r 211 ] 



XXYII.— NOTE ON THE COAL DEPOSITS OF THE NORTH- 

 WEST TEERITOEIES OF CANADA. By GEERARD 

 A. KINAHAN. 



[Eead, February 18, 1884.] 



As some doubts are still often expressed in this country of there 

 being suflBcient fuel in the North-West to supply even the local 

 requirements of Manatoba, Assiniboia, and Alberta, a short note 

 on the lignite deposits of this region may be of some interest to the 

 Members of this Society. 



The formations in which these beds occur are considered by the 

 Officers of the Greological Survey of Canada to be of later Cretaceous 

 or early Eocene age, and in some cases there is evidence of the lig- 

 nites occuia-ing on two distinct geological horizons, very possibly re- 

 presenting a period intervening between the Mesozoic and Cainozoic 

 of Europe. The lignite-bearing series probably underlies a large 

 portion of the prairie lands of the North-West, being concealed by a 

 thick covering of drift gravel and alluvium ; its outcropping at the 

 surface is generally the result of gentle undulations of the strata 

 and subsequent denudation. 



In the eastern portion of the area the fuel is more truly lig= 

 nitic ; but westward, especially in the folded and compressed strata 

 composing the foot-hills of the Rooky Mountains, it more nearly 

 approaches in lithological characters true coal. West of the Eoot- 

 Hills this formation is cut off by an immense fault with a large 

 downthrow to the east, beyond which break Palaeozoic limestones 

 and quartzites form the precipitous and craggy range of the Bocky 

 Mountains. That the lignite-bearing series formerly had a wider 

 distribution and covered much of these Palaeozoic rocks is evident 

 from the fact that, far in in the mountains, a small patch of them 

 occurs, resting on the older rocks, which have here been let down 

 by a series of faults, thus preserving the overlying series from being 

 denuded away. Here the lignite has been converted into a semi- 

 anthracitio coal of very excellent quality, free from pyrites and 

 slate, and quite undeserving of the name of lignite in any sense 

 but that of being of post- carboniferous age. It appears on the 

 Devil's Creek, or north fork of the Bow River, at Cascade Park, 



