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PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



[Apr. 10, 



trance to the river, in the sandstones, there is a thin seam of coal, the 

 position of which was pointed out to me by Mr. Mchol, as the river 

 was too high to allow us to see it. Continuing to ascend the river, 

 which is of small size, we found low exposures of the sandstone still 

 with the dip to the E. ; and at Fossil Bank, three or four miles from 

 the mouth, they are overlain conformably by dark-purple clays filled 

 with septaria, which yield Cretaceous fossils. The dip of the beds 

 is 10° to the E. by IN"., and the clay strata were clearly seen to rest 

 on the hard-bedded sandstones. 



I found Inoceramus, BacuUtes, and some other fossils, of which 

 other specimens are also among those obtained by Mr. Bauerman 

 at this place. I was told at Nanaimo that Ammonites have frequently 

 been found there of large size, and from Mr. McKay I got a 

 number of fossils, some of which he obtained at this locality ; but 

 others having the same appearance, and also contained in septaria, 

 he procured from Comux and Valdez Inlet at the head of the Gulf 

 of Georgia ; but these two sets of specimens had been unfortunately 

 mixed together. Eor a couple of miles the Nanaimo River flows 

 through these clay strata, and then turns again from the S.W., and 

 in ascending the sandstone strata were again found to recur as in 

 the lower part of the river, but with a more rapid clip. At the 

 "Canon" these sandstones form precipices about 100 feet in height, 

 bounding a narrow gorge 600 yards long, through which the river 

 flows. The beds dip at 15° to the E.N.E., and are very like those 

 of Newcastle Island. 



From under these sandstones, in ascending the river, hard beds 

 of the gravel-conglomerate cropped out with great regularity, sepa- 

 rated by soft beds of red and greenish clay. These probably corre- 

 spond to the group with the coal at Nanaimo, but I failed in finding 

 any proof of it beyond fragments of carbonized wood. The strata 

 from Fossil Bank up to the river, as far as I went, are shown in 

 section No. 3, PI. XIII. 



The total thickness of the beds from the coal to the clays at 

 Fossil Bank I estimated at 600 to 700 feet, but I had no opportunity 

 of making any exact measurement. Between Nanaimo River and the 

 coast, there is a tract of very fine country, and it is probably occu- 

 pied by the Septaria-clays, which, as I mentioned before, were seen a 

 little south of the rapid. 



The following is the list of fossils from the Septaria-clays, which 

 includes those specimens obtained by McKay from Valdez Inlet : — 

 Fnoceramus (?) (this is the /. Crepsii of Conrad andRoemer), /. Tex- 

 an as, I. Ntbracensis, I. unduloplicatus, I. confer tim-anmdatus, I. 

 mytiloides, BacuUtes eonqiressus and two other species, Ammonites 

 geniculates and three other species. 



It is thus evident that the group of strata with the lignite-seams 

 towards their base must be of Cretaceous age ; but as yet it would be 

 premature to infer the exact position which they hold with reference 

 to the rest of that system. The great beds of conglomerate which 

 form the long narrow islands along the west of the Gulf of Georgia 

 must, I think, overlie all these strata. 



