions of the southerly and central groups are shown in Fig. 4. In generalthe workings are badly caved and several sections of the adits and thestopes were inaccessible at the time ofexamination (June-July, 1939).

The name CopperCreek appears to haveoriginated froin the report that in thepast Indians obtained small amounts of nativecopper from thevolcanic rocks outcropping close to and in the bed of CopperCreek. This is indicatedby a quotation fromBrewer, Annual Report, Minister of Nines,British Co:Lum- bia, 1914,p. 195 - "Thiscreek derives its name fromthe fact that the Indians have from time immemorial known it as a lo- calitywhere native copper was found.Specimens areyet found in the serpentinous decomposed rooks to the east of thestream which show some of this native copper, but whether the qu:m- tity is sufficient to be of economic value is questionable."

Between1890 and 1900unsuccessful attempts were made to findcopper ore in mineableamounts on shmings consisting of ohalcocite and borni-te in quartz-filled fissure-veins that occurred in basiodykes on the Tenderfoot claim situated east of and 800 feet aboveCopper Creek.

The first intensive work on the CopperCreek oinnabar sho7,vings appears to havebeen doneby an American company in 1894, when, inaddition to a small amount of surfaoe-prospecting, an adit was driven 137 feet and a shaft and incl-inesunk for 51 feet and31 fee-trespectively. The grade of mercury mineralization at that time is indicated by the statement that the dump at the adit-portal contained 8 tons of materialaver- agingapproximately, mercury, 20 percent., and 12 tonsaver- agingapproximately 7 percent.

- 35 - \ \

I I I I I I I I \ I Sample N?Width%Mercury Description 0" 0.8 mixed vein-dolomite & black sulphide 8" 3.2 Vein-dolomite & scattered cinnabargrains 12" nil. Vein-dolomite nil. Blackfilmsonjoints invein 18'' 0.2 Across 2oneofdolornite&quartzstringers 4" 0.6 Dolomite-vein 4" nil. Across quartz-dolomite lens 2" 0.4 Across dolomite-cinnabar veinlet

I LEGEND

Green & 8,ourole volcanic breccias E1.1740' Tuff White vein-dolomite. sometimes containingdisseminated cinnabar Stoped areas Open-cut G Vein showing dip "

Fault, showing dip "

20 10 040 50 Scale aFeet Fig. 3. Plan of north showings, Copper Creek oinnabar property.

- 36 - In 1895the 'Cinnabar Mining Company of B. C. tookover thedeposits. This company didexploratory work, erectec. two retorts and operatedthem for only a few weeks producing, "more than100 flasks of quicksilver." The underground work done by this company in 1895appears to have constituted the bulk of the workdone on theproper.ty. It is reportedto have consisted of 750 feet of drifts and crosscuts on onepart: of the Rose Bud claim of thattime, a largestope, and, in m- otherpart, an adit 120 feet longand a raise 80 feet long to thesurface. On the YellowJacket c'laim of .that time,underground work consisted of 900 feet of drifts andcrosscut:; and two raises to the surface, 80 feet and100 feet respectively in length; 12.00 feet of diamond-drilling was also done in this section.

Between1896 and 1925 very little workwas done on the property. However, in 1924, Mr. J. Fleetwood-;flells, who had operatedthe property twenty-five years previously, re-opened the workings, operated'for three years and obtainedabout five flasks of mercury. No work hasbeen done since 1927. During thisperiod from 1927 to thepresent, the old retort(Plate 11 B) and furnace(Plate I11 A),have been dismantled and partlydestroyed.

The production of mercuryfrom the Copper Creek deposits hasbeen as follows:

1895 - 1897 - 138 flasks of mercury 1924 - 1927 -5 flasks of mercury Approximately143 flasks of mercury

The bed-rockgeology of the Copper Creek cinnabardeposits is complex. The rockscomprise a group of igneou:; rocks,both extrusive and intrusive. The extrusivesincl.ude bothgreen and purple volcanic breccias and interbedded tuffs. The intrusivesinclude, diabase and picrite(essentially oli- vineand augite) sills and brown-weatheringdykes: these dykes are of basalticcomposition but will be referred to as brown porphyrydykes in the text because of their characteristically brown outcrops and definitely porphyritic texture.

The most prevalentrock, both in the workings and the rockbluffs immediately above them, is greenvolcanic breccia. Thisrock consists of angularfragments rangfng from 1 inch to 8 inches in average diameter that are set in a more fine:.y- fragmentaltuffaceous matrix. The material of thefragments is chieflydark green basaltic greenstone, sometimes finely- porphyritic.Purple volcanic breccia, consisting of distinctly

- 37 - purplefragments in a purpletuffaceous matrix, occurs irregularly distributed in the workings; they occur in all the workings of thecentral group and inthe east branch of the "1510" levelin the south group in the same area. Inasmuch asthe , purple and greenbreccias grade insensibly into each other, it was impossible to map definite contacts between these two colour-types of breccias.

As thebreccias are extremely massive in structure, bedding-planesare not evident and it is impossibleto determine their attitude from thestudy of thebreccias alone. However, the attitude andgeneral contact-relations of well-beddedtuffs occurringin the westerly branch of the "1510" level indicate a north-westerly strike and a moderatedip of about 20 degrees north-eastward for both the breccias and interstratified tuffs. The mainoccurrence of tuff is in the southerly group of workings,specifically in the westerly branch of the "1510" level, and along part of the easterly branch of the same lebel. To- wards the portal of the westerly branch of "1510," the tuffs arevery incoherent: the extreme incoherency being largely due to the percolation of surface 'waters down the dip from the surface outcrop of 'the beds; farther in theworkings, the beds become blocky and massive. The bedding of the tuffs as seen in the incoherent material strikes north-westerly and dips 20 degreesnorth-eastward. The compact tuffsare dark-grey in colourand fine, megascopically even-grained in texture. How- ever,under the microscope they are seen to consist of closely- packedcrystal-fragments in a densecloudy matrix. The crystals consist of alteredfeldspar and pyroxene; the feldspar crystal's are largely altered to fine white micaand the pyroxenes to finely-granular,iron-stained carbonate.

Diabase sills occur in thecrosscut between the two branches of the "1510" .level in the southerly group of workings. The two occurrences in thiscrosscut are each approximately 4 feet thick; the more westerly sill is conformable withthe underlying tuff beds and the easterly sill is parallel to it. In theirblocky massive character the sills are similar to the blocky 'tuffs, but they are much darker 'in col- or. Under themicroscope the texture is seen to be fine- grained and diabasic: the glassy or dense groundmasswhich mightbe expected. if thesewere flows, rather than sills, is lacking:. The mineralscomprise calcic plagioclase, hornblende and a small amount of olivine.

Augite picrite occurs in the "1615" open-cutand in the short "1600" adit of thecentra1,group of workings. The ex- po'suresconsist of badly-fractured,dark-green rock which containsabundant crystals of olivine, commonly 1/16 of an

- 58 - Fig. 4. Plan of central and south showings, Copper Creek cinnabar property. inch in diameter. These olivine.crystals, setin a dense, dark-green groundmass, are easily recognized by the purple colour of the alteration-products formed within the crystals. Under the microscopethe rock is seento oonsist of numerous grains of olivine largely alteredto serpentine and finely- divided hematite. None of the pink material is cinnabar.

- 39 - Thisrock is named augite picrite rather than a peridotite because:the texture is porphyritic and results from small phenocrysts of o'livine and augite set in a denseground- mass.Although theoutcrops of thepicrite are badly disin- tegrated and the contact-relations and the surrounding rocks notexposed; the rock is believed to be extrusive.

Conspicuouslybroum--mathering porphyries occur as dykes of widely-varyingstrike and dip.These dykes are conspicuous because of theirrusty-brown outcrops; freshly-broken, un- weatheredsurfaces are, however, light-grey in colour. The dykesrange in general from 6 inches to 3 feet in thickness; however, scattered outcrops of 'brown porphyryoccurring at placesfrom 100 to 600 feet to the west of the southern group of showings, indicatedykes that have a minimum width of 75 feet.

The dyke-materialin weathered outcrops is definitely porphyritic;consisting of well-shapedbut badly-altered, crystals of plagioclase andpyroxene set in a dense or fine- grained, brown groundmass. The porphyritictexture is not SD evident on freshly-broken surfaces. Under the microscope the feldspars are seen to be altered, in varyingdegrees, to finely- felted aggregates of whitemica and the pyroxenes in all sec- tionscompletely altered to fine granules of carbonate. The groundmass consists of either a dense, brown aggregate of car- bonateand limonite, or of finely-feltedlaths of altered plagioclase and interstitial limonite and carbonate;scattered clusters of fine-grainedmagnetite are common. The presence of considerable plagioclase,pyroxene and magnetiteindicate that these dykes are of basalticcomposition; they will be referredto, however, in the text as brown porphyrydykes. The carbonate of theserocks, both in the altered pyroxene and the groundmass, is largelyankerite and is notto be confused with that of the dolomite veins.

Ankeritization, or theformation of ankeriticcarbonate, hasbeen the dominant process of alteration in the brown porphyrydykes. This alteration antedated.or was theforerunner of that which was responsible for the deposition of vein-dolomiteand cinnabar in fissures within' thedykes.

One lamprophyredyke was seen on the property at a place 350 feetwesterly fromthe southerly group of showings.This dyke is.10 feet wide and strikes north-westerly and intrudes thesurrounding green volcanic breccia. In appearance it is a grey porphyritic rock containing long laths of feldspar. Under themicroscope it is seento. consist of large,long laths of labradorite-plagioclase set in a felted groundmass

- 40 -

c of dark-brown biotite; neither amphibolenor pyroxene were seen.

Faulting of the rocks and veins is widespread in the deposit,There is no generalstrike and dip to the faults although it is to be noted that east-west andnorth-south faults are uncommon, Dips range from nearlyhorizontal to verti.ca1. Displacementalong the fault-planes is variable,ranging from almostnothing to large but indeterminable amounts. The faults rangein width from half an inch to 1 foot, andshear-zones .from 1 foot in width to 40 feet.

Faultingboth preceded and followed the formation of the dolomiteveins. The earlierfaulting opened fissures for the brown-porphyrydykes and later for theveins, and in some instances formedshear-zones that later received a small amount of dolomiteand cinnabar, as shown in the open-cut at anelevation of 1645 feetin the middle.group of showings. It is impossibleto say what percentage of the faults in the rock- formations antedated the veins, but probably very fewbec:ause of the lack of sealing-minerals.

Post-vein faulting is of course the most conspicuous. The dolomite veins are frequently boundedby faults paral.le1 to either one wall, as shown by the vein in the westerly'branch of the "1535" levelin the southerly group of showings, or to both.wails,as shown by the vein in the "1740" level of the

' ' northerlygroup of showings. The veinsare sometimes definitely cut by. transverse faults and displaced for unknown amounts, as shown'bythe iein in the last example cited. The effect of faulting or..the rock-formations has been the faulting of onerock-type into another as %shownto the best advan- tage,by the fault-boundedtriangular segment of picrite adjacent to brown porphyry in the open-cut at an elevation of 1570 feet in the southerly showings.

Veins of white,massive to crystalline dolomite, contain- ingsporadic disseminations of cinnabar,characterize the deposit.

These veins occur chiefly within the brown porphyrydykes as :

(1) li continuousribbon which pinches and swells from 1 inch to 3 feet in width, within or close to, one wall of thedyke.

(2) Gash-veins a' fewinches inthickness that trend. diagonally to the strike of thedyke, but are

- 41 - wholly contained within the dyke.

(3) Occasionallynarrow stringers in the voloanic breccia in the vicinity of thedykes.

Although the dolomite veins range from a knife-edge to 3 feetin thickness, a width of 18 inches is the commonest average for the most persistent veins.

The texture is usually massive consisting of closely- packed crystals of dolomite. However, occasionalvugs occur which are lined and frequently nearly filled by projecting crystals of dolomite., A brecciatedtexture occasionally occurs, particularly near the borders of theveins. In such places the vein consists of fragments andwisps of brown porphyry in theprocess of replacement by the vein-dolomite.

The vein-makter is predominantlywhite dolomite. Chemi- cal and optical studies indicate that it. approachesvery closely the theoreticalcomposition.of dolomite. Small amounts of chalcedonicquartz and, in some veins,stringers, of more coarselycrystalline quartz occur. The onlysulphide seen in thedolomite veins was cinnabar,although stibnite has been reported. A small amount of tetrahedrite was seenin a lens of quartz in the north workings.

Within the vein there has been a rhythmical precipitation of thechief gangue-minerals; the sequences are best seen aroundfragments of porphyry-breccia within the vein--the most common sequence is asfoilows: ’

1. Dense white or greychalcedonic quartz.

2. Bands of crystallinedolomite, the crystals of whichhave grown in a direction normal to the previous band of mineral.

3. Grey chalcedonicquartz.

4. Where openspaces existed, small pyramid-shaped crystals of quartz.

The amount of cinnabarseen in the veins was so small that definite data concerning its time of depositioncould notbe obtained. However, it was comonlyseen on thebor- ders of hair-iikestringers of dolomite, a habitsuggesting that the cinnabar antedated the deposition of dolomite within suchstringers; it was also seen as discrete grains and small masses within main dolomite veins, indicating deposition con-

- 42 - temporaneouswith that of the dolomite. In general,this cinnabar was in part slightly earlier than, and in part contemporaneouswith, the dolomite. .. The most common occurrence of cinnabar is discrete,f:laky grainswithin white vein-dolomite. It alsooccurs as thin films within fissures, or borderingdolomite stringers tha-G occurwithin either'the brown porphyrydykes or, lessfreqllent- ly,the wall-rock of thedykes. Old reportsindicate that much of the mined cinnabaroccurred as blebs or nodules of massive cinnabar within the dolomite.

