﻿1861.] 



HECTOR ROCKY MOUNTAINS, ETC. 



429 



pits in operation, giving employment to thirty miners and a number of 

 labourers. The former are principally Scotch and Staffordshire men 

 that have been brought out to the country at the Hudson Bay Com- 

 pany's expense, but the greater number of the labourers are Indians, 

 small tribes of whom come and settle at the mines and work 

 for a short time until they tire of the uncongenial life, when they 

 leave to make room for another band. The irregular supply of labour 

 from this cause adds greatly to the uncertainty and expense of the 

 workings. When working in the best seams at Nanaimo, a miner 

 can put out 2| tons per day. The shipment from Nanaimo in the 

 month of January 1860 was 2000 tons, the trade having at that time 

 been suddenly extended by the demand consequent upon the esta- 

 blishment of gas-works at Portland, Oregon, and several other places. 

 This demand was supplied from a large stock that was lying on hand 

 at the time, but which, from having been exposed to the action of the 

 weather for many years, was of very inferior quality. In spite of 

 this, however, I understand that the market has continued steady 

 throughout last year, and that the coal has been much used in Cali- 

 fornia for making gas instead of that brought from the Eastern States 

 as heretofore. Coal from the same description of strata has been 

 also worked to some extent on the opposite side of the Gulf of Georgia 

 at Bellingham Bay, and also at Coose Bay in Washington Territory. 

 Although it has been found in many other localities along the coast, 

 as I shall mention after describing the formation, these are the only 

 places where it has been worked to any extent. The whole forma- 

 tion associated with the lignite- or coal-beds is very extensively de- 

 veloped along the Pacific coast, and has generally been considered 

 to be of Tertiary age, excepting from the first accounts sent home, 

 which, as there were no fossils, induced geologists to consider them 

 as Carboniferous. Some fossils transmitted to the Jermyn Street 

 Museum many years ago were first rightly recognized by the late 

 Professor E. Forbes as being Cretaceous ; but the localities were un- 

 described, and, in the absence of sections, it was impossible to deduce 

 anything from them regarding the age of the coal-beds. 



The observations which I have now to offer respecting these strata 

 will, I believe, put their age beyond doubt as Cretaceous ; but rightly 

 to understand the value to be attached to them requires me to give 

 first a sketch of the physical features of the district. 



The southern part of Vancouver Island, where the town of Vic- 

 toria is built, is composed of metamorphic rocks, with occasional beds 

 of crystalline limestone. This district and also the central portion 

 of the island, as may be expected from the formation, is everywhere 

 hilly and even mountainous, with only limited patches of fertile soil 

 in the valleys. However, the scanty soil on the rocky hills supports 

 a fine growth of timber, so that they are almost invariably wooded to 

 their summits. In the immediate neighbourhood of Victoria there is 

 nevertheless a good deal of fine open land dotted with small oak-trees. 

 On passing to the north through the Canal de Haro, the islands of 

 the archipelago between Vancouver Island and the mainland are seen 

 to be composed of strata of sandstone and conglomerate, which form 



2 G 



