PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 69 



forest of that region whose farthest outposts exteud to a lieight of 2,400 meters, 

 i.e., somewhat higher thau iu the central Alps which are 4° further south. Per- 

 petual snowfields are confined to the very highest peaks. In tliis region is the 

 Canadian National Park, its central point is the little town of Banff, where our 

 excursion spent Septemher 2ud. Soon after our arrival the more active ha.steiied 

 to Sulphur Mountain, (2,270 m.) It is a typical isoclinal mountain, with its peaks 

 breaking off precipitously to the east and the surface of the strata, which might 

 belong to the carboniferous (I found a productus on the top), sloping less steeitly 

 to the west. The summit is rounded as may be seen from a photograph taken by 

 Prof. W. M. Davis. The glaciers of the ice age pa.ssed over it and left relics of 

 the moraines. On the east at its feet lies the well wooded valley of the Si)ray, 

 900 meters deeper. Here bubbles up the warm spring which gives the mountain 

 its name of Sulphur Mountain. It probably indicates the line of cleavage east of 

 which the strata buckle up again into the Kuudle mountain, (2,980 m.) To tlie 

 west bej^ond the Avooded Sundance valley, there rises another isoclinal rami)art, 

 the Bourgeau range (2,990 m.) Here cirques have been cut iu the mountain ridges, 

 between them the forest ascends much higher on the sides of the mountain tlian 

 in the domain of their debris-filled floors. A portion of the valley of the Bow 

 river running iu a transverse direction cuts off the sulphur mountain and its 

 neighbours to the north. In the broad, woody valley the river meanders along with 

 many windings and in several places backs up so as to form a lake, while beyond 

 rise new isoclinal mountains, among them the splendid rocky form of Cascade 

 Mountain (2,986 m.) This transverse valley continues to the eawt, but on 

 reaching the trough of cretaceous formations above mentioned the Bow River 

 leaves it. Evidently it once followed this valley through the Devil's Gate out 

 into the plain. The magnificent surface of Lake Minnewanka (Devil's Lake) some 

 distance away indicates its deserted course. 



For a long time we remaiued on the top of Sulphur Mountain lost in the 

 contemplation of the magnificent beauty of the panorama. The almost geometrical 

 regularity of the stratification, which showed only here and thereby slight curves, 

 as at Cascade Mountain, that it is due to a folding process,impelled one irresistibly 

 to the consideration of the problem of mountain formation. But the geographer 

 was enchained no less by the regularity of the internal form, the alternation of 

 almost rectilineal valleys both longitudinal and latei-al, and many peculiarities in 

 the course of the valleys. Indeed the outermost advance post of Rundle ^lountain 

 is quite cut off by the Bow River as the Tunnel Mountain. The i)pinion was 

 generally expressed that it is scarcely possible to imagine a finer field than the 

 neighborhood of Banff" for special study in stratigraphic geology, geotechtonics and 

 geomorphology. The basis has been already laid by the topographical and 

 geological survey of Canada. The former prepared a special map of the National 

 Park on the scale of 1 to 40,000, the latter had a transverse profile taken through 

 the whole Canadian Rockies so as to cut through the region about Banll", by R. G. 

 McConuell, and Dawson himself has explored the neighbouring cretaceous trough. 

 At the same time the C.P.R. hotel offers headquarters comfortable enough to 

 satisfy the claims of the most exacting. 



From Banff the railway continues up the Bow river, then for a short distance 

 in the transverse valley mentioned above, then again in a longitudinal valley 

 running close by the watershed here formed by the Rockies. In the west one sees 

 their proud snow covered heads which now regularly exceed 3,000 meters in height 

 and bear considerable glacial areas on their shoulders. .Alount Lefroy 3,353 mt'ters 

 is the highest. That the chain rises further north to 4,785 metei-s in 31ouut 

 Hooker, and even to 4,880 meters in Mount Brown, as is given on our maps is 

 very much doubted by Sulzer and Hueber who during their journey amougMhe 

 Selkirks nowhere saw any such giants rising from the Rockies. The Hector I a.>^s, 

 a very narrow gatewav 1,614 meters high, affords a passage from the Hudson Bay 

 Territory to that of the Pacific. This height is easily attained from the east. W e 

 follow the Bow river to Laggan (1,503 m.) without having any real engineering 

 difficulties to conquer, with an average ascent of only 2.8 per cent, hven tlicn u 

 is onlva matter of ascending 111 meters in a distance of 11 kilometers, ami wc 

 are in a saddle in which many cones of deposition display themselves, hu then 

 we must descend 348 meters iu only thirteen kilometers. This is undoubtedly the 



