62 



NA TURE 



[November 18, 1897 



GEOLOGISTS IN CANADA. 



T N recording in our columns the proceedings of the British 

 Association at Toronto last August, passing reference was 

 made to the excursion to the Pacific coast which was to take place 

 at the close of the meeting. This excursion was in every way such 

 an unqualified success, and especially from the point of view of 

 the geologist, that we think some further account will be ac- 

 ceptable to British geologists who were unable to attend the 

 meeting. 



It was indeed a tour which could not but make a lasting im- 

 pression upon all of us who took part in it. The vast extent and 

 diversity of the country traversed ; the richness of the material 

 resources of the Dominion of Canada ; the energy and enter- 

 prise of its inhabitants ; the orderly conditions of the new 

 civilisation even in the remotest settlements, were features 

 which could only be properly appreciated after an experience 

 of this kind. And beyond these general impressions it was 

 scarcely possible for the student of any branch of science to 

 traverse the great continent without accumulating fresh material 

 and fresh ideas in his own particular subject. Amid a panorama 

 of scenery always interesting and sometimes magnificent, we 

 were carried from ocean to ocean in the greatest comfort, in 

 many parts of the course through stretches of mountain and 

 forest which but for the railway would have been absolutely 

 impenetrable for the traveller however well equipped. 



The arrangements for the excursion were made by the Local 

 Committee in Toronto, who invited a limited number of the 

 visiting members of the British Association to take part in it. 

 To these members the Canadian Pacific Railway Company 

 munificently presented tickets for the whole length of their main 

 line, with the privilege also to travel without cost over any of 

 their branch lines. A special car was attached to each of the 

 west-bound trains leaving Toronto on three consecutive days, 

 and remained at the service of the members until they reached 

 the Pacific coast. The excursion party thus resolved itself into 

 three groups, which were so arranged by the Local Committee 

 that those of like interests should as far as possible travel together. 



The geologists and their friends the geographers formed the 

 third of these groups, leaving Toronto in the sleeping car 

 "Chaudiere" on the noon of Friday, August 27. They were 

 especially fortunate in having for their leaders Dr. G. M. 

 Dawson, the Director of the Canadian Survey, and Prof. A. P. 

 Coleman, of the Toronto University and the Bureau of Mines 

 of Ontario, men whose knowledge of the country to be traversed 

 was so intimate that no point of interest could escape unnoticed. 

 Among the members of our parly were Dr. W. T. Blanford, 

 Prof. W. C. Roberts-Austen, Dr. C. Le Neve Foster, Prof. 

 Albrecht Penck (of Vienna), Prof. W. M. Davis (of Harvard), 

 Prof. K. Huerthle (of Breslau), Sir George Robertson, Prince 

 Kropotkin, Prof. H. E. Armstrong, Colonel F. Bailey, Prof 

 T. Hudson Beare, Dr. H. O. Forbes, Mr. W. E. Hoyle, Dr. 

 A. Harden, Dr. J. Scott Keltie, Mr. G. W. Lamplugh, Dr. H. 

 R. Mill, and Prof. H. A. Miers. 



From the very outset the geological interest of the journey was 

 continuous. Scarcely had we left Toronto when Prof. Coleman 

 pointed out to us the long stretches of the Iroquois beach, an 

 ancient tilted shore-line of Lake Ontario. Next we passed for 

 three or four hours over an irregular plain of drift, beneath 

 which lay hidden the almost undisturbed Palaeozoic rocks of this 

 region. After skirting the shores of Lake Simcoe, we crossed 

 the great unconformity, and found ourselves upon that vast 

 Archaean protaxis which was thenceforward to be traversed for 

 a distance of over 1100 miles almost without interruption. 

 Night closed on the characteristic scenery of this Archaean 

 country — a timbered wilderness with hummocky rocks, every- 

 where smoothed and polished byglaciation, rising into low hills 

 and enclosing lakes and lakelets innumerable with swamps or 

 sluggish drainage channels between. Lake Nipissing, with its 

 ancient terraces, through which it is believed that the outflow 

 of the Upper Great Lakes once found its way into the Ottawa 

 River, was passed in the night. In the morning we found our- 

 selves "side-tracked" at Sudbury, in the centre of a mining 

 region, which already produces fully one-half of the world's 

 consumption of nickel, and could supply more. 



With that energetic hospitality which met us at every halt, 

 the Mayor of Sudbury, with a local committee of reception, was 

 early astir with a carefully arranged plan for the day. After a 

 public breakfast a special engine was at hand to take the " Chau- 

 diere " and its occupants to the renowned Copper Cliff Mines. 