No developedore-bodies were exposed in the workings tat thetime of thewriter's examination (June to July, 1939). The location and generalshape of previously-existingore" bodiesare roughly shown by theold stopes, as outlined on Figs. 3 and 4. Unfortunately,these stopes are badly-caved and inaccessible at the time of examination so that the nature of the occurrence of anypossible remnants of'ore and of the type of wall-rock,could not be determined. A calculation ..of theapproximate volume of all the stopes indicates that about 500 tons of rock was excavatedfrom them. A calculation oE the grade of ore based on this tonnage and a gross reported production of 143 flasks, or 1068 lbs.of.mercury, indicates anaverage grade of 1.08 percent. mercury for the 500 tons of rock.

It is to benoted that this grade exceeds the percentage of all butone of the samples taken by the writer; the exception being a sampletaken across 8 inches ofvein-dolomite whichassayed: Mercury, 3.2 per cent. All samples of altered rock,even when cinnabar was visible in the hand specimen,assayed much less Clan:Mercury, 1.08 per cent. This distribution of values and thequotation from Wilmot (1926, p. 55)" "durhgoperations thirty years ago, the greater part of the metalrecovered was obtainedfrom one pocket,"--suggests t:hat the ore-bod.ies occurred within the dolomite veins.

Inasmuch as no ore is at present exposed, the only data obtainable concerning localization are from the positions ,of theold stopes. The largeststope is between the "1510" a:?d "1535" levelsin the southerly group of workings. The stoped area is within the acute angle lying betiveen two brown porphyrydykes. The ground in the angle between the two dykes may havebeen more fractured and,therefore; of easier access by the mineralizing solutions than that adjacent to 'the dykes, butnot in the vicinity of intersection.Elsewhere on the property the only controlling factor is the presence of the

- 43 - dolomite veins, which in turn are largely localized by the presence of brown porphyrydykes.

The sequence of events leading to the formation of the dolomiteveins is conce'ivably as follows:

1. Earlyformatio'n of strongfractures.

2. Filling of these'by brown porphyrydykes

3. . Later fracturing along the same lines of weakness as followed by the early fracturing and therefore more or lessfollowing the porphyry dykes.

4. Deposition of dolomiteveins and cinnabarin these intra-dykefractures and fracturedwall-rock, accompanied by replacement of anybrecciated material.

Samples were taken of the ?allowing types of rock and vein-matter :

1. Volcanicbreccia, sheared and shattered,both with and without dolomite stringers.

2. 3rown porphyrydykes'containing dolomite or dolomite-cinnabarstringers.

3. Typicaldolomite vein-matter.

The detailed results of this sampling are given in the assay'tables on Figs. 3. and 4. It is to benoted that only samplesthat showed cinnabar plainly visible to the nakedeye containedmercury. Samples in whichcinnabar was notvisible to the nakedeye invariablyassayed nil.

This i,s mentioned to indicate that rock, even to make low-grade ore, contains. cinnabar in amounts that is disting- uishable by the eye. The following comment byEardley-Wilmot (1926, p. 55), indicatesthat he arrived at the same conclu- sionafter sampling the so-called "low-grade ore"--"From the above results it appears that it would not pay to carry out mining on the rocks and vein-matterin which no cinnabar is visible.This is 1oose.lytermed 'low-grade ore.'"

A' few generalizations maynow be made concerning favourable ground for prospecting. The occurrence of cinnabar on this property indicates that further prospecting should be conf'ined to areas of brown-weatheringporphyry dykes. Within suchareas, it is sugge.sted,'that favourable ground may lie

- 44 - within the acute angles forged by the intersection ofany two dykes.Referring particularly to the southerly group of workings, it is suggestedfurther, that favourable ground would befound where the,downward extensions of the dykes intersect thosebeds of tuffs that are exposed in the "1510" level, and whichimmediately underlie the diabase sills. The structure of ground in such a section would supply a porous rock (tuffs) overlain by relatively.tight rocks (diabase). Such conditions would permit solutions migrating from thenearby channel made by.the.main porphyry,dyke to travel through a relatively porous tuff with a possible trapping and deposition of cinnabar below the relatively tight diabase.

HARDIE The ground thatincludes the cinnabar showings on MOUNTAIN. HardieMountain at onetime comprised the Crown- grantedmineral claims Lots 949-959and Lot 1736, and were owned by theHardie Cinnabar Mines,Limited. These lots reverted to the Crown several years ago.and the surveys, field notes and plots of theclaims were cancelled on February 9, 1939.

The workings on HardieMountain are 4 miles northerly from the Copper Creek Station along the road that follows the valley of Carabine(Copper) Creek (Pig. 2). They are on the steep hillside on the easterly side of the road: the lowermost working,an adit, being 1045 feet easterly from theroad and 255 feet above it, at an elevation of 2355 feet:

The.mainadits on the property are on a steep, relatively open hillsi.decovered with talus and scattered jack-pine; the sldpeaverages 30 degrees and,is unbroken by any rocky bluffs. Most of the surface workings are on a wide relatively flat slope near the top of the hill on which there are many clumps of'small fir interspersedwith grassy areas: outcrops are re- 1atively.scarce.

The geologyof'the, depos.it consists of a series of volcanic rooks that strike northerly and dip 30 degreeswestward; therocks include dark-coloured, fine-grained and amygdaloidal basalts,light-grey, coarse feldspar-porphyry and light-grey andesite, some tuffsand volcanic breccias. Manyof therocks have been partly ankeritized so that their outcrops in the surfaceworkings are rusty-brown in colour.Widely-scattered dolomite stringers cu-t the rocks in a fewplaces.

The workingsconsist of four adits and severalopen-cuts. The' adits, two of.whiohare caved, have been driven north- easterlyinto the steep, south-westward-sloping hillside to interceptreported open-cut showings of cinnabarthat occur

- 45 - on the more gently-sloping hillside approximately 100 feet above.thehighest adit. The aditsfailed to reach points be- neathany of the cuts or tocut any cinnabar occurrences. It is reported'thatsamples containin& small amounts of cinnabar havebeen obtained from,the surface-cuts. No cinnabar was seen by the writer, but it is probable that the extensive sloughing of soil into most of theopen-cuts covered the ac'- tualoccurrences of themineral.

The showings on Hardie Mountain were discovered late in . August,1895, by Messrs: McCartneyand Irving. The first undergrou:ndwork was commenced in 1896, and continuedin 1898, but mostof theunderground work as it now exists was done in 1902 when five adits were driven aggregating 1066 feet in length. It is reportedthat each of these showed low-grade ore, and thatthe open-cuts above showed 2 to 3 percent. mer,- curyore. The last reportedwork on theproperty was done in 1909 when an adit 106 feet long was driven.

Thereare no records of production.

The workings will be described beginning with those nearest the road andprogressing easterly up the hillside.

The portal of No. 1 adit is 1045 feeteasterly from the road and 255 feet above it, atan elevation of 2355 feet. Thor- ough caving of the portalprevented examination of it. The portal of No: 2 adit is 420 feet in a direction north 57 degreeseast from the portal of No. 1 and 260 feet above it, atan elevation of 2615 feet.This adit has been driven through a series of fragmentaland flow-rocks at north 63 degreeseast for 173 feet to theface.

Well-definedbedding in the rocks is absent,but narrow zones of crushing marking contacts between different flows strikenorth and dip35.degrees westward. Although the adit doesnot follow any'brealc, it crossesseveral narrow crush- zones in addition to those on contactsand a 2-inchdolomite vein120 feet from theportal. Samplestaken atthe follow- ingplaces assayed: Mercury, nil - along a 2-inchcrush-zoce, at 117 feebfromthe portal; at 125 feetacross a 2-inchdolo- miteveinlet; at 150 feet across a crush-zone 8 inches in thicknessand containing much blackcrushed rock; and at 168 feetacross similar material. No cinnabar was seenin this adit.

The portal of No. 3 adit is 540 feet in a directionnorth 55 degreeseast from the portal of No. 2 and130 feet above it

- 46 - at anelevation of 2745 feet.This adit was cavecl at the portal and 'could not be examined. ,. I. _' I The portal of No. 4 adit is 400 feet in a direction north 60 degrees east fromthe portal of No. 3 and165 feet above it at an elevation of 2910 feet. -1t.has beendriven north-easterly into the hillside for 136 feet and cuts across a series: of lavas and volcanicbreccias. Bedding inthese rocks is absent, but the crushed contacts between the types indicates a north- we'sterly'strike and dip of 30 degreessouth-westward. The most oommo~lrock-type is coarsefeldspar-porphyry; it consists of tabular feldspar crystals whichrange from 1/4 to 1 inch in largest dimensions; the feldspars are completelyaltered to white micaand thedetermination of theoriginal. feldspar , is impassible.The.other mainrock-type is a basaltin which pillow structure is varyingly developed.

I At 100 feet from the portal, the adit crossesthree stringers ofdolomite which range from 1/2-inch to 2 inches in thickness--asample of thedolomite assayed: Mercury, e. No cinnabar was seen in this ad.it.

Two hundredand seventy feet in a direction north 30 degrees west, from the portal of No. 4 adit and at the same, elevation, an adit has been driven north-easterly into the hj.11; the portal of this adit was completelycaved.

No. 4 adit is the. last'of. the extensive,underground vrork- ings, and the following descriptions apply to cuts lying .farther north-easterly andon less steep ground.

Cut, or trench, No. '1 lies 685 feet in a direction north 45 degrees east from"the portal .of No. 4 adjt and at an el.eva- tion of 3015 feet. ti this trenchhas been dug in a direction north 50 degrees east for 20 feet and at present is caved. Ten feet north-easterly from the endof this trench another has been dug 6 feetdeep and in the same direction for 26 feet. The material in this trench is highly-altered amygdaloida:i lavacontaining scattered pyrite crysta1.s. .. No cinnabar was seenand a sample taken for 10 feet along thenorth-westerly side of thetrench assayed: Mercury, 11%.

.No. 2 cut is 225 feet in a directionsouth 60 degrees east from No. 1 and at anelevation 2975 feet. It has been drivennorth 15 degrees west for 26 feet andsouth 75 degrees westfor 15 feet, the floor of this .latter section is 5 fget above that of the26-foot section. The onlyvein-matter con-

- 47 -

,' sists of two 10-inchzones of dolomite stringers exposed in thenorth-westerly face. \ A combinedsample from both zones assayed:Mercury, &. The rock is greyporphyritic andesite containing 1/16-inch feldsparphenocrysts.

The onlyother surface-working seen on the property is anopen-cut leading into anold shaft at a place which is 720 feet in a direction north 78 degreeseast from No. 1 cut and at an elevation of 3000 feet. The cut and shaftare on a wooded hillside whichslopes locally southward into a small, drywater-course. The cuthas been driven.in a direction north 10 degreeswest for 10 feet, thence as a short adit for 8 feet to the bottom of theshaft. The shaft is only 8 feet , deepand 3.feetsquare. The workingsare on thenortherly- striking contact between basalt on the west and coarse feldspar-porphyry on theeast. IJo vein-mineralswere seen and samplesof both thebasalt and theporphyry assayed: Mercury, -nil. SABISTON A showing of cinnabaroccurs near the mouth of FLATS. SabistonCreek which flows southerly into Kamloops Lakeand crossesunder the Canadian NationalRailwaytwo mileswesterly fromCopper Creek Station(Fig. 2)~Although theomership, if any, of this groundcould not be ascertained, the workings'were described under the name of Independent group by Camsell (see Bibliography).

A short adit has been driven northerly into the hill at a place 100 feet above the railway on the westerly side of a ,dry gulch that crosses'the tracks 1500 feet easterly from the SabistonCreek crossing. The adithas been driven at north 48 degreeswest for 18 feet and due north for 10 feet.

The first part of the'adit follows a vertical dolomite- calc'ite vein that follows a zone of shearing 10 feet wide and which strikesnorth 40 degrees west. The vein is 3 inches wideand contains hair-line streaks of cinnabar. k sample of thisvein-matter assayed: Mercury, 0.2 percent. The dolomite-calcite vein continues into the wall at the' bend,but for some unknown reason the adit follows a secondary joint-plane to the' north.

The rock-formation in the adit is brown-weathering, feldspar-porphyry. On thesurface this rock outcrops over an area 500 feet in width and extends an unknown distance northerly up the hillside. .It includes a "horse': of green- stoneabout 50 feet in width that extends for a short distance northerly from nearthe portal. Extending easterly from the gulchlying 200 feet easterly from the adit andextending

- 48 - westerlyfrom Sabiston Creek, the rock is greenstone.

No work is at present being done on the showings.

There is no record of productionfrom the property.

DAVIS. Dolomitestringers and veins north of Kamloops Lake in the vicinity of Savona Station on the Can- adianNational Railway (Fig. 2), areunderstood to have been covered by the i?ee Nos._lto 8 mineralclaims, staked by JohnDavis for eightprincipais on July12th, 1937.

The showings lie on thesteep, rocky and bluffhillside that extends up to Mount Uren north-easterly from Savona Sta- tion on the CanadianNational Railway. The showings beginat an elevation of 1800 feet and continue at scattered points northerly up the hillside to an elevation of 2400 feet.

