Canadian Rocky Mountains. 285 



ferred without perceiving that the history of ocean and con- 

 tinent is an example of progressive design, quite as much 

 as that of living beings. Nor can we fail to see that, while 

 in some important directions we have penetrated the great 

 secret of nature, in reference to the general plan and struc- 

 ture of the earth and its waters, and the changes through 

 which they have passed, we have still very much to learn, 

 and perhaps quite as much to unlearn, and that the future 

 holds out to us and to our successors higher, grander, and 

 clearer conceptions than those to which we have yet attained. 

 The vastness and the might of ocean and the manner in 

 which it cherishes the feeblest and most fragile beings, alike 

 speak to us of Rim who holds it in the hollow.of His hand, and 

 gave to it of old, its boundaries and its laws ; but its teach- 

 ing ascends to a higher tone when we consider its origin and 

 history, and the manner in which it has been made to build 

 up continents and mountain-chains, and, at the same time, 

 to nourish and sustain the teeming life of sea and land. 



On the Canadian Kooky Mountains, with special 



reference to that part of the eange . 



between the forty-ninth parallel 



and the head -waters of the 



Bed Deer Eiver. 1 



By George M. Dawson, D.S., F.G.S., A.R.S.M., 

 Assistant Director of the Geological Survey of Canada. 



The term Rocky Mountains is frequently applied in a 

 loose way to the whole mountain region bordering the 

 west coast of North America, which is more appropri- 

 ately — in the absence of any other general name — denoted 

 as the Cordillera belt, and includes a number of mountain 

 systems and ranges which on the 40th parallel have an 

 aggregate breadth of about one thousand miles. Nearly 



1 Read before Section C, British Association, Birmingham Meet- 

 ing, 1886. 



