Lai] SYNOPSIS OF THE GEOLOGY OF CANADA 217 
Many types of animal life characterizing the Belly River series or 
formation, occur in abundance in the Laramie, which overlies the Fox 
Hills and Fort Pierre formation. In some respects the Dunvegan group 
of the Peace river country also resembles the Canadian Laramie and 
Belly R. formation. It is described as a plant-bearing series from which 
Sir Wm. Dawson has described an interesting flora, and may be termed 
the Dunvegan formation. 
The Cordilleran Region In British Columbia, and in the Yukon 
district, rocks of Cretaceous age have been recognized by Dr. Dawson 
and Mr. McConnell, and their fossils recognised by Dr. Whiteaves and Sir 
Wm. Dawson. Along the foothills of the Rockies and on the summits and 
passes of the same mountains the various members of the Creta- 
ceous of the prairie region are met with, but in a disturbed and broken 
condition. The Niobrara-Benton and Devil’s Head lake deposits have 
afforded paleontological evidence to prove the existence of Cretaceous 
rocks, to the east, whilst in the southern interior of British Columbia, in 
the Kamloops district, beds of earlier Cretaceous age, consisting of argil- 
lites, limestones and sandstones which constitute a cycle of sedimentation 
which appears to be equivalent to similar rocks in the Queen Charlotte 
islands. On the west coast of British Columbia, the Nanaimo formation 
constitutes an important series of coal-bearing sediments, which is refer- 
able to the Upper or Neo-Cretaceous, besides the important outliers in 
the Queen Charlotte islands, also coal-bearing, constituting the Queen 
Charlotte Island series. These may be divided into several distinct hori- 
-zons or formations in which most of the invertebrate fauna of the rocks of 
Skidegate Inlet constitute an important formation (the Skidegate forma- 
tion) holding such forms as Desmoceras Beudanti, Lytoceras Sacya, 
Melina Skidegatensis, Thetis affinis, etc., etc., as described by Dr. J. F. 
Whiteaves. Hitherto, only a Lower or Earlier Cretaceous and an Upper 
or Later Cretaceous division in this system have been adopted. 
‘These Cretaceous coal-bearing rocks consist of shales, sandstones, conglo- 
merates and iron ore, overlaid by coarse conglomerates (lower), which, in 
turn, are capped by an upper series of shales and sandstones which are 
ascribed to the Earlier Cretaceous, whilst the coal-bearing rocks of 
Nanaimo and the Vancouver Island region, which consist of marine lime- 
‘stones and shales, belong to the Upper Cretaceous. 
There are but few species in common between the faunas and 
floras of the Upper Cretaceous of the Pacific coast and those of the 
same age in the Prairie region of Canada. 
In dealing with the extinct floras of the Cretaceous system in 
‘Canada, Sir Wm. Dawson has recognized the following:—1, The Lower 
‘Cretaceous, including the “Kootanie series,’ or Kootenay formation, of 