The mineraloccurrences consist of small amounts of cinnabar inwhite dolomite veins or stringers.These stringers occur in tight shear-zones within the prevailing rock-for:ma- tion of vo%canicbreccia and a little tuff. The rockwithin and adjacent to the shear-zones has been highly altered to a denserock containing abundant ankeritic carbonate; this process is referredto as ankeritization. The sol.utionsresponsi- ble for.the ankeritization and also for the deposition of the dolomiteand cinnabar, came upalong the shear-zones. These ankeriticzones weather to conspicuouslyrusty-brown outcrops and the colour is in striking contrast to the dark-green of the volcanic breccias.

The first showing is on the hillside at an elevation of 1800 feet and in a direction north 32 degreeswest from Savona station on theCanadian Pacific Railway. From this point a shearextends diagonally up the ro'cky hillside for a slope- distance of 480 feet westerly; the shear strikes north 60 de-. greeswest and dips 30 degrees south-westward. The greenvol- canicbreccia on either side of theshear is altered to a rusty-brownrock for widthsranging from 8 inches.to 18 inches; thi.s marked weathering' results from the oxidation of fine- grained ankerite, iron carbonate,'that has been deposited by solutions issuing from the fissure and seeping into the rock on eitherside. Verticai shears whichbranch.into the hanging-wall and foot-wall from the westeriy end of the mainshear are accompanied to a lesser extent by similarbut narrower zones of alteration of the wall-rocks.

The ankeritizedzones of boththe main shear and branch- shearscontain single stringers of dolomiteand occasional' films of cinnabar. The cinnabar commonly occurswithin the

" 49 - dolomitestringers; occasionally it is found in the altered rockciose to thedolomite stringers. k sampletalcen across a brecciateddolomite vein 10 incheswide assayed: Mercury, trace.

The next occurrences are in an area of hillside approx- imately1000 feet square. The lowest of these is inan east- westsaddle at anelevation of 1950 feet on the southward- sloping hillside and lies northerly from the last showing. Here a rusty zone of ankeritic rock strikes north 80 degrees west over an exposed length of 240 feet and a width ranging from10 inches to 3 feet.Three shallow strippings have been made on theexposure. The rockin the zone is badlysheared and brecciated and contains a discontinuous,central dolomite vein. A sampletaken across a.full 10-inch width of the zone including a dolomitevein, assayed: Mercury, nil. The rock in the vicinity of the brown ankerite-zone is dark-green,'volcanicbreccia.

The nextexposu're of brown ankeritic rock is on a low sidehill-knoll 100 feet abovethe last exposureand beginning at a place 250 feet in a direction north 10 degreeseast from it. Scatteredoutcrops which occur over an area 200 feet in diameter,indicate an easterly-striking zone of brown-weather- ingankeritized ,rock approximately 200 feet in width. However, the zoneof alteration apparently dies out a short distance westerly because unaltered, green volcanic breccia outcrops across the strike of the zone at a place 600 feet westerly. The southerlyborder of the zone of alteration is a shear-contactwith dark-green agglomerate. The materialin this show- ingcontains very little vein-dolomite. A 2-footsample across some narrow stringersassayed: Mercury, g. The lower end of thenext showing is on a steepsection of the hillside at a placewhich is 300 feet north-westerly from the northern edge of the last showingand 175 feet above it. The showing is a strong,conspicuous zone of brown, ankeritic rock that extends diagonally north-westerly up the hillside for an oktcrop d,istance of 350 feet and disappears in drift. The zone of ankeritizationranges from 4 feet to 20 feetin thickness, gradually increasing north-westerly. The materialin it consists of badly-sheared,dense, ankeritized rockcontaining only a few stringers of white,vein-dolomite. A sample taken across the full width of 4 feet of ankeritized rockand a fewdolomite stringers, assayed: Mercury, e. The rocks in the immediate vicinity of the showingscon- sist of dark-green volcanic breccia and a few tuff beds; these rocksstrike east and dip 30 degreesnorth. The shearingalong

- 50 - and from which the ankeritic alteration has spread cuts across the attitude of these'rocks.

There is no record of productionfrom the property.

DEADMAN RIVER. The country on theeasterly side of the Dead- man Riverbetween Kamloops Lakeand Crisri Creek was examined by members of the Dominion-Prov.incia1Youth TrainingProject "D" underthe direction of M. S. Hedley, British ColumbiaDepartment of Mines. In his.report, Dr. Hed- ley describes this area as follows:

"Rusty-weatheringzones of carbonatizationare found on the easterly-side of Deadman River at a number of places in theNicola rocks, and four small zones occur on thewesterly side. These are all on the lowerslopes. The upperslopes, above a.bout 3,000 feet elevation, art3 made up of unaltered andunbroken rocks. The Criss Creek zone of alteration is large andextends from the creek northerlyto the edge of columnar Tertiarybasalt. Sim- ilar alteration occurs on the lowerslopes of the valley to within one-half of a mile of the mouth of Criss Creck and as far southerly as the trail opposite the ShOwing8. No new discoveries were made.

"Half a mile southerly of the Indian Village and adjacent to the road are bluffs composed of sandy to arkosicsediments and some limestone,dipping north to north-eastward at 40 to 65 degrees.Rusty-weathering of theserocks is notproduced by carbonatization,althou.gh there are a few dolomite stringers with narrowborderi:ng zones of alteration. There is a little,sparsely disseminated chalcopyrite and pyrite on the northerly edge o:? thesebluffs. One-quarter of a milenorth of 'the highway bridgeprominent bluffs on the easterly bank of the ri-uer 'areconsiderably altered and contain local fine veinlets of crystalline gypsum (selenite).Alteration, of *what arein part at least sedimentary beds, is intense, with theproduction of a whitish to yellowish porous materi;il, highly oxidized atthe surface.

"In a prominentgulch below the highway, on the westerly boundary of the Indian Reserve, there is much car- bonateveining in volcanic breccia. Stringers and vei:ns up to several inches in width strike and dip at all an,.;l.es, and most of them are accompaniedby a marginal zone of carbonatization extending beyond the veins from a few inchesto several feet in total width. No cinnabar was seenin these vein-zones. A littlesimilar material is

- 51 - "seen in a gulchone-quarter of a mile north-westerly. Northerly for about 5 miles,outcrops are very scarce and onlyone small zone of carbonatization was seen in thisdistance, about 3 milesnorth of thehighray. Farther westerly carbonate zones were not observed."

CRISS CREEK. The MercuryXining Syndicate, care of Arthur McDonald. 23Hastines Street East, Vancouver, 8. C., owns thefollowing claims on Criss Creek:Eclipse,

-Bluff, Old Spot, "Calumet, Nevada, Pal, Cluiok and Monarch. Theseclaims were staked in June, 1933, by Messrs.Davidson, McDonald, Sharpe and Woodside, of Vancouver, B. C.

The property is about 3 miles by good pack-horse trail up Criss (Chris)Creek from its junction with the Deadman River;this junction is.about 14 miles by goodmotor-road ' northerlyfrom Savona up the Deadman RiverValley (Fig. 2).

The claims lie on thesteep, open hillsidesloping south- eastwardinto Criss Creekbetween elevations of 2150 feet at the creek-level andof 2850 feet north-westerly up the' hillside.

The first claims on the cinnabar showings up Criss' Creek werestaked in the summer of.1896.Desultory prospecting and surface work was'done in 1897 1900 on the m.inera1 .... and * claim of those years.' More recentlythe ground has been re- stakedtwice, and between the years 1929 and 1938 some short aditswere driven by theowners. At thetime of thepresent examination(July, 1938) a small amount of surface work was beingdone by A. McDonald. The propertyhas been most recently described by Freeland(1933).

Several small surface workings have been dug in the hillside north from andimmediately above the cabin.

At an elevation of 2250 feet and 500 feet in a direction north 25 degreeswest from thecabin, a No. 1 cut S feetlong hasbeen dug on thewesterly side of the trail. Thiscut is ingreenstone; no cinnabar was exposed.Sixty feet and 75 feet easterly from this cut, two small pits havebeen dug in brown, alteredrock; no cinnabar was exposed.

At anelevation of 2380-feet,and, 1050 feet in a direction n'orth 12 degrees yest from the cabin, a short incline on the westerly-side of the trail has beensunk in a direction north 80 degreeswest 'on a 65-.degree slope. The floor of the incline follows a dolomite vein and slip which strike north 10 'degrees east and dip 60 degrees north-westward; the vein

- 52 - rangesin width from 2 inchesto 6 inches. The dolomite contains a fewspecks of cinnabar and realgar. A sampletaken acrossthe best 4-inch width of dolomiteassayed: Mercury, -nil. The rock is brown-weathering, ankeritized, tuff. The nextgroup of workings are close to an old black-- smithshop that is 130 feet above the old road up Criss Creek and1200 feet north 15 degreeseast from the last working at an elevation of 2540 feet.

At a place 75 feet south 10 degrees west from the blacksmith shop, theeasterly of two groups of pits, 50 feet apart, hasbeen dug in a 6-foot band of ankeritized rock which strikes .north-westerly up thehillside. This easterly group consj.sts of two .pits, an easterly or No. 1 and a westerly or No. 2 pit; they are 8 feet in diameter by 4 feet deep and are 4 feet apart in a westerlydirection. The No. 1 pit, exposes a zone 4 feet wide thatcontains numerous stringers of whi.te vein-dolomite and thin films of stibnite. A sampletaken across the 4-foot zone of dolomitestringers assayed: Mercury, nil; antimony, 0.9 percent. and a sample of stibnite-bearingmaterial from the dump assayed:Mercury, nil; antimony, 1.0 percent.

No. 3 pit, 50 feetwesterly from the last pits, and 6 feet in diameter by 3 feet deep,has been dug on a dolomi,e vein that strikes north 10 degreeseast'and dips 60 degrees westward and rangesfrom 2 inches to 6 incheswide. The vein- dolomite,but not the wall-rock. contains a fewminute grains of cinnabar. A 6-inchsample of thismaterial assayed: Mercury, 0.1 percent.

No. 4 pit, 2 feetdeep, is 25 feetwesterly from No. 3. A zone of brown-weathering ankeritized rock extends westerly from Nos. 1 and 2 pitsthrough No. 3 to No. 4 pit. No. 5 pit, 40 feetnorth-westerly from No. 3, is 3 feet in diameter by 3 feetdeep. It exposesgreenstone in theeasterly wall and ankeritizedrock containing a fewspecks of .realgarbut no cinnabarin the floor. Greenstoneoutcrop,s between No. 3 and No. 5 pits.

An adit has been driven in a direction north 43 degrees westas an open-cut for 6 feet, and as an adit for 8 feetfrom a point on the hillside at an elevation of 2625 feet and 11.30 feet in a direction south 60 degrees east from the blacksmith shop. Inthe roof, the adit follows a brecciated.vein, ranging from l inch to 4 inchesin width, that consists of fragments of greenstonesealed by vein-dolomite. At several places fracture-'planes in the ankeritized greenstone have beensealed ly specularhematite; these hematite stringers cut

- 53 - ankeritizedgreenstone, but are in turn cut by thedolomite

' . stringers.

A tight 3-inch dolomite vein containing no sulphides, crossesthe portal of theadit. A sample of it assayed: Mer- cury, g.The rock-formation of boththe cut and adit is massive greenstone tuff which has been slightly ankeritized in andclose to the brec'ciated vein.

Below the adit an open-cut 5 feet wide,elevation 2555 feet, has been driven westerly for 8 feet from a point that is 150feet south 45 degreeseast from the adit. A 1-inch dolomite vein crosses the cut at the face; no cinnabar was seen,ineither the vein or wall-rock. The rock in the adit is typical, brown ankeritized rock which appears to belong to an indefinite zonetrending north-westerly up the hillside to pits Nos. 1 and 4.

At a point 225 feet due west from the last cut, and at an elevation of 2540 feet,an adit has been driven north 37 degreeswest for 12 feet in massivediabasic greenstone.. The diabase is badlyjointed and films of hematiteoccur along the joints.

At a place 1200 feet duewest from the blacksmith shop and at an elevation of 2850 feet, an adit has beendriven,into the hillside in a direction north 55 degrees west for 12 feet, north18 degrees west for 27 feet and north GO degrees we.s.t fop 12 feetto the face. From theportal to the first turn at 12 feet, the adit is in drift and looserock, but from 12 feetto the next bend at 39 feet it follows a strongdolomite vein that is exposed ,in a combined open-cutand stripping.immediately above the adit. In this surfa,ce working the vein, rangingfrom 3 feet to 4 feet.inwidth, is exposed for 22 feet; butpasses into drift.at either end and in this length; the vein-dolomitecontains scattered grains and stringers of cinnabar. Two sampleseach across 42 inches of vein-dolomiteassayed,Mercury, =, and,one across 3 feet showing consider- ablecinnabar, assayed: Mercury, 1.7 percent.

The rock in the cut is brown-weathering, ankeriticrock. The vein in the drift below the open-cut is much narrowerthan on thesurface, the average widt.hbeing .only 3 inches. It lies 'in the hanging-wall of a strong fault that dips GO degreessouth-westward.. A sampletaken across a 3-inchwidth of vein-dolomiteat the second bend assayed:Mercury, a trace. The rock in the adit is massive,grey, ankeritized greenstone which is occasionally cut by hair-like stringers of vein- dolomite.

- 54 - Search was made, without success, in the company of Mr. McDonald, for a trench that was reported to beabout 1500 feet north-westerly from the last adit and at about 3200 feet elevation. However, it was reported to containonly brown- weatheredrock. It is to be notedthat the high bluffs ba- ginning at an elevation of approximately 3400 feet consis5 of Tertiary lavas; in this vicinity they are chiefly basalt.

