GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



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,. .„^. 3IES0Z0IC l^OSSILS. /^iiiTofci^^i^^ 



/^G^T '^ /^^* Zoology '^^, 



BY J. F. WHiTEAVKS. ( S£P 21 1940 



VOLUME I . "^^xj^ ja h a KV 



I. On so/z^j Invertebrates from the Coal- Bearing Rucks of theQuetn Char]otte 



Islands. 



INT EG DUCT I OX. 



The Queen Charlotte L'^lands, to which exclusive reference will be 

 made in these pages,* are situated about half way between the Van- 

 couver i;,r(^up and Sitka, at a distance of eighty or one hundred miles 

 trom the mainland of British Columbia. Their geographical position, as 

 laid down on the British Hydrographic Charts, is between latitudes 

 51° 54 and 5-t^ 22' north; and longitudes 131° and 133°t 07 west. The 

 credit of the tirst discovery of these islands has been incorrectly assigned 

 to La Perouse. or Captain Dixon, in some of the oldei- encyclopcedias and 

 gazetteers; nor are volumes of a much more recent date entirely free from 

 sim,ilar errors. By far the most trustworthy account of the progress of 

 discovery on the north-west coast of America yet published, is to be 

 found at Part IL, Chapter II., of Mr. W. H. Dall's able work, entitled 

 "Alaska and its Resources." X I'^ answer to enquiries with reference to 

 the authenticity or otherwise of supposed discoveries in this vicinity by 

 Admiral Fuentes and others, and as to what was the vocation or rank of 

 Juan Perez, Mr. Dall kindly forwarded the following historical sketch 

 of the group, which, as it contains some unpublished facts and infor- 

 mation which probably no other person could give, is gladly printed 

 here, with his permission, and in his own words. 



1. '• The manuscript from which the so-called Voyage of Admiral 

 Fuentes was made public, is now believed to be a forgery. It is 

 Certainly unsupj^orted by any intrinsic evidences of truth, and is univer- 

 sally rejected by modern authors. The same remark will apply also to 



* There is another group of the same name in the South Pacific, 

 t Printed 135°, by a tj'pographical error, in Mr. Richardson's report. J Boston : 1870. 



