244 DE. EGBERT BELL ON THE GEOLOGY AND ECONOMIC 



The Cretaceous deposits are very widely spread throughout the whole length of the 

 Northwest Territories. They fill up the greater part of the wide depression between the 

 Eocky Mountains and the Laurentian hills, all the way from the United States boundary 

 to the Arctic Ocean. Southward, they continue to the Gulf of Mexico, so that the Cre- 

 taceous system forms a wide belt running north and south completely through the 

 continent. 



The deposits overlying the Cretaceous system in the Saskatchewan and Alberta dis- 

 tricts, which have been classed as Tertiary, are sirpposed to occ^^r in some places in the 

 valley of the Mackenzie, one of w^hich is at the junction of the Bear Lake Eiver. Tertiary 

 strata are well known to occur at Disco and neighboring places on the west coast of 

 Greenland, and lignite, probably of the same age, is reported to be found near Cumber- 

 land Bay, on the west side of Davis Strait. 



The Post-tertiary deposits of many parts of the northern regions, which had been 

 traversed by Dr. Bell, were described as of much interest. In the valleys of the Moose 

 and Albany Rivers, they contained beds of lignite resembling the lignites of the Tertiary 

 period in the western territories. Dr. Bell had obtained the remains of both the mastodon 

 and the mammoth around Hudson Bay. The latter had also been noted at a few places 

 in the Northwest territories, and a number of boues and tusks of mammoths had been 

 found on the Eat or Porcupine Eiver, a tributary of the Yukon, near the eastern border 

 of Alaska. 



In referring to the economic minerals, Dr. Bell said that even the coarser ones, such as 

 granite, cement-stone, gypsum, clays, marls, ochres, sand for glass-making, moulding, etc., 

 might yet have their value in some parts of the regions under consideration, and he had 

 always carefully noted them. Soapstone, mica, plumbago, asbestus, chromic iron, apatite, 

 salt and iron pyrites in economic quantities had been discovered in different localities. 

 Various ornamental stones had been noted, amongst them lazulite, malachite, jade, agate, 

 carnelian, chrysophrase, etc. Lignites, it was well known, are found in many places in 

 the great region constituting the valley of Athabasca-Mackenzie, and on the coast and 

 islands of the Arctic Sea ; also at Disco, in Greenland, and probably near Cumberland 

 Bay. The Post-tertiary lignites of the Moose Eiver have been already mentioned. An- 

 thracite of good qirality, but apparently only in small quantities, associated with rocks of 

 the Nipigon series, had been found on Long Island, on the east side of Hudson Bay. 

 Petroleum, which proceeded from the Devonian strata, as it does in Ontario, Pennsylvania 

 and Ohio, was very abundant along the Athabasca and Mackenzie, and had also been 

 found on the Peace Eiver, and in other localities in the far Northwest, some of which had 

 been described by the author, in the " Canadian Journal ", a few years ago. Vast quantities 

 of asphalt, resulting from the drying up and oxidation of the exuding petroleum, were 

 found on the Athabasca, around Great Slave Lake, and at some places in the northern for- 

 ests, far from any large river or lake. 



Of the metallic ores, iron was stated to be very abundant. Inexhaustible quantities 

 of rich manganiferous ore existed on the Nastapoka Islands, near the east coast of Hudson 

 Bay. The ore was in the form of beds lying at the surface, and the frost had broken it 

 into pieces of convenient sizes for shipping. Valuable deposits of magnetic iron had been 

 found on Athabasca and Knee Lakes, and an exteiisive mass of pure limonite on the 

 Mattagami Eiver Captain H. P. Dawson, E. A., had discovered a vein of foliated specular 



