The Metaline district, on Clarke's Fork of the Columbia, was discovered late in 1886. It is situated on the west bank of the river (recentty called Pend d'Oreille River), about one hundred miles from Pend d'Orielle Lake, and near the northern boundary of the State. It belongs to the Kootenai group of mines, w T hich extend into Idaho, and is approached by the river from Sand Point on the lake and on the Northern Pacific Railroad.
The ores of this district are a low-grade galena, and lead the principal production, the average of that metal being from seventy-five to eighty-five per cent., with no refractory metal in the district. The ore is generally found in pockets in a limestone formation similar to the Frisco silver district of Southern Utah. The Bell O'May Mine and Diamond R. are of this description. The latter assayed six ounces of silver and eighty per cent, of lead on top, and at a depth of twenty-seven feet assayed seventy ounces of silver and fifty-eight per cent, of lead. The Oreole, owned in Spokane, is a vein mine, in lime rock containing gray copper and galena, the ore averaging one hundred ounces in silver. These mines are on the west side of the river, and within from one to two and a half miles of the town of Metaline.
A mile below the town, on the east side of the river, is Grand View Mine, on a bluff eight hundred feet above the stream. This ore assayed ten ounces of silver and seventy-five per cent, of lead, and showed a four-hundred foot square of galena on the surface. Near the Grand View is the Friday Mine, running high in lead and low in silver; and five miles above, on the same side, is a six-foot vein containing a twelve-inch streak of gray copper-ore running very high in silver.
Again, the Waters Mine, discovered in 1888, on Little Muddy Creek, on the west side of Clarke's Fork, is a well-defined vein in lime, containing two feet of galena assaying thirty ounces silver and seventy-five per cent, lead, and two feet of galena carbonates carrying ten ounces silver and forty-five per cent, lead.
Gold is found in placers on Sullivan Creek on the east side of Clarke's Fork a mile below Metaline. The diggings are from three to six feet deep on gray slate bedrock; the ground is spotted, and the gold is in heavy scales.
