Location and History
This is an extensive area of placer deposits in the general vicinity of Duncan Peak and the Greek Store guard station in eastern Placer County. It is 20 miles east of Forest Hill and six miles southeast of Last Chance. The area extends from just south of Duncan Peak south through Duncan Canyon to Ralston Ridge. The area was first mined in the early 1850s. The peak was named for Thomas Duncan, an early-day miner. During these early days, this region supported many Greek placer miners. Intermittent prospecting and development work has continued until the present time.
Geology and Ore Deposits
The placer deposits occur in a complex system of Tertiary channels that extends south and southwest to join the main west-trending Long Canyon channel in the Ralston Divide district. There arc a number of tributaries and channel remnants, one of the main ones known as the Chalk Bluff channel. The deposits are up to several hundred feet wide and were extremely rich in places. Usually the gold is coarse. Quartz is sparse. The bedrock is quartzitic schist and slate, and the gravels are capped bv andesite. There arc some narrow gold-quartz veins in the district.
Mines
Bald Mountain, Barney, Blue Eyes, Dixie Queen, Glenn Cons., Gold Dollar, Golden Gate No.1, Hard Climb, Hunted Hole, Miller's Defeat, Pine Nut, Pork and Brown, Red Star, Jack Robinson, Sauer Kraut, Savage, Trap Line, Yellow Jacket.
Bibliography
Lindgren, Waldemar, 1900, Colfax folio: U. S. Geol. Survey Geog. Atlas of the U. S., folio 66, 10 pp.
Lindgren, Waldemar, 1911, Tertiary channels of the Sierra Nevada; U.S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 73, pp. 152-153.
Logan, C. A" 1925, Ancient channels of the Duncan Conyon region: California Min. Bur. Rept. 21, pp. 275-280.
Logan, C. A, 1936, Gold mines of Placer County, placer mines: California Div. Mines Rept. 32, pp. 49-96.
Waring, C. A, 1919, Placer County, placer mines: California Min. Bur. Rept. 15, pp. 352-386.
