588 REPORT— 1880. 



3. List of Wo7-]cs on the Geology, Mineralogy, and Palceontology of Wales 

 (to the end of 1873). By W. Whitaker, F.G.8.—Qee Reports, p. 397. 



4. Sl-etch of the Geology of British Columhia. By George M. Dawson, 

 D.Sc, A.B.S.M., F.G.8., Asst. Director Geol. Survey of Canada. 



British Columbia includes a certain portion of the length of the Cordillera region 

 of the west coast of America, which may be described as consisting here of four 

 parallel mountain ranges running in a north-west and south-east bearing. Of these 

 the south-western is represented by Vancouver and the Queen Charlotte Islands, 

 and maybe referred to as the Vancouver Range ; while the next, to the north-east, 

 is the Coast or Cascade Range, a belt of mountainous country about 100 miles in 

 width. This is succeeded by the interior plateau of British Columbia, relatively 

 a depressed area, but with a height of 3000 to 3500 feet. To the north-east of 

 this is the Gold Range, and beyond this the Rocky Mountains proper, forming 

 the western margin of the great plains of the interior of the continent. 



Tertiary rocks, which are probably of Miocene age, are found both on the coast 

 and on the interior plateau. They consist on the coast of marine beds, generally 

 littoral in character, which are capped, in the Queen Charlotte Islands, by volcanic 

 rocks. The interior plateau has been a fresh-water lake, in or on the margin of 

 which, clays and sandstones, with occasional lignites, have been laid down. These 

 are covered by very extensive volcanic accumulations, basaltic or tufaceous. 



Cretaceous rocks from the age of the Upper and Lower Chalk to the Upper 

 Neocomian, and representing the Chico and Shasta groups of California, occur on 

 Vancouver aud the Queen Charlotte Islands. Beds equivalent to the Chico group 

 yield the bituminous coals of Nanaimo, while anthracite occm's in the somewhat 

 older beds of the Queen Charlotte Islands. Within the Coast Range the Cretaceous 

 rocks are probably for the most part equivalent in age to the Upper Neocomian. 

 The Cretaceous rocks are of great thickness, both on the coast and inland, and 

 include extensive contemporaneous volcanic beds. 



The pre-Cretaceous beds have been much disturbed and altered before the 

 deposition of the Cretaceous, and their investigation is difficult. On Vancouver 

 Island, beds probably Carboniferous in age include jn'eat masses of contemporaneous 

 volcanic material, with limestones, and became altered to highly crystalline rocks 

 resembling those of parts of the Huronian of Eastern Canada. In the Queen 

 Charlotte Islands also these beds probably occur ; but an extensive calcareous 

 argillite formation is there found, which is characterised by its fossils as triassic. 



The Coast Range is supposed to be built up chiefly of rocks like those of Van- 

 couver Island, but still more highly altered, and appearing as gneisses, mica-schists, 

 &c., while a persistent argillaceous and slaty zone is supposed to represent the 

 triassic argillites of the Queen Charlotte Islands. 



The older rocks of the interior plateau are largely composed of quartzites and 

 limestones ; but still hold much contemporaneous volcanic matter, together with 

 serpentine. Carboniferous fossils have been found in the limestones in a number 

 of places. The triassic is also represented in some places by great contemporaneous 

 volcanic deposits with limestones. 



In the Gold Range, the conditions found in the Coast Range are supposed to be 

 repeated ; but it is probable, that there are here also extensive areas of archaean 

 rocks. Some small areas of ancient crystalline rocks supposed to be of this age 

 have already been discovered. 



The Rocky Mountain Range consists of limestones with quartzites and shaly 

 beds, dolamites and red sandstones. The latter have been observed near the 49th 

 parallel, and are supposed to be triassic in age. The limestones are, for the most 

 part. Carboniferous and Devonian, and no fossils have yet been discovered indica- 

 ting a greater age than that of the last-named period. On the 49th parallel, how- 

 ever, the series is supposed to extend down to the Cambrian, and compares closely 

 •with the sections of the region, east of the Wahsatch, on the 40th parallel, given by 