For approximately half a mile up-stream from the cab:tn, outcropsare numerous in the bed of Criss Creek, beyond this, however, thestream flows in a gravel-bedand between gravel- banks. The outcropsin the half-mile stretch consist of ril- ternatin&exposures of varieties of greenstone and brown- weathering,ankeritized greenstoxe. As seenin scattered,, singlefissures with relatively unaltered greenstone, the ankeritizationspreads from a fissure, or fissures,into the rock on eitherside of thebreak. The numerous largeareas of such alterationrepresent either areas of intensefrac-cur- ing or areas in which alteration beginning in fissures has been. relatively widespread.

The relatively unaltered greenstone includes coarse di- oriteporphyry, and cuttingthis, fine-grain'ed andesite, and dacite dykes.

At a sharp bend in thecreek, 2200 feetup-stream from tho cabin, an outcrop in the north side of the river consists of a series of bedded rocksthat include, progressing.nor.:her- ly,from drift andgravel, 50 feet of ankeritizedchert-ilme- stonebreccia containing fragments of chert andlimestone; 10 feet of fine-grained tuff; 10feet of coarse-grainedtuff; 10 feet of laminatedblack to grey,crystalline limestone; 50 feet of massive fine-grained tuff; then into drift and gravel. Thesebeds strike north 60 degreeseast and dip 35 degree83 north-westward.

Upstream beyond thesebeds, brown-weathering, anlcer- itized rock outcrops in the bluffs easterly from the rive>- for an unknown distance.

There are no records of production from thisproperty.

CHMBOXTNEAU. Separateshowings, 1500 feeteasterly from and 2.500 feetsoutherly from Savonp. Station on the CanadianPacific Railway, w,ere examined (Fig. 2). No record of ownershipcould be found for these, but it was reported that the surface trenches were made by Jos. Charbonneau of Cloverdale, B. C.

- 55 - A stripping exposes a dolomite vein in a dry gulch that leadssouth-westerly into the hills immediately-south of Savona Station. The stripping is on thesoutherly side of thegulch at a point that is 1500 feetsouth-easterly from the Station. The stripping exposes' a brecciated vein 4 2 inches in width, strikingsouth 75 degreeseast and dipping 70 degreessouthward. The vein-matterconsists of rock-fragmentssealed by vein-dolomite;and the walls consi$t ofcrushed carbonatized greenstone. A sample takenacross the vein assayed: Mercury, -nil. A second cuthas been dug in the north-easterly bank of the gulch 8 feet above thestream-bed at a point that is 280 feetsouth-easterly up-stream from the last working.This cut is in the form of a bench that measures18 feet in a south- easterlydirecti.on and is 7 feet wide. The cut is entirely in sheared anddecomposed ro'ck, but had'evidently been dug to intersect the downward extension of a 5-footoutcrop of ankeritized rook lying 15 feet north-easterly up the hillside.

The well-washed rock-surfaces in the bed of the gulch indicate that the rock-formation is massive, bright green volcanic breccia.

A deeptrench has been dug at the edge of a field north of the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks east of Savona Station. The trench lies 5'0 feet aboveand 325 feet in a direction south 20 degrees east from a point on the railway tracks that.is 1500 feeteasterly from Savona Station. The trenchhas been dug 6 feet deep for 23 feet in a direction south 70 degrees east toward thebase of an 100-foot silt bluff. A brqociateddolomite veinthat ranges from 2 inches to 4 inchesin width, and dips 85 degreess.outh-ea,stward, crosses the middle of thetrench; no cinnabar was seen in it and a sampleassayed: Mercury, nil. .. Five feet from the westerly end of the trench, a vertical fracture-zone,that ranges from 2 inches to 4 inchesin width, strikesnorth 40 degrees east across the trench; and contains a strihger Of dolomitewhich ranges from 1/2 aninch to 1 inch in width. . 'No cinnabar was seen.

At the easterly end of the.trench, a tightbreccia-zone 6 inches in width, strikes north 45 degrees east across the trench, and contains a stringer of dolomiteranging from l/S of aninch to'l inch in width. .A sample of thisdolomite assayed:Mercury, nil, and a sanipletaken across the 6-inch breccia-zone,assayed: 'Mercury, g. The rock in this .trench is brown-weathering porphyry that

- 56 - has been highly altered to a denseaggregate of ankeritic car- bonateand a few residualaltered phenocrysts of feldsparand pyro'xene .

T.UWNA ME. Showingsone milewesterly from Tunkwa Lake were most recently covered by the Ridge and BullEorn mineral claims, owned by 'N. A. and Mrs. JaneFer- guson,but which lapsed September 15, 1937, and by the !l.. and Ciflnabar, ownedby J. B. and D. J. McDonald butwhich lapsed May 1, 1938. C_amsell describesthe occurrences under the name of Summit claims Bibliography). (see . ,. The showings, atan elevation of 3850 feet, lie 15.5 milessoutherly from Savona on theSavona-Merritt cut-off roadin an area that is known asthe Summer Range. The workingsare on the easterly side of, and adjacent to theroad. They lie 1000 feet northerly froman unnamed lakewhich is on the easterly side of the road and 1 mile westerly from the easterlyside of. Tunkwa Lake (Fig. 2). More specificallythe showings lie on the northerly and westerly,sides of some low 5 to 20-footknolls ofrange-land that fringe a pond measuring 300 feet 'in a northerly direction, and 200 feet in an easterly direction.

The mainshowings and workings are on the westerly side of a knoll 20 feethigh that trends southerly. Within a distance of 80feet, six'open-cuts and a shaft (filled.with water as of July,1938) have been dug on the westerly side of the knollalong a strong zone of sheared-rock. The shear-pla.nes strike south 15degrees east and dip 60 degrees north-eastward. The material in the shear-zone has been altered to a dense ankeritic rock' that weathers to a conspicuous brown colour. As shown by thedecrease in brown-weathering, this alteration decreaseseasterly Prom theshear-zone, so that 60 feeteasterly on the east side of the knoll the rock is much less' ankeritized. On the easterly side of the knoll the rock in the outcrop is still somewhat sheared; examination of this ma- terialindicates that the rock is a shearedtufP. Numerous hair-like stringers. of vein-dolomite traverse the .zone, n:ost of them parallelingthe shearing. Cinnabar was seenonly in thesouth end of a cut.at a point 20 feetsouth of the shaft.

The followingsamples were taken in the more or less con- nectedcuts on the westerly side of the hill; the distances are given as measuredsoutherly from the shaft:

- 57 - amp1 e DistanceSouth Description No . of Shaft Mercury

12 feet Across a 4-foot width of shear-zone, numerous stringers of dolomite.

20 feet Across a 4-foot width of shear-zone, numerous stringers of dolomite. A fewspecks of cinnabar seen here.

36 feet Across6-foot width of shear-zone..

72 feet Across3-foot width of shear-zone, numer- ousstringers of dolomite.

Smalloutcrops of brown-weathering,ankeritized rock may beseen in three low 5-foot knolls that skirt the southerly and easterlyside of the pond. A sample takenacross 25 feet of suchmaterial on the exposed northerly nose of a knoil lying 275 feet in a direction south 80 degrees east fromthe shaft,assayed: Mercury, x&, and a sampletaken across 5 feet of similar material on the nose of a small knoll lying 150feet north-easterly from the last, alsoassayed: Mercury, nil.

Thebrown-weathering, ankeritizedzone of rock,probably the zone of shearing,as seen in the main knoll, can betraced for half a mile southerly from the shaft by rock-fragmentsin the soil of the range; farther southerly along the projection of this zone no fragments of anykind are to beseen, because of pondsand muddy soil.

The nearestoutcrop o'f rock,other than that immediately around.theshaft, lies 900 feet south-westerly. In thisout- crop the rock consists of massive,very chloritic greenstone, cut by widely-spaced joint-planes that are filled by calcite stringer's--therehas been bo ankeritization of thisgreenstone. Elsewhere, the only rocks are basalt boulders lying on the range-land.

- 5% - At thetime of examination(July, 1938), the property was idle. However, at some shorttime previous, possibly the summer of 1937, a 12-inch by 20-inch by 9-feetretort (Plate IV A) made by thePacific Foundries, Limited, hadbeen erected closeto the shaft. The onlybuildings on the groundwere a shedhousing the retort, a tool-shed and a roof overthe shaft.

Thereare no records of productionfrom this property.

Yalakom RiverCinnabar Occurrences

The area including these occurrences is reachedby following the road from Lillooet. up the Lower Bridge-Yalakom. Rivers fora distance of 23 l/2 milesto Christy's ranch (Pre- emptionLots 3102-3) which lies beyond Moha post-office on the easterlyside of the Yalakom River. Prom thisranch a good pack-horse trail is followedup the eastern side of theYala- kom River for 3.6 miles, to the GoldenEagle tent camp-site on thewestern bank. At thecamp-site the river may becrossed by a good foot-log, or forded by the horses at short distances down-stream from the camp. An alternativeroute of compa.rable length follows up the western side of the Yalakom River'cegin- ning at the end of theroad at Baumgartin's ranch, which is acrossthe river from Christy's. The known occurrences cf cinnabarare covered bytwo groups of claims, (1) the Golden _" Eaffle group, lying mostly on the north-easterly side of the river, and (2) the Red Eagle, or MacInnes-Parkergroup lying on thesouth-westerly side. These twogr0up.s will be described separately.

The area, adjacent to the Yalakom Riverand both up-.stream anddown-stream from the Red Eagleand Golden Eagle workings, was prospected late in the autumn of 1939 by members of the Dominion-Provincial Youth TrainingProject "D", underthe direction of M. S. Hedleyof the British ColumbiaDepartment of Mines. Inhis report and accompanying plan(Fig. 5) Dr. Hedley describes the geology of this section of the Ya1ak:om Riverarea as follows:

"The rocks of theregion are, according to Geo- logical Survey',Canada, Memoir 130, 1922 on the Bridge: RiverMap-area, members of theEldorado series of Lower Cretaceous age on.the north-easterly side of the river and of theBridge River series ofCarboniferous age OP. thesouth-westerly side. Between theserocks is a prcm- inent band of peridotite,.not mapped' byMcCann. The structural relations between the two series are obscured.

"The rocksnorth-easterly of the river, provisiorally

- 59 - "all referab'le tothe Eldorado series, are predominantly sedimentary. Some volcanicbreccias and possibly some flow-rocksoccur in'the valley proper, but elsewhere they are sandy to shaly sediments and many are arkosic to conglomeratic. 'Adivision has been made for purposes of this report into three members, of which the boundar- ies are shown approximately on Pig. 5.

"In the valley proper are green and purple volcanic breccias,preponderantly porphyritic and including apparently some flow-rocks; in addition there are bands of fine- grained silty and argillaceoussediments and a little .limestone. To thenorth-east is a broadband of finely- granularsediments including some shale and some coarse sandstones and fineconglomerates. This member breaks down readily to fine talus and detritalcover. Theup- per member is characteristicallymassive, is greenish in colourand varies from fine arkose and sandstone to unsortedconglomerate. Stratification is onlylocally developed,and the massive character and resistance to weathering accounts for the fact that this rock type makes up the higher summits andridges from the head of Fcur- MileCreek, across BeaverdamCreek, to Yalakom Mountain.

"The peridotite body is too poorlyexposed to be wellstudied. It is stronglyserpentinized and appears to havebeen a peridotite of variable pyroxene content ratherthan a pyroxenite or dunite. It followsthe south-westerlyside of the river from at least a mile aboveBurkholder Creek to theBridge River, where it ap- parentlylies in thevalley bottom. The body is about 1 mile in width, and includes a local andminor amount of sedimentary rock.

"The large bodyof serpentinized peridotite contains severalinteresting exposures that were carefully searched for cinnabar,but none was found.These occur both easterly and westerly ofShulaps Creek and midway between thatstream andJunction Creek. They arerusty-weathering patches as much as 400 feet in apparentwidth, but since theyonly outcrop on short,steep slopes the actual size, attitude and continuityof each is not known, nor the possibility of continuitybetween some of them. The rusty col.our on weathering results from an alteration presumably the sane as thecarbonatization at theproperties.

"The rock is so alteredthat the original character canonly be determined by occasional'ghosts' of pyroxene. The whole is cutby many veins and stringers of white

- 60 - LEGEND Coursearkose 8 sandstone. fine conglomerate fine SI Sandstone,shale. grit. fine conglomerate ezl Greenstone breccia. argillite. sandstone. limestone R Serpentinizedperidotite BridgeRiverseries: sediments [IIII Mercury property showing X

WL P 3 -1 Scale -1 Miles

Fig. 6. Geology of the Yalakom River nrea after Id. S. Eedley.

- 61 - “dolomiteand a few veinlets of opal. Some veinlets Con- tain bothcarbonate and silicaand, locally, some silicification on a minutescale. The rock is whitishto flesh- coloured and tends to be patchy and flecked with green. No cinnabar was seen, and only a veryfew specks of what is apparentlystibnite.

“The rockssouth-westerly of the serpentine underly thehigh, heavily-timbered slopes of ShulapsMountains at elevations in excess of 5,000 feet, and werenot studied. They include, so far as known, slaty and schistosetypes atthe lower, observed elevations.

“The attitude of theBridge River series is not known, butthe serpentine body and theEldorado rocks strikeparallel to theriver. Dips inthe Eldorado series are steep north-eastward, with a fewminor flex-. ures and overturns. The axis of a syncline ofmajor importance is believed to exist on upperJunction Creek, but too little work was done to prove this point oon- clusively; certainly there is a localchange in general attitude.

