﻿1861.] 



HECTOR EOCKT MOUNTAINS, ETC. 



389 



Palliser, whose previous adventurous travels in that region had given 

 assurance of the ability and energy necessary to penetrate unexplored 

 country, and to preserve a friendly footing with the savage tribes 

 that were to be encountered. 



I was selected by Sir Roderick Murchison to accompany this Expe- 

 dition in the combined capacity of surgeon and geologist; and, at 

 the request of Government, he furnished me with instructions as to 

 how I should turn to best advantage my opportunities for geological 

 research. 



The more important results of my work I have now the honour 

 to communicate through him to this Society. 



They have been accumulated during three years' travel in wild 

 regions uninhabited save by Indians, or, at rare intervals, by little 

 communities of persons engaged in the fur-trade. Excepting in the 

 maps of Mr. Arrowsmith, which gave very correctly, on the whole, 

 the great general features of the region explored, embracing 33° 

 of longitude, and in some places 5° of latitude, nothing was known of 

 its topography ; so that this essential to sound geological reasoning 

 had to be acquired step by step as the country was examined. I 

 therefore submit my observations only as the best I could make 

 under the circumstances, knowing that a re-examination of the 

 country with the aid of the topographical details which we now 

 possess would materially alter many of the views I have expressed. 



Our previous knowledge concerning the geology of the interior of 

 British North America was confined to the observations of Sir John 

 Richardson, made during his three great overland arctic expeditions — 

 the first two with Sir John Franklin, and the last in search of that 

 lamented traveller. His published descriptions of the country he 

 passed through are models of minute observation and cautious in- 

 ference. To him we owe the first discovery of Silurian strata resting 

 on a primitive axis stretching to the north-west from Lake Superior 

 to the Arctic Ocean, and overlain by Devonian strata. He also 

 showed the Rocky Mountains, where he met them on the Mac- 

 kenzie River, to be composed of Carboniferous Limestone for the 

 most part, which is also their character, we shall find, further to the 

 south. From Elk River he brought home fossils which, although 

 from a group of strata which he classes as Devonian, yet in a foot- 

 note, on the authority of Sowerby,he says have quite a Jurassic aspect. 

 That he was right in the latter suggestion is rendered probable by 

 the recent publication of species of Ammonites by Mr. Hind, which, 

 were procured from that locality by the fur-traders, and which 

 Messrs. Meek and Hay den consider to be of Jurassic age. Sir John 

 Richardson also described the existence of a great lignite-basin in 

 the valley of the Mackenzie River, which he classes as of Tertiary age. 



The line of route, however, followed by Richardson did not, with 

 the exception of the canoe-routefrom Lake Superior to Lake Winnipeg, 

 and again at Eort Carlton on the Saskatchewan, touch on the country 

 which has been explored by this Expedition. With regard to the 

 canoe-route, I have added nothing to the researches of that traveller, 

 and to the still more minute observations of Dr. Bigsby, which were 



