76 Scientific Intelligence. 
,four parallel mountain pes running in a northwest and south- 
east bearing. Of these the southwestern is represented by Van- 
couver and the Queen “Charlotte Islands, and may be referred to 
as the Vancouver Range; while the ne xt, to the northeast, is the 
miles in width. This is ste a by the interior _plateau ™ 
and ahayond this the Rocky Massena proper, forming the western 
margin of the great plains of the interior of the continent. 
Tertiary rocks, which are probably of Miocene age, are — 
both on the coast a over the hese platea They con- 
sist on the coast of marine beds, generally Hittoral in enter 
which are capped, in tha: Quée peDbarlotts Islands, by volcanic 
rocks. The interior plateau haa) been a freshwater ‘lake, i in or on 
the margin of which, clays and sandstones, with occasional lig- 
nites, have been laid down. These are covered with very exten- 
sive volcanic accumulations, basaltic or tufaceous 
retaceous rocks from the age of the Upper a Lower Chalk 
to the Upper Neocomian, and representing the Chico and Shasta 
roups of California, occur on Vancouver and the Queen Charlotte 
sland i 
a 
older beds of the Queen Charlotte Islands, Within the Coast 
range the sii He vk are probably for the most part eat 
alent in age tot pper Neocomian. The Cretaceous rocks a 
of great thickness, both on the coast and inland, and include 
extensive contemporaneous volcanic beds. 
The pre earnest beds had been much disturbed and altered 
an extensiv 
is Suabhencioae by it olistls as 
oast Range ‘ roomie o be built up chiefly of rocks 
like — of Vancouver Island, but still more highly altered, and 
appearing as gneisses, mica- shists, &e., while a persistent a argilla- 
ceous and slaty zone is supposed to swe ae the Triassic argillites 
of the Queen Charlotte Islands. 
The older rocks of the interior Sager are largely composed of 
quartzites and limestones; but s old much contemporaneous 
voleanic oe together ‘with sip eciue, Car ven aie fossils 
have been found in the lim estones in a number of plac The 
Triassic is slop represented in some places by great osiees i 
— plat see deposits with limestones. 
In olden Range, te conditions found in the Coast Range 
are anette to be repeated ; but it is probable that there are 