“Patches of carbonatization were found at a number of localities on the north-easterly side of the river- valleyfrom Four-Mile Creek to Beaverdam Creek.These patches or zones are restricted almost entirely to the lower member of theEldorado series. The volcanicbreccia is, in addition, muoh fractured and finely and irregularly veined with carbonate but with no attendant alteration.Considerable petrographic study wouldbe necessary to describe fully or to classify these zones, andnone hasbeen attempted. Many are bedded, or follow some evi- dentlyfavourable horizon, but others, notably up-stream from the GoldenEagle, clearly cut the formation. The zonesappear for the most part to follow fractures or shear-zonesand somemay belocalized by dykes,but the degree of alteration makes determination of original rock-typesdifficult.

“No cinnabar was seewin any of these zones, all of which are characterized by carbonatization and the pres- enceof dolomite stringers and veins. Among the most prom- inentzones are those between the main laver fork of Four- MileCreek; both easterly and westerly of thatstream; on the summit of theridge betweenFour-Mile and Grouse Creeks; on the bluffs up-stream from the GoldenEagle property for 1 mile; on the easterly side of lowerJunc- tion Creek;and above the trail 1 milebelow Beaverdam

- 62 - "Creek. One zone infinely-granular sediFents on the north-westerly side of BeaverdamCreek, a milefrom the river, was traced 2,000 feet up the hillside, and another similar zone was searched on thehigh ridge corner in the south-easterly angle between the.same creek and theriver, but without success.

"Clearly the most favourable belt, and.that in whichmost carbonatizationoccurs, is heretermed the lower member of the Eldorado seriesas exposed. This belt occupies the main valley, largely on the north- easterly side below Junction Creek and wholly on the north-easterlyside belowFour-Mile Creek. Above Beavsr- dam Creek, at least for two or three miles, the north- ea,sterly side of the valley is one of very few outcrop.? and thefavourable belt appears in part to be narrower,, perhapstruncated by theserpentine. The leastfavour- able belt for the occurrence ofmercury in the area ex.- amined is the one of massivefragmental rocks which includes the high summits through the head of Four-Mile Creekand Yalakom Mountain. The intermediatebelt does not appear to contain many at all prominentcarbonate- zones, and is not deemed favourable owing to the incom- petentnature of theshaly to sandy,finely-fractured sediments .

"That belt of country lying north-easterly of the mainbody of Junction Creek is one of long slopes with veryfew exposures. The rocksclose to Junction Creek are grittysediments which, so far ascan be judged from a distance,are bedded nearlyparallel to the long slopes.

"In the Yalakom River area a definite belt of carbonate-zonesincludes the valley-bottom, the north-eastern valley-wall, and thesouth-western valley-wall to the known limits of theperidotite body.Farther north-easterly there are few indications of mineralization and.the rocksare not considered favburable. There appear to be no majorstructures such as folds that might tend to lo- calizefissuring and possibly to "trap" mercury.There is apparently a syncline'on %lie north-eastern side of up- perJunction Creek,but no evidence of mineralization in this vicinity; minoropen flexuresin several other localities do notappear to have influenced a localization of fracturing or of mineralization. :, "Zones of carbonatiiation within the favourable belt may all be found within a few days by' climbmg the summits adjaceEt to the river, and preliminary work is

- 63 - "greatly aided by the use of field-glasses. It is to be notedthat even the smallest zones and carbonate-veins produce a liberal amount of easily-recognizablefloat. The region does not appear to have been closely pros- pectedand is relativelyeasy to examine,one disadvant- age. being .the, scarcity of water. The favourable belt is believed to continue to the south-east on the high summits flanking the river."

,*.

The easterly valley-wall in the immediate vicinity of the showings consistsmostly of talus-slopes and draws sloping steeply at anaverage angle of 35 degreesto the river-bottom. Above the workings the valley-wall rises in a series of talusslopes and bare unsoalable.'bluffs to the top of the ridge. .Theelevation'of the top of the ridge is 5400 feet and that of theriver-bottom is 2400 feet; the elevation of theworkings is 2650 feet.

The GoldenEagle tent-camp is on the opposite or south- westerly side of the river and approximately 400 feet down- stream from a point in the river immediately downhill from the workings.

The rocks on the hillside in the vicinity of the showings on the north-easterly side of the Yalakom River consist of bothgreen and purple volcanic breccias overlain by sedi- mentsconsisting of sandyshale, limestone-lenses, and chert. The volcanic breccias strike north 60 degreeswest and dip from 30 to 60 degreesnorth-eastward. The overlyingsediments strike north 55 degrees west and dip 60 to 70 degrees north- eastward. The only intrusive seen was a greenstone sill in thesediments; no graniticrocks were observed.

The volcanic breccia has been altered at two horizons to two zones of dense,brownish-weathering, ankeritic rock; a lowerzone in the vicinity of theworkings and anupper one 2150 feet above, at an elevation of 3800 feet.'These zones are traversed by narrow stringers of white vein-dolomite.that extendinto the adjacent unaltered breccias. Afost of thecin- nabargrains seen are either in or adjacentto the dolomite veinlets.

- 64 - In. the immediate vicinity of the GoldenEagle workings therocks comprise volcanic breccia and an irregular zone of brown ankeriticrock, more or lessconformable to the attj.tude of the breccia; narrowbands of chert and tuffoccur above the workings. The exposedzone of ankeriticrock is lenticular in outcrop, the maximum- exposed width measuring approximately 380 feet on theslope of the hill'^ The workings are in a sma:Ll, triangular-shaped area of purple volcanic breccia that extends south-easterlyfrom its apex for 200 feet to end in.talus just east of No. 2 cut; at this place the width is 25 feet.This area represents a fragment of volcanic breccia still unre" placed by the solutions that have converted the rock above and belowand on the westerly end into brown-weathering,ankeritic rock.Easterly across the talus-slide the rock is volcanic breccia. ,

One hundredand fifty'feet above the workings the ariker- ite-zonecontains a series of well-beddedrocks striking .north 60 degrees west and dipping 40 degreesnorth-eastward. Begin- ning at the bottom, theseries includes 2 feet of greychert, 25 feet of ankeritized breccia, 8 feet of jasper.in 8-inch bands, 25 feet of purple and greenbreccia, 8 feet of green tuffs, and lastly,definitely-green volcanic breccia that extends up the hillside to the next ankeritic zone1000 feet above, as shown on Fig. 6. The intenseankeritization ends beneath the jasper beds-; the alteration of rocksabove these beds isvery slight. Thesebeds arecut anddisplaced about 5 feet by a fault trending up the gulch and dipping 40 degrees eastward. The rock is intensely ankeritized to a massive carbonaterock for 4 incheson either side of the fault-plane and contains a smallstringer of whitevein-dolomite. This alteration and mineralization indicates the nature of the processes involved .in the formation of the extensive brown-weathering ankerite-zones, namely a processinvolving a permeation of altering solutions from channels afforded by faults or by open-texturedrocks, into the surrounding rock. Apparently, therelatively open-textured, volcanic 'breccia, and this in varyingdegrees, wasmore permeab1.e to the altering solutions thanthe chert, jasper.or.tuff beds. The vagaries of replacement processes are responsible for.the irregular and lenticular shape of these ankerite-zones within the areas of volcanic breccia.

The lowerankerite-zone appears to be at the contact. of two bands of volcanicbreccia, a lower that weathers pred.om- inantly purple and an upper that weathers predominantly grey- ish-green. Tonguesand lenses of thepurple breccia within the ankeritic zone indicate that this zone lies within the purple rather than the greenish breccia, the preference 3,s'

- '65 - e* 00 e % "=&

LEGEND Vclcanic Breccia predominantly purple VolcanicBreccia predcminantly green Sediments,chiefly sandy shaleand chert Limestonebands Greenstone. sill Brown weathering,anker- -itic zones of alteration Surfaceworking x Area of cinnabar Occurrence

Fig: 6. Detailed @,ology in vicinity of Golden Eagle showings, Yalakom River.

probably related to a difference in the permeabilities of the two breccias.

A traverse was made up the hillside above the workings to the nose of the ridge thence northerly up the ridge-nose for 3,000 feet to the crest at 5,400 feet, and down to the river- bottom. The rock-types that wereencountered are shown on Fig. 6. At anelevation of 3,800 feet, a second or upper brown-weatheringankeritic zone occurs between green volcanic .~. . .. breccia and overlyings'ediments; the breccia is toomassive for a determination of attitude, but the sediments are well beddedand a general'strike of north 60 degree,swest and a. dip of 70 degreesnorth-eastward was observed. The zone of most intense alteration is about 200 feet thick and it ex-. tends approximately 1500 feetnorth-westerly and approxima.tely 500 feet south-easterly, 'the intensity of the alteration dy- ingout at eitherend. The sedimentsoverlying the zone were slightly-altered,ankeritic carbonate for a distance of 15 feet from thecontact. The greaterpermeability of the rock in the contact-zone between the volcanic breccia andover1.y- ingsediments probably aided in lc'calizing the intensity of ankeritic'alteration' in this second or upperzone. A few grains of cinnabarwere found in scme 1/4-inch veinlets of white vein-dolomite that occur in the lower part of the zone.

The sedimentsoberlying the volcanic breccia consist of sandyshale, a few lenses of limestone andwell-bedded chert. At an elevation of approximately4900 feet a greenstone sill 200 feet in thickness was seen.

As of August,1938, theworkings consisted of two open- cuts 280 feet above theriver. No. 1 cuthas been driven .at north 27 degrees east. for 22 feet to a 20-footvertical fticq in the easterly'wall of a smallnortherly-trending rack-d:?aw. The cut is entirely inpurple volcanic breccia. At distances of 6 feet and18 feet from the face, there are two stringer- zones, 2 feet and 4 feetwide respectively; they strike em- terlyacross the cut and dip 60 degreessouthward. These two zonesconsi.st of a few lenticular and discontinuousdolomite veinletsranging from 1/2-inch to 1 1/2 inchesin thickness. Cinnabaroccurs in these zones either as discrete grains and blebs within the doldmite stringers, or short criss-crossing, hair-likestringers of pure cinnabar. A sampletaken 6 fset from the face across a 6-inchbrecciated zone, sealed by #dolomiteand hairs of cinnabar,assayed: Mercury, 0.3 percent. ThFee sampleswere taken across a mineralized zone, 18 feet from theface. One, '.'takenacross .1 foot in the floor, assayed: Mercury, 1.0 percent.; .another, ta'ken on the easterly wall 2 feet above the floor and across a kidney oi' high-grade 6 inches by 12 inches,'as.sayod:. Mercury, 8.0 percent; and another taeen one foot aboveand northerly from the iast, assayed:Mercury, 0.'2 ,percent. .i No. 2 cut is 75 feetin,a direction south 35 degrees eastfrom No. 1. It is a shallowsidehill-cut extending 18 feet along the hi1lside.in.a south-easterly direction, the facealong this length ranges from 2 feet to 7 feet in height. Thiscut is also in volcanicbreccia, but the general outcrop .. - 67" has a brownish cast resulting from the formation of films of limonitealong the joint-planes in the rock. There is much lesscinnabar in this cut than in No. 1; k sample taken acrossthe only patch of cinnabarseen, a patchone foot in diameter,assayed: Mercury, 0.1 percent.

A third cut, very muoh smallerthan the others, has been made inthe slope-face, 50 feetwesterly from No, 1 cut.This cutmeasuring 5 feet along the slope by 2 feet up it, is in a thin band of volcanicbreccia only 2 feetwide. Only a few grains of cinnabarwere seen in this working.

At the time of examination of the property(August 9th toloth, 1938)one of the owners, Mr. Lands, was doing surface work.

There is no record of production from this property.

The Red. Eagle-group consists of the mineral olaims Red Eagle Nos. 1 to 21, originally staked in May, 1937, by Chas. J. Parker,and owned by Geo. L. Mac- v Innesand associates of Vancouver, B. C. The propertylies south-westerly across the Yalakom river from the , and is most conv'enientlyreached by the same I 5 ""

The topography is similar to that described for the eastern side of the valley where the mountain-side slopes steeply upfrom the river, but, as compared with the eastern side of the valley, the western side is covered with a much denser ,growth of evergreensand less talus-material.. The exposures are fewer until a point is reached that is 1,000 feet above the river; here the bushgives way to bare openrock-slopes. and terminates in a saw-toothridge of volcanicbreccia. The workings at an elevation of 2875 feet are 500 feet above the river: they are south 50 degrees west up the hillside from a point500'feet dm-stream from the Golden Eagle camp.Howev- er, at this point the slope is too bluffy to climb and the cutsare reached by a trail that leaves a campsite 2,140 feet down-stream and winds along the side-hill north-westerlyto thecuts.

The workingsconsist of four open.-cuts in purple, volcanic breccia; in most of the cuts the breccia is brownishand badiy decomposed.

Xo. 1 is the first cut met on the trail when climbing up from the river. It is only 2 feet wide and has been driven westward for5 feet into the slope. The rock is badly-frac-

- 68 - turedbreccia, but it containsneither dolomite veinlets r.0r ci.nnabar.

No. 2 cut is 22 feetnortherly along the hillside. ?:t is 3 to 4 feet wide and. has been driven westerly for 6 feet in- to the hill inbreccia. The onlyshowing of cinnabar was a 1/8 by 1/4 by2-inch bleb of cinnabar associated with some do1.o- mite. A sampletaken across this material assayed: Mercury, 5.4per cent. A sample taken in 1937 acrossthe face of this cut,containing at that time three hair-like stringers of cinnabar,assayed: Mercury, 1.3 percent.