NO. 1464, VOL. 57] 



Through the admirable forethought of Dr. Dawson, who struck 

 something akin to awe into us by his power of conjuring up in 

 the most unlikely places whoever or whatever we might most 

 desire, Mr. A. E. Barlow, of the Canadian Survey, had made 

 his appearance on the train during the night from his camp in 

 the woods, and was ready to give us the benefit of his intimate 

 knowledge of the district. With him and Prof. Coleman as our 

 guides, we studied to the best advantage, at the outcrop, the 

 mode of occurrence of these great deposits of nickeliferous 

 pyrrhotite and chalcopyrite which apparently are segregated in 

 an area of gabbro near its contact with granite. We were 

 then shown through the surface works of the mine, the managers 

 pointing out to us each stage in the reduction of the ore, from 

 its initial crushing and roasting to its smelting into " matte," in 

 which form it is sent east for further refinement. Some of these 

 processes were especially interesting to the metallurgists and 

 chemists of our party. 



On leaving this mine we divided into two companies, those 

 who were anxious to see more of the nickel-mines visiting 

 Denison, about twenty miles west of Sudbury, where the pro- 

 spectors were developing an ore-deposit similar in character to 

 that of Sudbury, but remarkable as containing also some platinum 

 in the form of the rare arsenide, sperrylite, and a little gold. 

 Here some of the earth overlying the ore- deposit was panned out, 

 and a fair show of grains of sperrylite obtained. 



The other members were conveyed by their special engine to 

 Fairbank, a few miles distant, whence they went in wagons over 

 a terribly rough " corduroy" road to a place in the woods where 

 a curious vein of carbonaceous material had been struck, which 

 its discoverers hoped might prove a valuable source of fuel. 

 This material, known as anthraxolite, though not a true coal in 

 the ordinary sense, is composed of almost pure carbon. It 

 occurs in this place as an irregular upright vein, in some parts 

 several feet in width, somewhat interpenetrated by quartz. This 

 vein cuts across the bedding of the surrounding dark carbon- 

 aceous slaty rocks, which are either of Lower Cambrian or ot 

 Huronian age. 



At this place, as we wound our way along the forest trail to- 

 wards the luncheon place, there was a sudden and for the 

 moment inexplicable stampede of the foremost members of the 

 file, who had unwittingly plunged into a hornet's nest, and 

 suffered inconvenience in consequence. And this little accident 

 was the only mishap of the whole journey ! 



After luncheon a further expedition was made in birch-bark 

 canoes up the Vermilion River, for three or four miles, to a spot 

 on Vermilion Lake where a shaft had been sunk to develop 

 another vein of the anthraxolite, but where its mode of occur- 

 rence was not so clearly seen. On regaining our vehicles, we 

 were conscious on starting of a sense of loss, and then perceived 

 that our two most prominent foreign members were missing. 

 We discovered them, however, placidly eating pie in the log- 

 cabin of a settler. They eagerly explained that they were 

 " studying the customs of the country " — a phrase which thence- 

 forward acquired a special significance. 



In returning to Sudbury our train was stopped to allow Mr. 

 Barlow to point out an intrusive contact of the Laurentian 

 granite upon the brecciated edge of the diorite (Huronian ?), 

 which appears to be the normal relation of the two rocks in this 

 region. This makes it somewhat difficult to under.-tand how 

 the metalliferous ore has been concentrated at the original 

 margin of the basic mass. 



In the evening we were banqueted by the citizens, and 

 after many mutually complimentary speeches retired to the 

 "Chaudiere" with the consciousness of a well-spent day. 



The morning of the 29th found us traversing a sparsely 

 inhabited region of lakes and forests to the north-east of Lake 

 Superior. The rocks were for the greater part of Laurentian 

 type, a matted complex of igneous intrusions mostly of granitic 

 character, but presenting now and again a more basic 

 " Huronian " aspect. The marks of glaciation were everywhere 

 visible, on a scale quite inconceivable to the British glacialist — 

 in fact, one might say that this whole day's journey was across 

 a huge glaciated surface. 



And here it may be remarked, as illustrating the immense 

 scale of the glacial phenomena of North America, that through- 

 out the whole of our journey of 3000 miles we weie never at 

 any one point outside the limits of the glacial deposits, and that 

 in one shape or another the evidences of former glaciation were 

 always visible from our car windows. Moreover, we might 

 have gone eastward from Montreal for an additional 750 miles. 



