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Mines - The Spider Group
The
Spider property, like many in the Stewart area, has changed
hands many
times and has undergone erratic development.
The claims
included the Crown-granted Lois and Spider Nos. 1, 2, and 3 at the northeast end of Long Lake in an open alpine area easily reached
by aircraft or on foot from the end of the Big Missouri road.
The property was
originally located in 1918, optioned to a Belgian syndicate
in 1920, and to B.C. Bonanza Mines Ltd., who
controlled the group until 1934.
Since then it has been owned or leased by a large number of individuals
who have attempted to ship high-grade ore from the veins. A good plan of the
veins, workings, and general geology can be found in the 1936 Report of the Minister of
Mines (B.C.).
The surface trenches and part of the underground workings
on
No. 2 vein are still accessible.
Mineralization
consists of several sub-parallel quartz-breccia fissure veins emplaced in a small stock of fractured, altered, augite diorite
porphyry.
The pluton is
partly sheathed in Bowser siltstones which have also been cut by the quartz veins.
The
main veins trend northwesterly and are intersected by other north-northeast
quartz
veins. Vuggy quartz, calcite, and country rock fragments constitute the
gangue,
and the main ore minerals include galena, light-brown to amber sphalerite,
pyrite,
chalcopyrite, and tetrahedrite. Free gold was found in the sulphide lenses encrusting
small cavities and Hanson (1935), reported native silver
as well.
Ore shipped was hand-cobbed
and high grade, as indicated by the production stats.
Although the veins are localized in augite porphyry, the mineralization
is not comparable to that associated with veins in the Bitter Creek pluton,
which contain
prominent antimony minerals.
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