VICTORIA, B. C. 9 



Although the Shell Collection is a fine one, the Museum is in lack 

 of land and fresh water sjiecies from the whole Province. 



It must be premised that the collection of fossils is in its infancy; 

 The first glance will show the truth of Sir A. Geikie's statement, that 

 marine mollusca form the alphabet of Paleontology, the science 

 treating of the forms of animal life in the rocks of the earth's crust. 

 The first animal remains to be mentioned, however, belong to the 

 vertebrates, and are believed to have lived during the existence of 

 the Glacial period of our history. Then we have also several mam- 

 moth teeth, mostly found in the Province, and almost without doubt 

 belonging to the hairy mammoth. Marine shells of the ice age are 

 shown from Comox, Sucia Islands and Victoria. The Pliocene 

 system, or the most recent tertiary, is represented by a small collec- 

 tion from sea cliffs near Sooke. Near these shells is a formation con- 

 taining brown or soft coal, the layers exposed on the beach being 

 mostly water-worn logs perforated by teredo. To the Miocene 

 period belongs the collection of fossil shells from Carmanah Point, 

 at the entrance to the Straits of Fuca. The specimens are, with few 

 exceptions, identical with those found in rocks of similar character 

 at Astoria, on the Columbia River. The Cretaceous period contain- 

 ing the productive coal measures of Vancouver Island and the Queen 

 Charlotte Islands is not marked off from the P^ocene tertiary by any 

 great break. The plant remains are essentially similar, and the 

 trees which flourished at the same time as the vegetation forming 

 the coal we now use as fuel, belonged to such recent orders as the 

 poplar, birch, elm, oak and willow, together with a palm (Saballm- 

 Itcridlix] and several ferns. Nanaimo, Comox, Sucia, Hornby 

 Islands, Cumshewa and Skidegate are the richest and most access- 

 ible localities for fossils of this time and there are here numerous 

 species from each place. According to the ordinary classification 

 the Secondary Age may now be left for the Primary or Paheozoic. 

 Rocks of this age have been distinguished by means of their fossils 

 at various places on Vancouver Island and Mainland. It is sup- 

 posed that the hard crystalline diorites and limestone of Vancouver 

 Island, and the Coast Range of the Mainland, are composed of 

 materials belonging to the carboniferous system, as fossils have been 

 found at Home Lake and the Ballinac Islands, indicating this to be 

 the fact. The Cambrian period is represented by fossils from Mount 

 Stephen in the Rocky Mountains. At this place exists one of the 

 most interesting assemblages of organisms yet found in the Province, 



