Ko. 7.] GEOLOGY OF BBITISH COLUMBIA. 445 



Brant Goose, Bernicla brenta. 



American White-footed Goose, Anser albatus. 



Goshawk (old), Astur atricapillus. 



Horned Grebe, Podiceps cornutus. 



Weasel, Putorius vulgaris. 



Bnbtnitted to the Natural History Society I 

 Nov. 2y, 1880. S 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Sketch of the Geology of British Columbia.* By 

 George M.Dawson, D.S., A.R.S.M., F.G.S.— British Columbia 

 includes a certain portion of the length of the Cordillera region 

 of the west coast of America which may be described as consisting 

 here of four parallel mountain ranges running in a north-west 

 and south-east bearing. Of these the south-western is represented 

 by Vancouver and the Queen Charlotte Islands, and may be refer- 

 red to as the Vancouver Range ; while the next, to the north- 

 east, is the Coast or Cascade Range, a belt of mountainous coun 

 try about 100 miles in width. This is succeeded by the interior 

 plateau of British Columbia, relatively a depressed area, but with 

 a height of 3000 to 3500 feet. To the north-east of this is the 

 Gold Range, and beyond this the Rocky Mountains proper, for- 

 ming the western margin of the great plains of the interior of the 

 continent. 



Tertiary rocks, which are probably of Miocene age, are found 

 both on the coast and on the interior plateau. They consist on 

 the coast of marine beds, generally littoral in character, which are 

 capped, in the Queen Charlotte Islands, by volcanic rocks. The 

 interior plateau has been a fresh-water lake, in or on the margin 

 of which, clays and sandstones, with occasional lignites, have been 

 laid down. These are covered by very extensive volcanic accu- 

 mulations, basaltic or tufaceous. 



Cretaceous rocks from the age of the Upper and Lower Chalk 

 to the Upper Neocomian, and representing the Chico and Shasta 

 groups of California, occur on Vancouver and the Queen Char- 

 lotte Islands. Beds equivalent to the Chico group yield the bitu- 

 minous coals of Nanaimo, while anthracite occurs in the somewhat 



* Abstract of paper read before the British Association for the Ad- 

 rancement of Science at Swansea, August 1880. 



