GLACIERS OF THE_ CANADIAN ROCKIES AND SELKIRKS. 5 



birds that one meets seem awed into silence by the grandeur of their surround- 

 ings. The mountain Crees had possession of the region at the coming of the 

 white traders and trappers, but within rather recent time have been assunilated 

 by the Stoneys, a tribe of Assiniboines, from the plains to the east. 



3. Geological Data. 



a. Stratigraphy. The first work of a geological nature in this region was by 

 Dr. Hector in 1858 to i860, as a member of the Palliser expedition, his observa- 

 tions being confined mainly to the Rockies and the region to the east. A 

 geological map and numerous sections were prepared to accompany a paper 

 presented to the Geological Society of London, in advance of the publication 

 of the results of the expedition. ' For detailed knowledge of the geology of the 

 Rockies and Selkirks we are indebted mainl}^ to Dr. George M. Dawson and his 

 assistant R. G. McConnell, the former of whom began his work in 1874, as geol- 

 ogist of the boundary commission. The Bow River region was entered in 1881 

 and in the Annual Report of the Geological Survey for 1885 there was published 

 a preliminary report upon the geology of the Rockies lying between the boundary 

 and north latitude 51° 30'. The report was accompanied by a large scale 

 geological map, which was followed the next year with a geological section by 

 McConnell, approximately along the line of the 5 ist parallel of latitude. Work 

 was extended westward into the Selkirks and, at the Washington meeting of the 

 Geological Society of America, Dr. Dawson, in 1890, presented the results of his 

 observations amongst these ranges. ^ The present Geological Survey, under the 

 directorship of Robert Bell, is still at work upon the detailed study of portions 

 of the region. 



The Selkirks and Rockies consist of an enormous complex of sedimentary 

 strata, 50,000 to 60,000 feet in thickness, underlain by crystalline rock. In 

 age they range from the Archaean to the Laramie, at the close of which the 

 final stages of upheaval were accomplished. The rock strata graduate in age 

 from the west, eastward, and were folded and faulted by pressure from the 

 west, by which they were forced against the resistant layers underlying the 

 "great plains." The crystalline rocks of the series, of presumable Archaean 

 age, consist of gray gneisses, passing into schists, and occur only along the 

 western margin of the Selkirks, where they constitute the Shuswap series. No 

 trace of them has yet been discovered in the Rockies. Overlying the series occurs 

 the Nisconlith, with an estimated thickness of 15,000 feet, consisting of dark- 

 colored argillite-schists and phyllites, showing various stages of alteration from 

 true argillites to micaceous schists. Interbedded layers of dark limestone and 

 quartzite are seen in certain sections. Although the beds yielded no fossils 

 thev were referred to the Cambrian by Dawson, because of their relation to the 



'"On the Geology of the Country between Lake Superior and the Pacific Ocean," James Hector, 

 M.D., 1861, Quart. Journal Geol. Society, vol. xvii, pp. 388 to 445. 



2 "Note on the Geological Structure of the Selkirk Range, " Geol. Soc. of Amer., vol. 2, 1891, pp. 165 to 

 176. An extract from this paper is given in Wheeler's Selkirk Range, vol. I, pp. 405 to 409. 



