266 



miometres which have left great gashes in the side of the 



mountain. 

 14 m. Keefers — Alt. 555 ft. (169m.). Near Keefers 



22-5 km. and below it the Palaeozoic rocks occupy both 

 sides of the valley and continue to a point 

 three miles (4-8 km.) below North Bend. 

 27 m. North Bend— Alt. 487 ft. (148 m.). About 



43-4 km. two miles (3-2 km.) above North Bend the 

 banded grey argillites of the Boston Bar series 

 appear. These rocks have yielded Dr. Bowen a 

 single, definitely Mesozoic fossil. Since they are 

 cut by the late Jurassic granites, they are either 

 Jurassic or Triassic in age. Much placer gold 

 mining was at one time carried on in this part 

 of Fraser valley, and the evidence of such 

 work is still to be seen in many places, particu- 

 larly at Boston Bar, a mile below North Bend. 

 Three miles (4-8 km.) below North Bend, the 

 Palaeozoic sedimentary rocks are intruded by 

 granitic rocks of the Coast Range batholith. 

 The contact however is not a clean-cut line of 

 separation between the two formations, but is 

 rather a wide zone marked on the side of the 

 intruded rocks by numerous apophyses of the 

 igneous rocks in the sedimentary, and on the 

 side of the batholith by inclusions of the Car- 

 boniferous rocks in the batholith. The zone of 

 apophyses is well shown in the railway cuts on 

 the west side of the river. 

 32 m. China Bar — Alt 466 ft. (142 m.). Turning 



51-5 km. a sharp bend in the course of the valley four 

 miles (6-4 km.) below North Bend, the railway 

 enters what is popularly known as "Fraser 

 Canyon," a narrow rock- walled gorge in the 

 main canyon, cut into the massive granitic 

 rocks of the Coast Range batholith, which here 

 form the axis of both the Coast and Cascade 

 Mountain systems. The gorge has a length 

 of 25 miles, (40-2 km) and though a serious 

 barrier both to water and land transportation, 

 it forms the only natural route of travel between 

 the coast and the interior of British Columbia. 

 Although referred to as a canyon for the 

 whole 25 miles (40-2 km.) of its length it is 



