UPPEE CRETACEOUS. . 699 



on the Pine River as far as the Middle Forks. * * * The sandstones are generally brownish 

 in color, contain little calcareous matter, and are often quite coarse in grain. They are usually 

 regularly bedded, and broad surfaces are frequently ripple marked. In the coarser grits and 

 conglomerates the constituent iragments are found to be almost entirely of cherty material 

 like that occurring in the more resistant of the limestone beds about the summit of the pass. 

 * * * From sections exposed in the nearly bare hillsides of Pine River, the tliickness of 

 the series must be at least 2,000 feet and may be much more. * * * 



While there is no means of arriving at the precise age of most parts of the sandstone series 

 of the upper Pine River, I see no reason to doubt that it forms the coarse littoral portion of 

 the Cretaceous rocks which spread so widety to the eastward. It seems probable, as more 

 fully detailed elsewhere, that fine "shaly materials become increasingly abundant in receding 

 from the mountains, and that the rocks eventually resolve themselves into the subdivisions 

 described below. * * * 



1. Upper sandstones and shales with lignite coals (Wapiti River sandstones). 



2. Upper dark shales (Smoky River shales). 



3. Lower sandstones and shales with lignite and true coals (Dunvegan sandstones). 



4. Lower dark shales (Fort St. John shales). 



The preceding paragraphs refer particularly to the Cretaceous of the eastern 

 foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The typical development of Cretaceous strata 

 in the northern plains of the Athabaska and Peace River region differs from that of 

 the foothills. It has been well described by McConnell/"'' who says: 



The Cretaceous section in the Peace-Athabaska country includes beds ranging in age from 

 the Laramie to the Dakota, but the lithological succession of the various divisions differs from 

 that which obtains on the Great Plains and also varies in different parts of the district. This 

 feature of the formation, together with the further fact that most of the fossils collected are 

 new to science and therefore useless for the purpose of correlating the beds here with 

 known horizons elsewhere, makes it difficult to classify the different terranes in a satisfactory 

 manner and also renders necessary the provisional use of some new names. The following 

 illustration shows the succession of the A^arious divisions of the Cretaceous on the two rivers, 

 and also their ages, so far as the stratigraphical and paleontological evidence at hand admits: 



Peace River section. 



Wapiti River sandstone. 

 fFoxhill sandstone. 

 ISmoky River shales. 



Dunvegan sandstone. 



{Fort St. John shales. 

 Peace River sandstones. 

 Loon River shales. 



Unrepresented. 



For an account of the stratigraphy, with notes on the faunas and correlation, 

 McConnell's report should be consulted, but the following summary indicates the 

 nature of the formations enumerated in the preceding table: 



The Laramie is an alternation of yellowish and grayish flaggy and massive 

 sandstones with grayish and dark clays and shales. It carries thin ironstone bands 

 and lignite and is at least 1,000 feet thick in thig plateaus south of Lesser Slave 

 Lake. No determinable fossils were obtained in it. 



The Montana comprises 50 feet of alternating sandstone and shale (Foxhill) 

 and 700 feet of shale, the upper part of the La Biche shales, "The exact junction 

 between the Montana and the Colorado was not definitely ascertained, owing to 



