The Daily Alaska empire., 1929-01-04
No Prospects


 be found.
 No Prospects
 Then remember the Republic gold camp in the northeastern cor. ner of the State of Washington which has produced several million dollars and has a good life still ahead of it. You could lay 8 blanket five miles long by half a mile wide and cover up all the mines in the camp. Outside oi that small rectangle l couldn't find prospect worth wasting box of powder on.
 The producing area U Tonopah, Nevada can be included ill 2 str.p of country one mile wide Dy asD.., two miles long
 "The Mother Lode d.str.-t Of California is more like ,Aa l-..' belt that trends along the coast L. Southeastern Alaska. The mineral ized belt on the Mother Lode is about a mile wide but it contains a series of closely spaced veins outcropping at intervals for Q length of 100 miles. Several of the stronger velhs have been de- Yeloped for more than a mile along their strike"
 Jack laid aside his paper, light ed his pipe which had gone out and then with a quizzical smile remarked: 50 far, so good, Lar ", but what I would like to know is how the prospector is going to recognize a mineral country when he meets one? Anyone can recog- nize a mineralized area after mines have been developed there, but suppose you are in new country. what are you going to do then?"
 supposition
 That is fair question, Jack. To start with I'll admit that tae best prospector might pass through a mineralized district and totally miss all the signs but there are some helpful guide-posts available Suppose we were travelling through a new country and were following either along the ridges or up a valley. We would watch for float or for outcroppings. We might do a little banning on the bars and if we didn't find anything we would conclude that 1t was hungry country and keep on travel ing. l suppose that every mining district has been passed up that way at some time.
 T believe we should go one step farther and ask ourselves what the districts of Western North America have in common. My eb-. seryation has been that they are usually in or near intrusive igneous' rocks, such as small eupolas of granite or monzonite Others arc along the margins of great granite batholiths such as the Coast Range Batholith that thends throug h British Columbia and Southeast ern Alaska Don't tell me. about the exceptions for I know that there are many but that isn't a bad rule to cover the majority of the rich districts, So when we are and come upon intru- sions of these ingenous rocks contend that there is a good place to pitch camp and spend few days in close prospecting. If we do not see any signs of mineral ization in the zones around these intrusive masses We should move
 on and try another.
 Where To Prospect
 Also l have noticed that where you have ore deposits you general ly find dikes close at hand. IT I climbed up on a ridge and saw dikes cutting across from one ridge to the other like big ribbons, would say to myself: Larry, here is a good place to do a little prospecting These dikes tell me that they ,soff-shoots from a deeper intrusion and that the over lying racks have been fractured. Hence. if the intrusion happens to be mineralized this naturalization can be squeezed out of the intru- sion into the fractured rocks above somewhat after the same manner in which the dikes were injected.
 Jack began to sniff, not in de- rision. but with alarm. Then he made a dash for the stove.
 "Doggone an Irishman for a part