144 GEORGE M. DAWSON ON THE TRIASSIC OF THE 
The distinction thus marked is clearly encountered much further south than the 40th 
parallel region, and it is with the purpose of tracing it to the north of the 49th parallel 
that the present note is presented. 
Immediately to the north of the 49th degree of latitude, in the Rocky Mountains, about 
the South Kootanie Pass, the red beds are characteristically developed, with a thickness of 
about 300 feet. The upper portion of the section in this part of the mountains, is as 
follows, in descending order :— 
Series H. Fawn-coloured flaggy beds, seen only at a distance, but from their appearanee 
and analogy with Series F, probably thin-bedded dolomitic sandstones and limestones. 
Throughout 100 feet. 
Series G. Beds characterized by a predominant red colour, but including some thin, 
greyish layers and dolomitic sandstones. The whole generally thin-bedded. Ripple marks 
sun-cracks, impressions of salt crystals. 300 feet. Passes gradually down into 
Series F. Fawn-coloured flaggy beds of dolomitic sandstone and limestone, with more 
red sandstone layers, which are especially abundant toward the top. 200 feet. 
Series E. Amygdaloidal trap. 50 to 100 feet. 
The last mentioned immediately overlies the compact bluish limestone of Carboniferous 
age, and, with the exception of the interruption caused by this contemporaneous sheet of 
volcanic matter, the whole of the series are conformable and pass gradually each into the 
next. 
The conditions indicated are, in Carboniferous times, a somewhat deep sea gradually 
shoaling. The occurrence of an important volcanic outbreak, and shortly thereafter the 
more or less complete closure of the communication of this area with the ocean and the ~ 
formation of the Triassic inland sea. 
Westward from this region similar beds may be traced by information supplied by 
Mr. H. Bauerman, for about forty miles, but beyond this point they have nowhere been 
observed in British Columbia. Northward, along the main range of the Rocky Mountains, 
I have observed them for about fourteen miles only, beyond the 49th parallel. They 
were not seen by me in the Crow Nest Pass, in latitude 49° 30’, nor anywhere along 
the eastern base of the mountains from this point to the Bow Pass (latitude 51°) or in that 
pass. Neither have they been noted by Dr. Hector in any part of the Rocky Mountains to 
the north of the Bow which he traversed, or by Dr. Selwyn in the Yellow Head Pass. 
While, therefore, the evidence so far adduced is purely negative, it would appear that the 
Triassic inland sea in this longitude found its northern shore not far beyond the 49th 
parallel, and probably never extended west of the Selkirk and Gold Ranges of Central 
British Columbia. 
Still further north, however, we meet with evidence of a more decided character. For, 
on the upper Pine and Peace Rivers, on the eastern flank of the mountains, a series of 
blackish shales and argillites, sometimes calcareous, occur, and hold characteristic Alpine 
Trias fossils. Beds containing similar forms are found in a number of places to the west 
of the Gold Range in British Columbia, and it is probable that the Triassic ocean, in the 
latitude of the Peace River, extended completely across the Cordillera belt eastward. No 
mountain boundary occurs between this region and that first described to the south, but 
a tract of probably low land must have separated these two areas in the Triassic period. 
In the Queen Charlotte Islands Triassic rocks, holding fossils of the same strictly 
