42 GEORGE M. DAWSON ON A GENERAL SECTION FROM THE 
elevated tracts, which clearly exhibit the character of the underlying rocks, and the drift 
covering appears to be exceptionally thick and uniform on them. Dr. Selwyn has particu- 
larly insisted, however, on the possible recurrence of the Souris series in these hilly tracts, 
and in view of the importance which would attach to the discovery of additional supplies 
of fuel far eastward of the main outcrop of this lignite-bearing formation, it will probably 
before long become desirable to test the question by actual borings in properly chosen 
localities. 
So far as the examination of the country west of the Coteau, or edge of the third prairie 
steppe, to about the 110th meridian has yet gone,no new features of importance are found 
in the Cretaceous and Souris beds, the lower parts of the country being usually underlain 
by Pierre, while the higher are characterized by the representatives of the Souris series, 
and lignites are frequently found in these. The Fox Hill beds have been clearly recognised 
as an intermediate zone in a few places, and all the rocks are horizontal. 
Still further west, however, where the section traverses the Bow and Belly River 
region, changes of considerable importance are found to occur. The upper beds, which have 
so far been referred to as the Souris or Fort Union series, become thicker and more varied 
in character, and may best be described under the general term, Laramie. The base of this 
division is now, as a rule, distinctly marine, or brackish water in origin, the beds so charac- 
terized often having a great thickness and representing those of the Judith basin of the 
Upper Missouri. 
These pass gradually upward into a great fresh-water series, which, on lithological 
grounds, I have provisionally divided into the St. Mary River, Willow Creek and Porcupine 
Hill subdivisions. 
The Laramie, as a whole, on approaching the mountains, contains much more frequent 
sandstone layers, and these are firmer in texture—facts due to the approach to the old shore 
line and the superior degree of alteration which the rocks have suffered in connection with 
folding. The Fox Hill beds blend so completely with the Laramie above and the Pierre 
below that it is often difficult to define them, but they may generally still be recognized as 
a zone of yellowish sandstone holding strictly marine fossils. 
The Pierre, while probably not less in thickness than before, is less homogeneous, con- 
taining frequent sandstone intercalations, at least as far east as the Three Buttes, and where 
exposed on the Bow River, contains besides a considerable thickness of whitish or pale- 
coloured sandy and clayey beds which contrast markedly with its usual sombre colours. 
It appears now certain that the Rocky Mountains have been here, even in the strictly 
Cretaceous times, a shore line, and that neither the Cretaceous nor the Laramie beds have 
passed completely over the present position of the range in this latitude, as they are known 
to have done further south. The broad undulations by which the beds are now affected 
also result in the exposure in different places of rocks underlying the Pierre, and these are 
now found to consist of sandstones, shales and clays, instead of the chalky material of the 
Niobrara of the east. These are usually of pale colours, and the fossils contained in them 
are at least in part distinctly freshwater in character. The subjoined table shows the pro- 
visional arrangement adopted for the rocks of this region and the parallel series described 
by me in former reports of the Geological Survey, as obtaining in the Peace River country, 
which, though several hundred miles north-westward, bears a similar relation to the 
mountains. 
