4:34: Scientific Intelligence. 



on the 49th parallel, the Cordilleran belt consists of four mountain 

 systems, known, from northeast to southwest, as the Rocky 

 Mountains proper, the Gold Range, the Coast Range, and the 

 Vancouver Range, the last named being represented in a par- 

 tially submerged form in Vancouver and the Queen Charlotte 

 Islands. 



This fourfold division does not continue in a definite manner as 

 far as the 60th parallel, and still farther northward the ranges 

 completing the Cordillera become even more diffuse and irregular. 

 There is, however, throughout, and as far as the Arctic Ocean, an 

 easterly bordering range, which though not entirely continuous, 

 is homogeneous in general structure and is apparently identical 

 in respect to the period of its main elevation, which must have 

 occurred at a time immediately succeeding the Laramie. 



This outer s} r stem is known as the Rocky Mountain Range 

 proper. It has been most carefully examined in that portion of 

 its length included between the parallels of 49° and 51° 30' and 

 particularly along the transverse line of the Bow River Pass, 

 near the northern of the above limiting parallels. In this region 

 the Cretaceous rocks, including the Laramie, have participated in 

 the general upturning of the older strata, which has resulted in 

 the definition of this system of mountains; and the Cretaceous 

 rocks are often very violently flexed and disturbed and occa- 

 sionally overturned. 



Following the same mountain system to the northwestward, the 

 still unconnected observations made in the vicinity of the Peace 

 River, Liard River and again to the westward of the Mackenzie 

 delta near the Arctic Ocean, show that the Cretaceous rocks 

 have in all cases participated in the general uplift and disturbance, 

 though in none of these places has the Laramie actually been 

 recognized as a member of the folded strata. In the most 

 northern and last-mentioned line of section, the Rocky Mountains 

 are indeed almost entirely represented by flexed Cretaceous rocks. 



Between the Rocky Mountain Range proper and the Pacific 

 Coast, large tracts of the Cordillera appear to have resisted fiex- 

 ui'e and disturbance at this time, and it is practically certain that 

 the Gold Ranges of the Southern part of British Columbia, 

 together with many other considerable insular areas, have never 

 even been covered by Cretaceous strata of any kind. 



In the Coast Ranges, however, and for a variable distance 

 inland from them, Cretaceous rocks, of a date at least as recent as 

 the Dakota, have been subjected to violent flexure ; and on the 

 Lewes River, in the Yukon District, (Lat. 62° 2u', Long. 136° 

 10'), the Laramie is also present, and the older Cretaceous rocks 

 appear to pass conformably up into this formation. In this 

 northern region it is in fact clear that the Cretaceous sea at one 

 time extended completely across the Cordillera, and rocks of Cre- 

 taceous age are frequently found to be upturned in association 

 with older rocks, all having been affected by a common disturb- 

 ance, apparently the latest of importance which has occurred. 



