T02 Gibbon’s Wrasse. 
Our English notions, of the right thing to be found in special 
geological horizons, are much upset in British Columbia. | There 
are immense thicknesses of carboniferous rocks, but not a trace of 
coal in any of them. They bear evidence in their massive lime 
stones of having been laid down in a deep ocean, so distant from 
land that only a few leaves had floated out so far. The rich 
coal-bearing strata of this district, from the N.W. territory to 
Vancouver Island, are all of cretaceous age, though some true coal 
is found in deposits of miocene age. This coal ranges through all 
stages of anthracite; of beautiful bright coal, rivalling that of 
the Staffordshire mines, and of lignite, and sometimes is so 
crushed and broken as to be useless. All depends upon the 
pressure to which it has been subjected by neighbouring strata, 
which have sometimes been overturned bodily on the top of the 
newer cretaceous rocks. 
The geological strata of British Columbia are remarkably poor 
in fossils. ‘The Cambrian rocks, not less than 12,000 feet thick, 
.are absolutely destitute of fossils. The carboniferous contain but 
a few leaves, and the cretaceous, chiefly silicified tree-trunks, with 
afew plants and insects. Inthe Laramic, however, that most 
interesting formation, between the highest cretaceous and the 
eocene, remains of deinosaurs and of very primitive mammals 
have been found. In England, a great paleontological break 
occurs between the mammalian fossils of the Jurassic age and the 
Eocene, which is here filled up by a fresh-water formation of cre- 
taceous age. 
In British Columbia and the N.W. territory, eocene deposits 
are entirely missing, and pliocene remains are few and doubtful, 
but extensive beds of miocene conglomerate are found, which near 
the Foot Hills contain very interesting mammalian remains of 
existing and extinct orders of animals. I shall be happy to pursue 
this subject at greater length, should it prove interesting to the 
readers of the Scientific Enquirer. 
Gibbon’'s Wrasse. 
HE south coast of Devon has lately been visited by 
large numbers of a fish which, common enough 
in the Mediterranean, is seldom found near our 
shores. While at Dawlish on a recent occasion, I 
was struck, while walking over the beach to the rock- 
pools, at low tide, by the frequent occurrence of a very handsome 
