420 Reviews— Coal Area, British Columbia. 



" Eccleshall " should refer to the Staffordshire place of that name, 

 the Sheffield place being usually " Ecclesall ". Even "when the 

 increased costs of publication are considered, the price seems 

 somewhat higher than necessary. 



A. S. 



III. — Geology of a Portion of the Flathead Coal Aeea, British 



Columbia. By J. D. Mackenzie. Geological Survey of Canada, 



Memoir 87, 1916. pp. ii + 53, with 1 plate and 2 maps. 



rpHIS coalfield lies on the western side of the Flathead Valley, 



J_ a little over 2 miles north of the 49th parallel, and 35 miles 



by road from Corbin Station, on the C.P.E.., the nearest railway 



station in Canada. The Flathead Valley runs north and south, and 



is a rift faulted in between the Clarke and Macdonald ranges of the 



B,ocky Mountains. The coal area, which is about 4 J miles long by 



3^^ miles wide, is let down into the western side of the valley by two 



parallel normal faults striking N.W.-S.E. 



This district includes rocks from Devono-Carboniferous to Upper 

 Cretaceous, all of which lie on one another in apparent conformity, 

 a few Eocene lacustrine deposits and moraines and glacial drift. 



The coal-bearing formation is the Kootenay, of Lower Cretaceous 

 age. This consists of about 1,100 feet of grey and brown sandstones 

 and shales, which contain 80 feet of coal. The productive measures 

 are all situated in the lower 400 feet of the series and contain five 

 seams which are respectively 4, 7, 8, 25, and 36 feet thick. From 

 the included fossils and the character and distribution of the rocks it 

 is inferred that the Kootenay Series was laid down in a string of 

 lakes or swamps along the main axis of the liocky Mountain Chain. 

 The coal is bituminous and soft, but on the whole of good quality, 

 though the full thickness of the seams is not workable in all cases. 

 The mines are still in the prospecting stage, but the conditions and 

 quality are such that mining will be profitable as soon as railway 

 transport is provided. In addition to the coal some thin lignite 

 seams occur in the Tertiary beds, but these are not of any value. 

 Also globules of bitumen have been noticed in the finer-grained 

 calcareous beds of the Tertiary formation, which are supposed to 

 indicate the presence of petroleum. Some prospecting has been 

 carried out in these rocks, but no oil has yet been found. 



W. H. W. 



IV. — Reports on certain Minerals used in the Arts and Industries : 

 Graphite. By P. A. Wagner. South African Journal of 

 Industries, February, 1918. 

 rTimS paper contains a good account of the properties and uses of 

 JL graphite, with a detailed description of the South African 

 sources of supply. Although these are not very large, they are at 

 present supplying a considerable part of the local demand. The 

 only locality actually being exploited is situated in the eastern 

 portion of the Zoutpansberg district of the Transvaal. Here the 

 mineral occurs as a lens lying between pja-oxenite and quartzite. 

 Samples assayed from 50 to 90 per cent of carbon, and several 



