103 



The Canadian Eocene i» known through the following localities ; — 



1 Souris river. 



2 Great valley. 



3 Porcupine creek. 



4 Saskatchewan river : all in the Province of Saskatchewan. 



5 Calgary. 



6 Cochrane. 



7 Red Deer river. 



8 Edmonton : all in the Province of Alberta. 



9 Mackenzie river in the North-west Territories. 



10 Burrard injet, British Columbia, including also the city of Vancouver. 



Commencing at the most easterly limits of the beds on the International Boundary Line 

 there is a small area at Turtle mountain, Manitoba, constituting the northern portion of a 

 formation w^hich extends southward into ISTorth Dakota. It extends along the Boundary Line 

 for a distance of about thirty-four miles, while its extension northward amounts to about 

 twenty-five miles. Farther west, at 102 degrees of west longitude, another outcrop appears 

 in a northerly extension of the corresponding beds in North Dakota and Montana. This area 

 extends along the Boundary Line to Wood mountain, a distance of 212 miles, where the 

 margin becomes frayed out into irregular and often detached portions due to contact with 

 the hill country. On its eastern boundary the formation runs northwesterly for 250 miles 

 to a point near the 107th degroe of west longitude, where the greatest northern extension takes 

 the form of a narrow arm which projects from the main area for seventy-five miles. The 

 western limits trend to the eastward, and bend around the east side of Lakes Chaplin and 

 Johnston, but after passing them again trend to the west and south until the neighbour- 

 hood of "Wood mountain is reached. At latitude 51 degrees, in the great bend of the Sas- 

 katchewan river, there is an outlier of fair size; while from latitude 50 south to the Boundary 

 Line and west to about the 110th degree of west longitude, there are several outliers of varying 

 sizes. These areas include the first four of the localities enumerated. 



The principal lignite area crosses the International Boundary Line at the 118th Meridian, 

 on each side of which it is about equally distributed for a total extent of about twenty-five 

 miles. Thence it extends northward with but slightly increasing width until, at the crossing 

 of the Canadian Pacific railway in the neighbourhood of Oldman river, it begins to expand 

 somewhat rapidly and thus continues until at the latitude of Beaver lake it attains its maxi- 

 mum width of 225 miles. The northern limits are reached at Lesser Slave lake, along the 

 southern side of which it has an almost easterly and westerly extension of 1 75 miles. It will 

 thus be seen that the area has the form of a great lake extending north and south for 450 

 miles, within an otherwise Cretaceous area, upon the strata of which the Eocene beds were 

 deposited conformably. Within this area are found the localities Cochrane, Calgary, Bed 

 Deer river and Edmonton. No other Eocene area is to be met with east of the Rocky moun- 

 tains until the far northern region of Fort Norman is reached. There is found a small outlier 

 about 25 by 37 miles in extent. As the Bear river fiows southward into the Mackenzie river 

 it cuts through the Tertiary deposits for about six miles, and it was from the exposures thus 

 made that Sir John Richardson obtained his collections afterwards determined by Heer and 

 Schroeter, although other specimens have also been obtained from the cutting of the Mackenzie 

 river which traverses the area for about twenty miles. It will thus be observed that collec- 

 tions from the Mackenzie river are of the same horizon as those from the Bear river. 



