Revieivs — The Geological Survey of Canada. 175 



11. — GEOLOaiOAL AND NATURAL HiSTORT SuRVET OF CaNADA. 



Annual Keport (New Series) : Vol. IV. 1888-89. (Montreal : 

 William Foster Brown, & Co., 1890.) 



THIS voluminous work consists of ten reports, each of which is 

 separately paginated, and distinguished bj a letter of the 

 alphabet. Some conception may be formed of the wide extent of 

 country covered by the Survey when we read that in April 1889 

 sixteen parties were organised for field exploration, and were dis- 

 tributed as follows : — British Columbia, 3 ; North West Territory, 2; 

 Manitoba, 1 ; Ontario, 2 ; Quebec, 4 ; New Brunswick, 2 ; Nova 

 Scotia, 2. The Summary Keports by the Director (Dr. A. R. C. 

 Selwyn, C.M.G., F.R.S.) head the list. These contain brief accounts 

 of the Surveys undertaken during the season of 1888-89, with 

 statistics relating to the Museum at Ottawa (the head-quarters), and 

 details of the various additions made to the collections, in the shape 

 of fossils, recent mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, shells, and plants. 

 The first report is by Dr. George M. Dawson, and refers to a portion 

 of the West Kootanie district of British Columbia. This survey was 

 undertaken with " the special purpose of ascertaining the character 

 and mode of occurrence and association of the ore-deposits, and of 

 estimating their prospective importance." The district is described 

 as rugged and mountainous, and as comprising the southern portions 

 of the Selkirk and Columbia or Gold Ranges of Mountains. Its 

 physical features are desci-ibed in detail, as to its rivers (Kootanie 

 and Columbia), lakes (Upper and Lower Arrow, and Kootanie), 

 climate, vegetation, and, finally, its general geological features. The 

 geological structure is extremely complicated, and the information ' 

 obtained during the survey (which only occupied one month) is 

 insufficient for a systematic description of the rocks occurring in it. 

 Nevertheless some clues were obtained regarding the origin and 

 habitus of the ore-deposits — chiefly silver-bearing. 



" Speaking generally of the district," writes Dr. Dawson, " I may 

 say that the result of my examination has been to convince me 

 that the importance of the mineral discoveries made has not been 

 exaggerated, while their number and the area over which they are 

 distributed is such as to guarantee a large and continuous output of 

 good ore, so soon as adequate means are provided for the transport 

 of the product to market." 



The oldest stratified rocks of the district, as seen near the shore 

 of Kootanie Lake, are provisionally referred to the Archtean under 

 the name of the Shushwap Series, and consist of mica-schists and 

 gneisses, with which are associated hornblende-schists, and horn- 

 blende-gneisses, as well as coarsely crystalline marbles. Overlying 

 these rocks (at Hot Springs) is a great thickness of grey and green 

 schists, and these in turn are followed by limestones and black 

 argillaceous schists, a mass of granite bounding the whole at a 

 distance of two to three miles inland. "In evident relation to this 

 change in the country-rock is the circumstance that the ores improve 

 almost uniformly in respect to contents of silver in crossing the 

 series of veins in a westward direction from the lake, and rising 