No. 3 cut is 10 fe.et belowand north-easterly down the 45-degreeslope from No. 2. It is more like a small stripping than a cut, extending along the hillside for 5 feet with a 2- footface. No cinnabar was seen in thiscut.

No. 4 cut is 15 feet below No. 3 in a south-easterlydir- ection. It extends 8 feetalong the hillside with backs 3 feet high. k sampletaken across the 8-foot face in 1937assayed: Mercury, 1.0 percent. At thattime there were a fewspecks of cinnabarvisible, but in August, 1938, there was onlyone grain of cinnabar and a few dolomitestringers. A large sample of cinnabar-bearingrock from the dump taken in August, 1938, assayed:Mercury, 0.7 per cent.

Between Nos. 3 and 4 cuts,three diversely-oriented, 'tabular, brown, ankeritic-dolomiteveins, ranging from 3 inches to one footin thickness, cut the volcanic breccia; cinnabar was notvisible in these veins. The veinsrepresent intense ankeritization of the rockadjacent to fissures subsequently filled by white vein-dolomite.

No. 5 cut is 120 feet northerly along the hillside from No. 2. It has been driven 2 feet westerly into the hillside in decomposed purplebreccia. No cinnabar showed.

Three feetnortherly from this cut,,small one-foot outcrops of brown ankeritized volcanic breccia were scattered overan area 25 feetin diameter. No cinnabar was seenin theseoutcrops, but the area is worthy of notebecause it contained the only brown ankeritic rock seen on this hillside of a kind similar to that on the GoidenEagle claims acro.ss the river,

No, 6 cut is io0 reet northerly along the hillside from No. 5. This.cut exposes a rock-face 20 feetlong in a north- southdirection and 4 feethigh. The rock is purplevolcanic breccia that is irregularly cut Qy 1/4-inchdolomite .vein:lets;

- 69 - onlyone 1/16 by 8-inch film of cinnabar was seenalong a joint-plane in thebreccia. A sampletaken in 1937across 10 feet of the face and cutting more cinnabar films than were visiblein 1938,assayed: Mercury, 0.05 per cent. A large specimen of oremeasuring 2 inches by 3 inches by 6 inches, containing two films of cinnabar,one, lenticular, 1/16 inch by 3 inches, and a second, 1/8 inch by 2 inches,assayed: Mercury,2.3 per cent.

A traverse was made up the hillside from the workings to thetop of theridge at an elevation of 3650 feet. The exposuresdid not commence untilnear this point, and then werecontinuous along the bare ridge-top. The rock-formation was seento be exclusively volcanic breccia. The brecciasare cut by an occasional shear from which ankeritization has spread 'for a fewinches, resulting in conspicuous brown- weatheringveifis consisting mostly of ankerite, which are some- timescut by stringers of vein-dolomite. No cinnabar was seen in either the ankerite veins or the adjacent volcanic breccia.

At.thetime of examination,(August 10, 1938) workhad been temporarily ,suspended on the property.

' There are no records of production.

BridgeRiver Occurrences

The kn.own occurrences in the Bridge River area are those upTyaughton Creek. They include those at the' Dnpire(Manitou) Mines,Limited, between Relay and Mud Creeks, and at the Con- ardonMines, Limited, approximately 6 miiesnorth-westerly from'TyaughtonLake. Cinnabar occurs in small amounts on claims owned by Messrs.Phillips and Lorntzsen in the vicinity of MercuryCreek, a smell westerly-flowingtributary of Tyaugh- ton Creek'.

EMPIRE MERCURY This company withoffices in 1021Hall MINES, LIMITED Building,Vancouver, B. C:, formerly known (X. P. L. ) as the ManitouMining Company,owns the fol- .. lowingmineral claims: Rose Nos. 1 to 5 inclusive, mgNos. 1 to E,inclusive, and Brier Nos. 1 to

II]., inclusive. These claims staked in 1932by Ben Cromer, lie between Nud Creek on the eas-t and Relay Creek on the west, close to the junction of these creeks with TyaughtonCreek. The camp is on a bench at an elevation of 3,880 feet on the south-easterlyside of anaapproximately 100 feet above Mud Creek.

Most of the workings are on. a steep open hillside on the A. Old Scott furnace at Copper Creek B. Empire Mercury Mines, Limited, showing mill cinnabar property. building, ground-sluiced trenches Nos. 3 and 3A (middle foreground) and portals of edits Nos. 7 and 2 (left centre). PLATE IV

A. Small D-retort at Tunkwa Lakecinnabar property, showing flues from condensers (outer stacks) and flues from fire-box (inner stacks).

B. ill building of Empire Mercury Mines Limited, housing 10-ton Gould rotary.kiln. opposite or north-westerly side of Mud Creekbetween elevations of 3,780 feet and4,300 feet.(Fig. 7 and Plate I11 B) This hillside which is grassy and in steeper places partly coveredby talus, slopes westward and south-westward into Mud Crreek. Rock-formations areonly moderately exposedand the depth of theoverburden is as much as 15 feet in places.

The property is reached by a recently-constructed motor- road, 16 mileslong, that leaves the Bridge River road at a point1.7 miles east of Mint0 City.

The workingscomprise four main adits, several shorter ones, a 180-footraise and several long ground-sluiced trenches(Fig. '7): the latter havelargely sloughed and rock- exposureshave been covered by sandand gravel.

In additionto the usual mine-buildings and a camp to ao- commodate approximately thirty men, thepresent company constructed a 10-ton Gould rotary-kiln in 1938.

The deposit consists of mineralizedshear-zones within purpleamygdaloidal and green even-grained lavas. The best mineralization is confined to twomain shear-zones which strike north-westerly and'range from a few inches to 10 feet between main slip-walls.Assays are shown .on Fig. 7.

The rocksconsist of interbeddedribbon-cherts, slates and lavas,intrusive serpentine, massive arkosic sandston.e, and felsite dykes or sills. The cherts,slates and lavas have been intensely folded and the beds are very contorted and usuallyhave very steep dips, the massive sandstone and interbedded shaly material have a more uniform attitude and usually gentler dips.

Ribbon-chert is the most prevalentrock-type, occurring in all theivorkings and outcropping in various places. It is interbedded with lava in many places and with a bed of slate that occurs in No. 2 adit and alsooutcrops above the adi.t. The rock consists of bands of white to greycher-t or oherty quartzite that range from.1 inch to 3 inches in width;these bands are occasionally separated from e8.ch other by a parting of greenish-grey or black argillaceous schist ranging from 1/16 to 1/4-inch inthickness. The beds arerarely unifcrm in strike and dip; they are more commonly oontorted or curved so that the strike and dip records tend to be confusing.

3 Concerning the origin of the chert, Cairnes (see- Bibli- ography),believes that it is a chemicalprecipitate that. was depositedfrom siliceous solutions which emanatedfrom tk.e as-

- 73 -

.. sociatedvolcanic rocks and in partfrom submarine siliceous springs.

Slateoutcrops in a smallarea that lies immediately north-westerly from the collar of the shaft andoccurs under-

~ ground in No. 2 adit near station 216.Although overburden obscuresactual contacts at the surface, and onlyfault-con- tactsappear underground, the occurrence of chert-outcropson either side of the slate-area and of a 4-fOOt band of chert in contact with slate on either side, indicates that the slate is interbeddedwith the chert. The indicatedthickness of the slate is approximately80 feet.

The slate is dark-grey,fine-grained, and breaks with a glossy,slaty cleavage into tabular s,labs of rock. It probably representsargillaceous material deposited more or less contem- poraneously with the ribbon-chert and lava.

Both purple and green lavas are widely distributed through- .outthe.workings; they are second in order of abundance to the chert, andinasmuch as they form thehost-rock for thecinnabar, perhaps first in importance.

The lavas are interbedded with the ribbon-chert and took partin the same intensefolding. Individual beds of lava rangefrom 3 feet to possibly 100 feet in thickness.

Thereare twomain rock-types, a purple lava that is amygdaloidal and anapple-green lava that is fine,even-grained and contains small blackinclusions of.chilled lava approximately '1/16-inch in maximum dimension;both types are andesitic in composition.

These two types have been separately mapped, but their contacts are very irregular, and often times one lava contains faultedlenses of theother. The stratigraphicrelation of the one lava to the other is therefore not clear.

Incontrast to the green lava, the purple lava is hard andmassive, both on thesurface and underground. It is usually fine-grained andcontains conspicuous amygdules of calcite rangingfrom 1/16- to 1/32-inch in diameter. The matrix for the amygdules consists of a felted mass of abundantfeldspar microlites with an interstitial groundmass of decomposition products,. of which magnetite .is the most abundant .mineral. Some phases,seen in an outcropnear the "Old.Tunne1,"tend to beextremely dense and where sheared, quite shaly;.this probably represents the rapidly-cooled part of a flow.

- 74 -

The greenlava is usualiycoarser-grained, less massive and more frequentlysheared than the amygdaloidal. As a result, outcrops of this rock tend to be rotten and to decom- posereadily. The unweatheredrock is apple-greenin colcur, particularlyunderground, and'contains conspicuous.black angularfragments of chilledlava. It is highlyaltered so that thin-sections usually consist of an indefinite aggregate of chlorite, carbonate and clinozoisite;considerable leucoxene was seen in one slide. The angularblack fragments of includ- edlava consist of a very finely-felted mass of chloritic laths. The greenlava'is more highlysheared than the amygdaloidal and for that reason served to a greater extent as a host-rock for' the cinnabar.

Both lavasprobably represent flows poured out in periods that alternated with those during which the beds of ribbon.- chert were being deposited.

Serpentineoccurs in Nos. 2, 7 and 3A adits, and alsoout- cropsoutside the present map-area. Widths of serpentine as intersected by theseworkings range from 20 feet to 125 feet.

The serpentineappears to be intrusive into the surround- ingchert and lava. The contactsare always strongly-faulted and crushing and shearingare very abundant. 1n.No. 2 adit beds of chert wereseen that'were bent upwardstowards the serpentine, as if inresponse to upthrusting during emplacement of the'serpentine mass. Emplacement by intrusionhas been as- cribedto the serpentived rocks, President intrusives, of the BridgeRiver area, by Cairnes: Walker and Cockfield,also sug- 'gested that some of the serpentines may be intrusive (E Bibli- ography). As explainedabove, the present writer believes that theserpentine on this property is anintrusive.body.

The serpentine is -glossy,greenish-black in colourand massive, ht badly fractured and where not timbered, the walls of theworkings slough-badly. The rook is completely ser- ' pentinized and all traces of its originalnature have been destroyed.

Felsiteoccurs in.and outcrops above No. 3 A adit,and alsooutcrops in a large area in the vicinity of No. 9 adit. The various'occurrences indicate the presence of at least three differentbodies in the map-area, one, in No. 3 A adit, a second, immediatelysouth-west of the "Old Tunnel"and a third north and .eastfrom No. 9 adit.

.The general distribution of the outcrops and nature o:? theoccurrences in No. .3 A adit suggest sill-like relations

- 77 - tothe enclosing rocks. However, inthe vicinity of No. 3 trench felsite is in slip-contact with beds of chert which strikedirectly towards the felsite. The outcrops of felsite that lie both immediately north from and east from No. 9 adit are hummocky and occasionallyhave adhering fragments of dense rocksimilar to lava. These outcrops are believed to repre- sentthe upper surface of anintrusive sill.

The onlyestimate of thicknesses of the sills that could be made is in No. 3 A adit, where the felsite occurrences indicate a thickness of approximately 5 feet.

The felsite is light-grey andt,hose occurrences within the map-area arefine, even-grained in texture; porphyritic felsite was seen in outcrops south-easterly across Mud Creek.

A comparativelyfresh-looking andesite dyke, or sill, 4 feet thick, occurs adjacent to the northerly contact of the .serpentinein No. 2 adit. The rock is characterized by ande- sinephenocrysts, a few glisteningphenocrysts of biotite and hornblendeset in a fine-grainedgroundmass.

Arkosicsandstone occurs in two mainareas., one area, comprising a north-westerly-trending "hogback"immediately south-westerly from and parallel to No. 4 cut, and a second area, in No.,2 cut andimmediately north-easterly from it.

The outcropsindicate a possiblestratigraphic thickness of approximately 30 feet for the first area, and a minimum of approximately 120 feet for the second.

Tlie sandstone is grey in colour and medium to even- grainedin texture. It consists of angulargrains of quartz and andesiticlava-fragments all closely packed in a brown, decomposed, textureless matrix; it may be a tuff rather than a sandstone.

Some of thesandstone-outcrops contain bands of finely- laininatedshale, which range from 1 inch to 25 feet in width withinthe massive tuff. .The sand.stone is toomassive to show bedding-planessufficiently well-defined for dip and strike determinations,but the finely-laminated shale serves very well for thispurpose.

Drag-foldsand bedding-plane faults occasionally occur withinthe shale bands.

The relationship of the arkosic sandstone to the other rocks is uncertain. The abundance of shearingin the vicinity

- 78 - of the contacts betweewlava and the north-easterly area of sandstone,Suggests a fault-contact between these tworock-. types.Scarcity of outcropsand lack of bedding in thevi-. cinity of the south-westerly body prevents a determination of the relation of this body of sandstone to the other rock- types.

