372 Reports and Proceedings. 



thrown down) fully fifteen feet thick, and it is not very long ago 

 that I discovered flanking low walls on each side of it, now grass- 

 grown, which are distinctly vitrified ; and similar burnt masses I 

 believe will yet be found on other forts which have not been 

 thoroughly explored. In ascending Craig Phadrich, we pass along 

 the bulging sides of an ordinary hill of Old Eed sandstone, till 

 we arrive suddenly at the base of an enormous cap or summit of 

 hard conglomerate, with precipitous frontlets on the north and south 

 sides, and steep ridges of approach on the west and east. These 

 approaches were traversed and guarded by two walls or embank- 

 ments — one a very strong and high one on the summit, composed of 

 loose stones and sand and gravel, with a thinner wall about fifty feet 

 lower down the slope, but which is the most highly vitrified. The 

 pathway or ascent by the west side is extremely narrow, and is 

 flanked all along by projecting masses of rock, from which loose 

 stones could be thrown down on an invading foe ; and there are 

 besides many large loose masses which could easily be tossed over. 

 The main entrance was by the eastern slope or approach, but the 

 pathway ascends by a steep incline, and it then winds in a tortuous 

 manner between the two ramparts to the gate at the summit, which 

 could thus be easily guarded, and which was further protected by 

 projecting walls or bastions. Both the walls are now much grass- 

 grown, and it is at present difficult to say to what extent they were 

 vitrified, or how far they have been overthrown or destroyed, as 

 they undoubtedly were in other hill-forts. In the upper rampart, 

 which has only been partially opened up or excavated, I have not 

 been able to observe a continuous coating of vitrified matter ; but 

 the vitrified stones occur intermixed with other stones not eff'ected 

 by fire, and with sand and gravel, quite irregularly, though in some 

 spots in patches of considerable size. In the lower or outer wall, 

 and especially on the south side, where a long trench had been cut 

 along its face, there is more of the appearance of a continuous sheet 

 or coating of vitrified matter, consisting of pieces of gneiss, granite, 

 mica slate, and quartz rock, with some bits of sandstone, all attached 

 together and fused into one another. Beneath the vitrified crust, 

 which is seldom above 12 or 14 inches thick, the rampart consists, as 

 I have said, of loose stones, earth, and gravel: and in Craig 

 Phadrich I have not observed, as in some similar structures, long 

 strings of melted matter running down like one's fingers into the 

 heap below. Another fact seems worth recording, that while the 

 wall or rampart appears invariably to thin out as it approaches a cliff 

 or mass of the native conglomerate rock, no part of that rock itself 

 has been vitrified or at all affected by fire. The specimens of gneiss, 

 old red sandstone, &c., from Craig Phadrich, exhibited more or 

 less a tendency to a regular columnar structure. 



2. " On the Coalfields of the North Pacific Coast, as affecting the 

 Western Terminus of the Pacific Railroad." By Robert Brown, 

 r.R.G.S., &c. The author stated that what notes he had to lay 

 before the Society, were the result of occasional observations in the 

 icourse of his wanderings between California and the Alaska during 



