STEVENSON— INTERRELATIONS OF FOSSIL FUELS. Ill 



places on St. Mary River. At the mouth of the latter river, in a 

 section by R. G. IMcConnell the lower zone has 3 coal seams in a 

 vertical distance of 132 feet, the thickest being from 3 feet to 3 feet 

 6 inches. This zone is persistent and its coal is mined on Belly River. 

 The Belly River formation has few thick coal seams ; its sandstones 

 are gray to yellow, hard and the surfaces often show ripple marks 

 and worm trails. In one case, the ripples indicate movement toward 

 S. 36° W. The " Lower Dark Shales '' of Dawson were seen on 

 Rocky Ridge in the Milk River region. Dowling^*' has shown that 

 the Pierre shale is the Bearpaw, the Belly River of southeastern 

 Alberta is the Judith River and the lower dark shales of Rocky 

 Ridge are the Claggett. Evidently he places the coal of Dawson's 

 Pierre in the upper or fresh-water part of the Belly River. The 

 area within Alberta, in which the Belly River with its important 

 coal seams is exposed, is not less than 24,000 square miles ; its pres- 

 ence has been proved by borings in a great area, where it is deeply 

 buried under later formations. In a report on the Sheep River Oil 

 and Gas field, Dowling has emphasized the increasing thickness of 

 Bearpaw toward the east ; in the Foothills, it is 650 feet, on Red 

 Deer River, east from Calgary, 750, on the Cypress Hills, 900 and 

 on Sheep River, about 1,200 feet. 



The coal seams of the Pierre formations become unimportant 

 north from the latitude of Edmonton. They are few and thin, some- 

 times wholly wanting, as appears from observations by G. M. Daw- 

 son,^' Dowling, Tyrrell and McConnell. Dawson found no seam 

 thicker than 6 inches on Pine River. The associated rocks are sand- 

 stone and sandy shale, the former cross-bedded and ripple-marked. 

 On Smoky River he saw a soft massive sandstone, with abundant 

 fragments of plants, which in one place are " distinctly representing 

 the base and roots of a tree, and evidencing a terrestrial surface. 

 Overlying this is a thin carbonaceous film which, at a short distance 

 up the river, becomes a seam of lignitic coal, two and a half inches 

 in thickness." The Dunvegan sandstone of Peace River, regarded 

 as the Belly River formation, has no coal.°* It disappears toward 

 the east and is not present on Athabasca River. 



9<5 D. B. Dowling, Mem. 53, 1914, pp. 28-31, 51, 53. 



97 G. M. Dawson, Rep. for 1879-80, Part B, pp. 117, 118. 



98 R. G. McConnell, Reps., Vol. Vl-D, 1893, p. 53. 



