66 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. ToL. XLVI. No. 1177 



F.E.S. has been even more potent in secur- 

 ing tlie majority against tlie proposal of the 

 council. What we are quite certain about is 

 that for a long time past the elections to the 

 fellowship of the Eoyal Society have (largely 

 through this influence of " vested interests ") 

 got far too much into a groove. The honor of 

 being labelled F.R.S. has gradually come to be 

 regarded more and more simply as a higher 

 " degree " added to the academic distinctions 

 of men who have passed through the regular 

 scientific " mill " and have contributed a cer- 

 tain number of papers to the Transactions. 

 The result is that the Eoyal Society is not as 

 fully representative as it ought to be of the 

 genius of the country, to which, as in earlier 

 days, its fellowship should be extended. This 

 is particularly true of " men distinguished in 

 the scientific or educational service of the 

 state," the importance and originality of whose 

 work for the nation have secured much more 

 adequate appreciation in consequence of the 

 light thrown on it during war-time. A more 

 elastic procedure in the recommendations to 

 fellowships has for some time past been seen 

 to be called for by the wisest heads in the so- 

 ciety, and the proposal of the council was the 

 outcome. We hope that it will still be pushed, 

 with more persuasive effect, even though for 

 the moment nothing further is done. 



NOTES ON CANADIAN STRATIGRAPHY 

 AND PALEONTOLOGY 



CORDILLERAN PROVINCE 



Graham Island. — The Queen Charlotte Isl- 

 ands form part of the outer, largely sub- 

 merged ranges of the northwestern Cordillera 

 and are generally considered to be the north- 

 ern continuation of the Vancouver Eange. 

 Graham Island is the largest and one of the 

 most northerly of the group. Its geology is 

 the subject of a memoir by MacKenzie.-*- 

 The oldest rocks exposed on the island belong 

 to the Vancover group and are divided into 

 two formations, the Maude and the Takoun. 

 The former consists of argillites, sandstones, 

 and tuffs; it contains a marine fauna of early 



1 J. D. MaeKenzie, ' ' Geology of Graham Island, 

 B. C," Gaol. Surv., Canada, Mem. 88, 1916. 



Jurassic age and at two localities in the lower 

 beds are " probably Upper Triassic " forms. 

 The Maude formation contains a large 

 amount of pyroclastie material in its upper 

 portion and grades upward into the Yakoun 

 volcanic agglomerate, composed of rather 

 massive water-laid beds. Its marine fauna, 

 largely pelecypods and ammonites, suggests 

 correlation with Middle Jurassic sandstones 

 in Alaska. Both formations are moderately 

 metamorphosed and considerably distiu-bed by 

 folds and faults. They are cut by batholithic 

 intrusions which may be correlated with the 

 Upper Jurassic Coast Eange batholith. The 

 orogenic movements causing the deformation 

 of the Vancouver group manifested themselves 

 as compressive stresses acting in a direction 

 north 60° east and were concomitant with 

 these intrusions. 



Erosion during Comanehean time reduced 

 the mountain ranges thus formed to a sub- 

 dued topography which was buried beneath 

 the Queen Charlotte series in the Cretaceous 

 period. That series consists of the Haida 

 sandstones and coal-bearing shales, the Honna 

 conglomerates and sandstones, and the Skide- 

 gate sandstones and shales, named in ascend- 

 ing order. It is probable that the Queen 

 Charlotte series was formed in estuarine 

 basins by the sudden infiux of a large amount 

 of sediment carried in by rapid streams, and 

 that the series as a whole represents a delta 

 deposit reasserted and modified by the waves 

 and currents of a shallow sea. During the 

 Laramide revolution the rocks of this district 

 were slightly folded and upraised; dacite and 

 andesite dikes and sills were extensively in- 

 jected. Following this uplift, the Cretaceous 

 sediments were largely stripped from the 

 underlying rocks, remaining only in synclinal 

 basins. 



Shallow-water sediments forming the 

 Skonun formation were deposited during the 

 Miocene period. Sedimentation was cut short 

 by the resumption of volcanic activity on a 

 tremendous scale, by which the Masset forma- 

 tion was built up. This vulcanism is best 

 placed in the early or mid-Pliocene, and the 

 close of this epoch was marked by a recur- 



