502 Dr. H. Woorhcard — M. Cambrian Fossils of the Rockies. 



VII. — The Canadian Eockies. Part I : On a Collection of 

 Middle Cambrian Fossils obtained by Edward Whymper, 

 Esq., F.E.G.S., from Mount Stephen, British Columbia.^ 



By Henry "Woodward, LL.D., F.E.S., P.G.S. 



IN the Summer of 1901 my friend Mr. Edward Whymper, the 

 well-known traveller, mountain explorer, and writer, paid a visit 

 to the watershed of the Canadian Eocky Mountains, and during 

 a stay at Field, the highest pass reached on the Canadian and Pacific 

 Eailroad, he examined the slopes of Mount Stephen, and at a height 

 of 6,000 feet on its northern side found numerous Trilobites, and 

 brought home a considerable collection. 



These fossils have been most obligingly placed in my hands by 

 Mr. Whymper, and, although previously known, they have not all 

 been adequately figured. I venture to think their illustration may 

 be useful, accompanied by some further notes on the fossils associated 

 with them.^ 



Locality. — Two mountain peaks. Mount Field (5,000 feet) on the 

 right bank and Mount Stephen (8,000 feet) on the left bank of the 

 Wapta or Kicking Horse Eiver, stand as flanking bastions to the 

 valley, whose base is about 4,500 feet above sea-level, and some 

 miles to the east of which is the ' Great Divide,' the water-parting 

 of the ' Eockies,' where the primitive sources of the mountain 

 streams separate, the waters of the western side to join the Columbia 

 Eiver and the Eraser, and ultimately flowing to the Pacific, while 

 those of the eastern side add their various contributions to the Bow 

 Eiver, which finally empties itself into Hudson's Bay. 



The ' Eockies,' which run in a north-west and south-east direction, 

 taken in their widest extent of lateral buttresses, may, speaking 

 broadly, be said to embrace the Coast Eange on the west, which is 

 followed by the Gold Eange, the Selkirks, the Bocky Mountains 

 proper ; then follow to the east the Foot Hills, giving place to the 

 vast rolling Prairies beyond. 



The earliest record of the discovery of fossils on Mount Stephen 

 is that of Mr. L. M. Lambe, one of the Surveyors on the staff of the 

 Canadian and Pacific Eailway in- 1884. (Mr. Lambe is now the 

 Artist and one of the Assistant Paleeontologists on the Geological 

 Survey of Canada.) He obtained four specimens from this spot. 



Mr. C. D. Walcott, describing " the Fauna of the Lower Cambrian, 

 or Olenelliis Zone," writes (p. 538) : — " Geologists are indebted 

 to the Geological Survey of Canada for the discovery of the Olenellus- 

 zone in the Eocky Mountains of British Columbia. Dr. Geo. M. 

 Dawson first obtained a species of Olenellus, like 0. gilberti, at 

 Kicking Horse Lake in British Columbia, and in 1887 Mr. E. G. 

 McConnell described a section at Castle Mountain and Mount 

 Stephen, which shows that the Olenellus fauna occurs at the base 



^ Eead before the Britisli Association for the Advancement of Science (Section C, 

 Geology), Belfast, September 11th, 1902. 



2 After they have been examined by me Mr. Whymper mil present them to the 

 British Museum (Natural History). 



