3 ] 



IRoinancc of (BeolOQ? in tbc IRortb Meet 

 of Cana^a, 



Bv Mrs. Alice Bodington. 

 Plate VIII. 



T may seem strange to apply tlie term " romance " 



to so stern a science as that of (xeology. But if 



the word romance may be appHed to that which 



delights the mind, whilst it stimulates and excites 



the imagination, then may it fitly be applied here. 



Not many months ago, I journeyed along the 



Canadian Pacific Railway from Quebec to its 



furthest Western Terminus at Vancouver, and 



much I wondered what had been the past history 



of the vast regions we passed through. Of course, I knew that 



the bleak and barren hills on either side of the vast St. Lawrence 



contained in their strong breasts the oldest rocks in the \vorld, and 



that along the Great Lakes, rocks only less ancient were to be 



found — Huronian, Silurian, and Cambrian. But I knew nothing 



of the past history of the great prairie, stretching for a thousand 



miles, from Winnipeg to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, nothing 



of the Rocky Mountains themselves, nor of that lonely Switzerland 



of the New World which we call British Columbia. 



Arrived at Vancouver, I saw a peninsula utterly cleared and 



stripped of its trees for a space of some three miles square by the 



fire which had destroyed the newly rising town in 1886. Clumps 



of beautiful ferns and exquisite mosses clung about the blackened 



stumps of the burnt pines, which seemed as if they strove to hide 



the desolation. A very small portion only of the cleared site was 



occupied by the new city of Vancouver, and where one of its 



principal streets now runs, the virgin forest had stood but two 



years ago. The town stands on an arm of the sea, so land-locked 



that it resembles a lake ; mountains — some snow-capped^ some 



wooded to their summits— appear to come down almost to the 



water's edge. 



Journal of Microscopy and Natural Science. h 



New Series. Vol.11. 1889. 