The rocks in the map-areahave been intensely folded, particularly.the cherts,and lavas whichhave been partly folded intosteeply-oppressed isoclinal folds. Steep dips and overturning of foldsprevail, but the extreme complexity of thefolding, lack of definitestratigraphic markers, and particularly the widespread faulting to which the area has been subject-d, have prevented thecomplete interpretation of the folding and the projection of folds for any distance.

The rockshave been displaced and sheared by minor becl- ding-plane faults within the lavas and the cherts and by major faults which follow the lavas, and may or may not follow bedding-planes.

The bedding-planefaults occur chiefly at the contacts between the lava and chert and give rise to single-slip contacts or to contacts of crushedand sheared rock between the two. The fault-material is seldomvery thick, ranging from a mere film of gouge to crush-zones 6 inchesthick. 'Zhere the chertcontains any quantity of argillaceous material as partings, folding has resulted in considerable slippage within the argillite, so that sections of suchrock consist of chert &.nd slickensjdedcarbonaceous material.

Two zones of major faulting traverse the rocks within the map-area. The first is in No. 2 adit where a zone of intense faulting and crushing extends along the drift adjacent to the raise, and continuesacross into the main drift from station 212 past 214 and intothe wall near station 218.This fault branches at station 212 (Fig. 7) the mainbranch contin- uing as first described and the minor branch going north- westerlypast stations~ 213, 215 and 216 (Pig. 7). The secc,nd fault-zoneoccurs in numbers 5 and 3 A adits. In No. 5 adit it crossesthe drift nearthe winze at station 504 (Fig. 7), and its apparentcontinuation is found in No. 3 A aditextending easterly and south-easterly from station 305 past 308 t:o 31.1 (Fig. 7). A parallelfault extends from station 306 to 310(Fig. 7) inthe same working.

The faults are zones of extremeshearing which range from 6 inchesto' 10 feetin tnickness. The zones of crushingare localized in green lava rather than in the ribbon-chert.

- 79 - Zones of faulting'and of shearedrock, not necessarily related,to the previously-described faults, occur in the rock- types,adjacent 'to the serpentine'occurrences. Thesezones of faulting wereprobably formed as a result of the intrusion of the .serpentine..

A raise has beeh driven'from near station 209 (Fig. 7) in No. 2 adit through to thesurface, a distance of approximately 180 feet from the floor of the adit.'Nell-mineralized lava canbe seen in the raise at 10 feet and 35feet from NO. 2 adit; timbers prevented thorough examination of the walls of the raise, but it is reportedthat well-mineralized rock Bx- tends from No. 2 adit for 78 feet up theraise: a small amount of cinnabar was seenat 100 feet up.Taking into consi.deration the south-westwarddip of the main slip-planes in the rtineral- izedfault-zone that extends north-westerly in No. 2 adit from station 209,. it is probable that at elevations in the raise above35 feet from the floor of the adit, the main fault-zone and therefore the main mineralized zone, lies to the north-east of the raise; the last intense faulting was seen on the35-foot landing. On thislanding the well-mineralized rock ranges from a width of 10 feet between fault-walls on the north-westerly end to.18 inches in the south-westerly race approximately 25 feetdistant. Bad groundprevented sampling thismaterial. At the60-foot landing no cinnabar was visible.

Cinnabaroccurs (1) chiefly in the shear-planes of the lavaassociated with the fault-zones, (2) lessabundantly as 3/8 to 1/2-inchkidneys of mineral in themiddle of calcite veins 1/4 to 1 inch in thickness,(3) only occasionally as discrete grains within the rock-mass.

Both pyrite and calcite are commonly associated with the cinnabar;but in most casesthe cinnabar is laterthan both these minerals. . A small amount of nativemercury was found by the writer in the winze in No. 5 adit. .In addition to the cinnabar-c,alciteveinlets. quartz-calcite, and chlorite-calcite veinlets occasionally occur in the lavas.

The above minerals are absent in all the other rock- types,none of which,excepting the serpentine, having been sheared sufficiently to providethe.fracture-planes apparently necessary for the mineralizing solutions.

The.ore-bodies are the more heavily mineralizedparts of theshear-zones within the lavas, and in some instances, sections of lavasadjacent to these'. Apart from the localization of thegeneral cinnabar-mineralization by theshear-zones, theredoes not appear to beany local structural control over

- 80 - theoccurrence of thehigher-grade sections. .Delimitation of these for miningpurposes can only be done by extensive sampling and then only approximately.

Cinnabar is found. in all theunderground workings. The areas of mineralization and ,representative assays are shown on Fig. 7. The areas or zones of bestmineralization occur (1) in No. 2 aditextending north-.westerly from the raise to station 218, a distance of' 200 feet, and extending upfard:; to . the 35-foot landingin theraise, and ranging in width from 18inches to 10 feet, (2) in No. 5 aditextending from station 501 north-westerly for approximately 70 feet to station 503 and approximating 6 feet in width,(3) in No. 3 adif, two parallel zonesextending easterly from stations 306and 305 to nearstation 310, a distance of EO feet and approximating 5 feeteach in width. Areas outside these main mineralized shear-zonescontain cinnabar, but in widely-scattered and verysmall amounts.

The samples taken by the writer and extensivesampling done by the company, indicate that the amount of material averaging0.5 per cent. or more in mercury, in theseshear- zones is small. The onlybetter-grade material seen by the writer was. in the raise on the 35-foot level, where it ex-. tendedalong the back for 25 feet andranged from 18 inches to10 feet in thickness. It is understoodthat mostof the material which was run through the furnace came from this vi oinity.

Production has consisted of 10 flasks of mercury from a Gould 10-ton, oil-fired rotary-kiln erected in the autumn of 1938. The plant(Plate IV B) operatedduring the autumnand winter of 1938,but closed down in February, 1939. Fifty'tons of? brokenore is reported to be available in the ore-bins and ore-chutesas of June 23, 1939.

The property has been inactive and in charge of a watch- man sinceFebruary, 1939.

CONARDON MERCURY The ConardonMercury Mines (office al; MINES. 615 'West PenderStreet, Vancouver) owns theLillomer Nos. 1 to -6 group of mineral claims.

The 'property is situated (see Frontispiece) on thesouth- westwardslopes of the divide betweenPearson and TaylorCreeks, at elevationsranging from approximately 6,000 feet to 7,000 feet. The workingsare reached by approximately 6 miles of good pack-horse trail that leaves the Tyaughton Lake road

- EL - close to the southerly end of that lake andproceeds north- westerly on a good gradeto the property. The workingsthem- selves are reached by a trail that branches from this main ’ trail,at approximately 5 miles,at an old cabin that is situated adjacent to and on the southerly side of the trail. The branch-trailleads north-easterly up a series of good switchbacks for a distance of approximately 1 mile in the open; alpinecountry to the workings; the main trail goes westerly and north-westerly past the cabin and eventually to thenorthern slope of Taylorbasin.

The workingsare on andabove timber-line; open, alpine meadows, &all clumps of dwarf-balsam and spruce and rocky ridgescharacterizing the slopes. The workingsconsist of severalopen-cuts in and on the north-easterly side of a south- easterly-trending draw,which leadsinto a much largersouth- westerly-trendingvalley. An adit, now caved,has also been driven northerly from a point in the bottom of the draw.

At the time of the writer’s visit to the property (June 25, 1939),the draur was almostfilled with deep, packed snow and thesurrounding area with 5 inches of freshly-fallen snow. The followingdescription of theworkings is, therefore,taken from a report made by V. Eardley-Wilmot for the Department of Mines,Ottawa, dated October 3, 1938; thedate of the examina- ’ . tionbeing August 19, 1938:

“The rocks are mainly quartzite, greenstone, and argillite. The main workings are on one side of a shallow’dry ravine and consist of four cuts in a zone of greenstonewhich overlays quartzite. These cuts cover a length of about100 feet and a vertical distance of about 20 feet.

“No cinnabar was noted in the top three cuts, the highest.ofwhich is partly in argillite, but in the lowest and most southerly. cut traces and veinlets carrying themine’ral were seen. A few tons of selectedore from thelatter cut hsve been piled up to one side. As is evidencedfrom this’dump, a calcite vein of highgrade ore, in places up to l/Z-inch of solidcinnabar, must havebeen encountered.and goodhand specimenscan be se- lected. However, it appearsas if this wereonly a local concentration since ‘the veinlets actually no1.v in place are very thin andlean: Also; on this dump there ‘is a considerable amount of reddish-brownand streaked rock. Thisappears as if it hadbeen erroneously set aside as being cinnabar.

- 82 - "Justbelow, an adithas been driven for a distance of about 90 feet under the above cut. A littlecross- cutting and raising has been done at the end of this adit. Only the faintest trace of mercury was noted in the un- dergroundworkings, but in any case this work is in quartzite and below thegreenstone which appears to dip fairly flatly to the south-west.

"On the gently sloping soil andgrass-covered ground to the east of the aboveworkings, a number of scattered trench'es and small pits havebeen made, exposingaltered greenstone and argillite. All theseopenings were examined,but cinnabar was not found inany of them.

"Nine or tenyears ago, a small retort was erected about 1,000 feet below theworkings. Very little ore was putthrough. There are a considerable number of unas- sembled tiles and pipes still lyingabout.

"The developmentwork to date indicates that cinnabaroccurs in calcite veinlets towards the lower cont,act of a comparatively small zone of flatly dipping altered or shearedgreenstone, and that these veinlets are erratic as they may be strong in oneround of drifting and almostcompletely disappear in the next.

"Severalsmall creeks cross the trail a f&l hund- redfeet below the aboveworkings. Gravels from these werepanned and almostin every case colours of cinnabar were found .

"It is likely,therefore, that cinnabar-bearing zon'es occur somewhere to the south and south-east of the presentworkings, and notvery far from them. Such ore probablyoccurs within greenstone bodies, particularly near their contact with quartzite.

"Intensivepanning and following up the above is recommended ratherthan continued development of the smallore zone of thepresent workings."

PHILLIPS' CINNABAR Edwin Phillips of Minto Cityhas staksd SHOWINGS. and owns (as of October, 1939) the Ci:?- " nabar Nos. 1 to 4, the Tyax Nos. 11 a:?d

"12 and the Sandy Nos. 2 to -8 mineral claims in Tyaughton Crb3ek Valley.

The claimscover ground that lies on the easterly side of TyaughtonCreek and extends southerly from Mercury Creek,,

- 83 - a tributary flowing westerly into TyaughtonCreek (see Front- ispiecej. The Fhillipscabin is at anelevation of 3,085feet on theupper or easterly side of theroad at a pointapproxi- mately 2,000 feet southerly from the MercuryCreek-crossing. The property may be reached by motor-road from Mintc City by following the Tyaughton Lake road up TaughtonCreek; the distance from Minto City to Phillips' cabin is approximately14.5 miles..

The hillside in the vicinity of the showings is steep butthe slopes are open, grassy or talus-coveredand except for a fewoutcrops, are covered with a thin mantle of overburden.

Severalsmall ,open-cuts and one short adit have been dug by E. Phillipsin prospecting for cinnabar on hisclaims.

At a place1,500 feet southerly from the cabin, Phillips hasdriven an open-cut in a directionnorth 15 degrees east for 25 feetin fine-grained, diabasic greenstone. Towards the face of the cut the rock is cut by three north-easterly-striking andnorthrard-dipping crush-zones, which range from 1/2 to 2 inches in width and contain a little carbonate and stibnite, but no cinnabar. Iiowever, grains of cinnabar and realgaroc- curdisseminated through the massive greenstone. A sample takenacross 1 foot of suchmaterial assayed: Mercury, nil; arsenic, nil.

Severalcuts have been dugabove or north-easterly from Phillips'cabin.

At a point 100 feet aboveand north 75 degreeseast from thecabin, a cuthas been driven north-easterly for 5 feet into feldspar-porphyry. No cinnabar was seenin this cut.

At a point185 feet above and north 75 degreeseast from the cabin a cut has been driven in a direction north 80 degrees east for 18 feet,mostly through a mixture of soil and talus.Sheared argillite and ribbon-chertoccur in the face. No cinnabar was seen in this cut.

At a point 360 feet aboveand north 75 degreeseast from thecabin, a cut, 6 feet to 10 feet in width,has been driven in a directionnorth 75 degreeseast for 18 feet. For a distance of 14,feetfrom the rrouth, thecut exposes sheared, decomposed lava, and forthe remaining 4 feetto the face, sheared argillite andbroken ribbon-chert. All therocks are badly shearedand contorted. The contactbetween the lava and the argillite and chert strikes north 10 deyees west and dips 60

- 84 - -- ..

degreeseastward. Of therocks, only the lava contains any cinnabar.This occurs as thin sheets along the shear-planes and asrimming-material around 1/4-inch carbonate-quartz amygdules in ucshearsd parts of the lava. A 3-footsample of lava taken outwardfrom thecontact assayed: Meroury, nil, and a 5-fOOt sample taken as a continuation from this, outward,assayed:Mercury, 0.03 per cent. A sample of high-gradeore from the dump assayed: Mercury,0.47 per cent.

At a point on the easterly side of the road 800 feet northerly from Phillips’ cabin an adit has been driven in a directionsouth 82 degreeseast for 20 feet. The adit-section of the working is across sheared argillite and ribbon-chert: the general strike of both the shearing andbedding being north 30 degreeswest and the dip vertical. Theopen-cut leading up to the portal of theadit exposes purple, amygdaloidal lava. No cinnabar was seen in any of theserocks.

