288 Canadian Record of Science. 



watershed is crossed at an elevation of 5300 feet. Had it 

 been anticipated by Dr. Hector, who when attached to 

 Palliser's expedition discovered and named this pass, that 

 it would have been traversed by a railway, he might pos- 

 sibly have endeavored to bestow on it some more eupho- 

 nious name. 



In 1874, I examined the South Kootanie Pass in con- 

 nection with H. M. North American Boundary Commission, 

 and in 1883 and 1884 that portion of the Rocky Mountains 

 between the parallels of 49° and 51° 30', was explored and 

 mapped in some detail by myself and assistants, in connec- 

 tion with the work of the Canadian Geological Survey. 

 Access to this, the southern portion of the Eocky Moun- 

 tains in Canadian territory, being now rendered easy by 

 the completion of the railway, its mineral and other 

 resources are receiving attention, and the magnificent 

 alpine scenery which it presents is attracting the notice 

 of tourists and travellers generally. This portion of the 

 mountains, including a length of about one hundred and 

 seventy-five miles, measured along the axis of the range, 

 may be taken as a type of that which is not yet so well 

 known, and some of the main results of the reconnaissance 

 work so far accomplished are here presented. 



With certain local exceptions, the geological structure 

 of these mountains is as yet very imperfectly known. In a 

 report of the Geological Survey, shortly to be issued, it is 

 intended to publish such detail as has been worked out. It 

 will here be necessary only to give the main facts, which 

 form the structural basis of the actual surface features. 

 The old crystalline rocks form no part of the Eocky Moun- 

 tains, either in the district here specially mentioned or 

 northward as far as the Peace Eiver. The lowest rocks 

 here represented are quartzites, slates and shales more or 

 less indurated, with occasionally true schists of a subcrystal- 

 line character, forming a series several thousand feet in 

 thickness and referable, so far as the scanty fossil evidence 

 shows, to the Cambrian. Overlying these, with no very 

 marked unconformity, is a great limestone series of Devon- 

 ian and Carboniferous age, which occasionally holds massive 



