132 Reviews— Geological Survey of Canada. 
date, a very anomalous circumstance, for which the following — 
explanation is offered, viz. that probably by the excessive folding 
together of the rocks the thickness of the series became so great as 
to bring its lower portions below the plane of fusion. This is shown 
by the fact that in some places—notably in the vicinity of Blunden 
Harbour and Seymour Narrows—both the granites and thé rocks of 
the Vancouver Series have been subjected to great pressure in a 
horizontal direction. causing the fragments in the agglomerates to 
assume lenticular forms, and to become more or less schistose, and 
when darker fragments are abundantly present having an almost 
gneissic lamination. When this was taking place the granites must 
have been in a plastic state. The granites are almost always horn- 
blendic and grey, or darker in colour, resembling diorites. Dr. 
Dawson observes that ‘the relations here exemplified by the contact 
of the Vancouver Series with the subjacent, though newer granites, 
precisely repeat those fully detailed by Mr. A. C. Lawson, in his 
report on the Huronian (Keewatin) and so-called Laurentian rocks 
of the Lake of the Wocds.”? 
The Cretaceous rocks of the northern part of Vancouver Island 
are probably outliers, originally continuous with an older basin in 
the Queen Charlotte Islands (see Table). They are found to rest 
unconformably on an irregular, denuded surface of the older rocks, 
and have filled pre-existing hollows and valleys in this surface, 
during a prolonged period of more or less uniform progressive 
depression. 
Coal should be looked for in the more central portions of the basin, 
because where the beds come in contact with the older rocks, they 
probably represent only a succession of shore deposits which do 
not include the entire thickness of the formation. 
The Coal-bearing rocks are those of Comox and Nanaimo, which 
border the south-western shore of the Strait of Georgia forming a 
belt of rolling country between the mountainous region of the 
interior of Vancouver Island and the coast. They are largely littoral 
in character, being composed of comglomerates and sandstones, with 
intercalated shales, holding marine fossils. It is supposed that these 
Cretaceous strata underlie a great part of the Strait of Georgia, and 
that many of the beds were laid down along a sea-margin nearly at 
the level of the present coast. 
On the north side of the west and Rupert Arms of Quatsino 
Sound there is an area of coal-bearing Cretaceous rocks which has 
attracted the attention of capitalists, and attempts have accordingly 
been made to turn it to profitable account, but the records of boring 
and the geological data obtained in the exploration of this area 
(called the ‘“‘Koskeemo Cretaceous area”) show that no coal seams 
of workable extent have been found in it. The entire exposed 
thickness of the Koskeemo coal-basin is “at least 1500 feet.” 
Records of the borings are given at p. 95B of Dr. Dawson’s report. 
A brief account is next given of the ‘Glacial and Superficial 
Deposits’ of the region explored (pp. 99B to 106B), Two great 
1 Annual Report, Geol. Survey Canada, 1885, p. 61CC, et seq. 