LORNTZSEN MERCURY EgilLorntzsen has prospected ground in SHOJfINGS. thevicinity of theroad and the bed of MercuryCreek (for locationrefer to description of Phillips’cinnabar showings) for cinnabar. In only one cut has he found more than the odd speck of cinnabar. This cut is on the east side of the road at a point 330 feet southerlyfrom the Mercury Creek-crossing. The cuthas been driven 5 feetnorth-easterly across sheared purple volcanics; this shearedrock contains a few thin films of cinnabaralong theshear-planes, a sampletaken along 5 feet on thesouth- eastside of thecut assayed: Mercury, &.

AlberniCanal

The onlyoccurrence near Alberni Canal is on the north side and known asthe Sechart property.

SECHART MERCURY Thisproperty consists of theSechart PROPERTY. Crown-grantedmineral claim known as Lot No. 3, in the ClayoquotMining Division, Albernidistrict. The assessed owners are: MercuryMines, Limited, 212 BelmontHouse, Victoria;Canadian auicksilver Company, Limited, 2551 Alma Road, Vancouver:Caples and Shan- non,Rogers Building, 470 GranvilleStreet, Vancouver.

The existence of mercury at Sechart seems to havebeen known asearly as 1890 for the Annual Report,Geological Sur,- veyCanada, 1890, p. 65-R, containsthe following statement: “Nativemercury has been met with, in situ, in the form of minute globules scattered through a thin seam of cinnabar traversing a greenishfelsite, occurring at the entrance to

- 85 - SeshartChannel, Barclay Sound, Vancouver Island,British Columbia. "

A 'claim covering the ground was Crown-grantedunder the name Secharton March 30, 1892. By 1911considerable development-workhad beendone on the showings,staked at that time as the Balmoralgroup.. The groundappears to havebeen re- Crown-granted in 1921 underthe name Sechart,and it hasre- mained so until the present.

The property seems to have lain more or less idle until 1927, when it was acquired by the MercuryMines, Limited, in- corporatedin October of that year.

In 1928, theholdings of MercuryMines, Limited, were acquired by the CanadianQuicksilver Mines, Limited, incorporated in August of thatyear. In 1929, some deveiopmentwork was doneunder the direction of J. Boss.There is no officialre- cord,but the present shaft appears to have been sunk either in 1929 or shortly thereafter.

The remains of whatappears to havebeen the foundation of an old retort and a considerable quantity of carbonaterock aroundthese remains, were seen by thewriter. However, no officialrecords of production can be found.

The property i.s on thenorthern shore of Barclay Sound on thewestern coast or" Vancouver Island. An old camp, consisting oftwo buildings in a bad state of repair, still exists at a point on the shore on the easterly side of the mouth of a smallstream. This stream empties into Barclay Sound approximately three-quarters of a mile south-easterly from the oldwhaling-station that comprises Sechart; the whaling station andaccompanying buildings have long since been abandoned. Sechart may be reached either on Mondays or r'ridays by a mail- boatthat runs between PortAlberni and Ecluelet; or bylaunch fromBamfield on the southerly side of Barclay Sound.

The workings are approximately three-eighths of a mile .back from the camp, and are on the eastern side of the same stream. They may bereached by followingan old shingle-bolt roadfrom the camp for approximately a quarter ofamile back from the beach and thence by a branch'of this road that follows the main stream for the remainingdistance. Near the beach thisold road is .very badlyovergrown by raspberry and large salal bushesand tmard the workings by a densegrowth of thimbleberrybushes; the way is not only difficult to follow, but the road hard to find.

- $6 - The ground is relatively flat betweenthe beach and the workings;but behind or northerly from them, it begins to rise steeply towardthe hilltops approximately 1 112 miles inland.Immediately down-stream from theshaft-working the banks of the.creek are low and consist entirely of sand and silt, but up-stream the creek-valley is deep,rocky and can- yon-like. Down'-stream from theshaft only sinking is possible, but.up-stream, adits can be driven into the creek banks, a:.- thoughthe amount of backswould be but little more than 100 feet for a distance of at least 1,000 feetup-stream.

The workingsconsist of several adits and a shaft as shown on Fig. 8. h shortdistance up-stream from No. ,5 adfit, two short adits and oneopen-out have been driven; the adits wereinaccessible at the time of the writer's examination.

In the immediate vicinity of the workings the rocks consist of andesitic.greenstone,gabbro and both carbonatized and silicifiedphases, presumably, of thegreenstone. Quartz- diorite lies,north-westerly of thegreenstone; the contact between the tworocks lying approximately 400 feet north-westerly of No, 5 adit and striking in a general north-easterly Clir- ection. Traversesnorth-westerly indicate that the width of the quartz-diorite mass in the vicinity of this property is approximately 1 mile. Where observable,the area of contact between the quartz-diorite and greenstone consists of badly- . . brecciatedgreenstone, veined by graniticmaterial. This i'ea- ture is particularly noticeable along the beachbetween the creek that flows into the ocean at the old camp-site and the old whaling-station, up the creek-bottom up-stream from the workingsand north-easterly for approximatelyhalf a mile, It may be noted that the quartz-diorite-greenstone contact crosses the creek in a north-easterly direction approximately a quarter of a mile up-stream fromthe workings.

The andesiticgreenstone, in the vicinity of.the workhgs andwhere unsltered, is a massive,dark-green rock possessing a uniform,fine-grained texture.

The gabbro is a similarlymassive, dark-green rock but it possesses a verycoarse-grained texture. Under themicroscope thegabbro is seento consist of coarse,calcic plagicl- clase and coarsehornblende; both minerals have been badly-. sericitized and carbonatized.

The quartz-diorite, as seen up-'stream from the workings and for 1 milenortherly is light in colour and fine-grained; thequartz-diorite outcrops probably belong to a relatively small.intrusion rather than to one of batholithic proportions

- 87 - 5 6 7 8 9

iEGEND Andesitic greenstone Lmmo Gabbro rn

Fig. 8. Plan of workings at Sechart cinnabar property.

Ankeritizedgreenstone, which will be referred to as carbonate-rock, is a massive,fine- to medium-grainedrock that possesses on theweathered surface a conspicuousbuff- brown colour,but on freshsurfaces a light-greycolour; the brown colour on weatheredsurfaces is due to oxidation of iron in theankeritic carbonake. Carbonate-rock occurs: in Nos. 2, 3 and 5 adits,in outcrops along and in the bed of thecreek, andextends north-easterly about 300 feet beyond No. 5 adit, then apparently dies out.

Silicifiedgreenstone occurs in No. 2 adit. It is a massive,dense, cherty rock, consisting of abundantfine- grainedquartz and carbonate and a little chlorite as relict material from the original greenstone.

The rock in No. 1 adit is badlysheared and decomposed. The rock is fine-grained, and shaly,because of olosely-spaced shear-planes. It consists of abundant yellow-green to colour- lesschlorite and kaolin, and limonite. The decomposition is dueonly in part to alteration by surfacewaters. Alteration by mineralizing solutions proceeding from the numerous shear- ?lanesin this sheared mass is consideredlargely responsible for the decomposed nature of this rock.

The rocksare cut by four main fault-zones, one in No. 1 adit, a second in No. 2 adit, a third in No. 4 and a fourth in No. 5. The locations and attitudes of thesefaults are shown . - 88 - on Fig. .8.

The fault-zone in ,No. 1 adit is the full length of the aditin width. The material is notbadly crushed, but it has been sheared into material of flaky or shaly habit by the many closely-spacedshear-planes. Cinnabar was seento occur along theseshear-planes.' The rock is sheared, and although gouge is absent,the sheared rock is consideredto be part of a fault- zone.

The fault-zone in No. 2 adit rangesfrom 1 foot to 4 feet in width, and lies between the silicified greenstone andpre- sumably,later.gabbro. A small amount of cinnabar was seen along the shear-planes within this fault-zone, otherwise it had notbeen mineralized by solutions.

The fault-zonein No. 4 adit is 12 feet in width and liesentirely within gabbro. No cinnabar was seenin this fault-zone.

The fault-zonein No. 5 adit is only 1 footwide, but within this width the rock has been intensely crushed to material of nearlygougedike fineness. A small amountof cinnabar was seen along the shear-slips in this fault.

Mineralizingsolutions have effected the widespread ankeritization, and lesswidespread silicification, sericitization and ohloritization of rocks in the general vicinity of the northerly-strikingshear-zones; the rocks altered in the above ways havealready been described. Subsequent to thesepro- cesses and'subsequent to mostof the faulting, oinnabar-bear- ingsolutions havedeposited cinnabar along the shear-planes of some of the faults. Cinnabarappears to havebeen most abundantlydeposited in the shear-planes of.the zone in No* 1 adit and in theoutcrop between No. 1 and No. 2 adits at a placewhere the shear-zone is adjacentto, or incontact with, 'thesilicified rock of No. 1. The strike of thiscontact is north 35 degrees west and the dip 50 degreessouth-westward.

Eighteensamples, ranging in weight from 5 lbs. to 15 lbs.,each, were taken from .the showings. The location,width, natureand assay-results of these are shown in the tab1.e on Fig. 6.. The shaft,full of waterat the time of examination, and the dump, were' notsampled.

Judgingonly from occurrence of cinnabar, the vicinity of thecontact between the sheared'rock of No. 1 adit and the massivesilicified rock of No. 2 adit, would constitute the bestprospecting ground. The shaft was apparently sunk with

*89- , thisidea in mind.Inasmuch as no further work seems to have beendone sincethe sinking of the shaft, it is tobe inferred that commercial ore was notfound in the shai't.

Further prospecting could be done with the hope that dis- coveriesconsiderably better than existing showings, would be made. The indicatedlocation of suchprospecting is inthe vic'inity of theshaft, as described in the last paragraph.

- 90 - BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Extensive use has been made of the information on cinnabar and mercurycontained in the publications and articles listed in the following bibliography and due acknowledgement is made to the authors of these publications and articles. Bradley,Walter IT. (1918)Quicksilver Sesources of California- CaliforniaState MiningBureau, Bull. No. 78.

Brewer, 'IT.M. (1914) Annual Report,Minister of Mines, Brit;ish Columbia,1914, page 195.

Cairnes, C. E. (1937)Geology and Mineral Deposits of. BridfE RiverMining Camp, British Columbia, Gt:o- logicalSurvey, Canada, Memoir 213, 192i7.

Camsell,Charles (1918) Mercury Deposits of Kamloops Lake, GeologicalSurvey, Canada, Summary Report Part B 1918,pages 17 B - 22 B. Cockfield, I?!. E. andWalker, J. F. (1932)Cadwallader Creek: Gold MiningArea, Bridge River District, British Columbia, GeologicalSurvey, Ca.n- ada, Summary Seport1932, Part A 11.

CanadianMining Journal (May, 1939)Dearer Mercurx, .page 297

Dawson,'George M. (1894)Report on the Area of the Kamloops. Map Sheet,Geological Survey, Canada, An- nualReport 1894, vol. VII.

Dawson, George M. (1876-77)Geological Survey, Canada, Report of Progress 1876-77,page 133 (mercury on Homathko River).

Dawson, George Id. (1877-88)Geological Survey, Canada,Annual Report,1887-88, page 105R (mercury on Homathko Siver).

Drysdale, C. W. (1912)Geology of the Thompson RiverVallex, __below Kamloops Lake, B. C., Geological Survey,Canada, Summary Report1912, pages 115-150.

Duschak, L. H. and Schuette, C. N. (1925) The Metallurgy of Quicksilver U. S. Bureau of Mines,'Bull. 222.

- 91 - ., I I,:

>, .. ,., Eardley-Wilmot,' V. L. (1926):'Noh$. - on th-e Quicksilver Occur- .- .- rences in Canada, Investigation of Mineral Resource$, MinesBranch, Department of Mines,Canada, 1926. .. Eardley-Wiimot; V.. L". (1938).,Conardon Mercury Aines, Report to the Mines'Bra'nch, Department- of Mines, Can- ada.(Unpublished Report).

Engineering andMining Journal (April and June,1939, February, 1940)Metal Prices and Production.

Freeland, P. B. (1933)Annual Report, Minister of Mines, British Columbia,1933, pages 182-183.

Gould, H. '8. (1929) The GouldImproved RotaryFurnace, bull^. No. 2 of H: 13. Gould andCo., Mills Bldg., Sani.'rancisco, Cal.

Gray, .J. G. (1938)East Half', FortFraser Map-Area, British Columbia, GeologicalSurvey, Canada, Paper38-14, 1938.

Jenkins, 0. P. and Ransome, A. E. (1939)Outline Geologic Ma2 of. California showing location of Quick- silverProperties, Division of Mines, .. California.

Minerals Yearbook (1939) -Mercury, page 655-670. bfiningand Metallurgy (May, 1939; Our (LT. S.) quicksilver Deficiency,page 258. "c O'Grady, B. T:'(1936)Manitou Mining CO: Ltd., Anrual. Report, Minister of Mines, British Columbia;1936, pagesFS8-F61.

Ransome, Alfred L. (April,1939) Quicksilv'er Metallurgy of

L_iToday, Eng., and Min. Journ. pages 46-49. Rose,Bruce. (1912) Savona Map-Area, British Columbia; Geo- logicalSurvey, Canada, Summary Report 1912,pages 151 to 155. Schuette, C. N. (193l),Quicksilver, U. S, Bureau of Mines, Bull. 335:

Schuette, C. N. (1937)Quicksilver in Oregon, State of Oregon, Dept. of Geology and MineralIndustries, Bull. No. 4. . . - 92 - Schuette, C. N: (1931).Occurrence of Quicksilver Ore B-, Transactions Am. Inst. of Min. and Net., General Volume, pages 403-438.

- 93 -'