QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS. 57 B 



From the bay opposite Alder Island, the whole north shore of Bui*- Dioritic r< k-. 

 naby Island appears to be formed of greyish dioritic rocks, which 

 occasionally become granitoid, and are composed of two varieties of 

 felspar and pale or dark green hornblende. These are doubtless intru- 

 sive, and subsequent in date to the bedded materials. They resemble 

 the granitoid rock of Granite Point, at the north side of Skincuttle 

 Inlet, but this is more highly crystalline and somewhat paler in tint. 



From the northern entrance of Burnaby Strait, along the south-west 

 side of Juan Perez Inlet, and on both sides of Darwin Sound, the rocks 

 continue in general appearance like those of Burnaby Strait, but are in 

 the main more felspathic, and in places become schistose, and bear an 

 older appearance. The zone above indicated is probably in fact that Outcrop of 



older rocks. 



of the outcrop of the oldest part of the rock series recognised in the 

 Queen Charlotte Islands, though it does not seem possible to separate 

 it from the rocks before described by any well-marked line. It 

 remains, indeed, doubtful whether the rocks of this region appear in a 

 long, irregular anticlinal or merely form the disturbed edge of a series 

 with general north-easterly dips. The former, however, appears to be 

 the more probable suppostion. In Werner Bay, the rocks seem to be 

 chiefly felspathic. in some places thin-bedded, but are associated with 

 greenish bedded diorites, much resembling those of the Victoria series 

 of the south of Vancouver Island. On the west side of Hutton Inlet, 

 near its entrance, rocks apparently of dioritic composition, but in some 

 places evidently fragmental, and frequently schistose, are interbedded 

 with limestones, which are occasionally converted into white marble. 

 Crinoidal joints were observed on one weathered surface. Greenish Fossils, 

 and greyish-green rocks, chiefly felspathic in composition but passing, 

 in some cases, into more or less perfectly characterized diorites, con- 

 tinue along the shore to the vicinity of Bigsby Inlet. The southern |"- oc ks of Bigsby- 

 entrance front of this inlet is composed of similar rocks, but the greater 

 part of its south shore and the mountains rising beyond it are granitic. 

 Where examined, the granite is coarse, and consists of white felspar, 

 hornblcnd and mica, with little quartz. It forms, without doubt, an 

 extensive mass, and does not pass by gradual stages into the rocks 

 before described. The north shore of Bigsby Inlet is composed of hard 

 grey-green rocks, chiefly felspathic in composition, and in some places 

 evident amygdaloids. Near the north entrance point of the inlet, 

 weathered surfaces of those assume a very peculiar appearance, pre- 

 senting botryoidal forms, which are involved among themselves in such 

 a way as to preclude the possibility^ of their being fragments. They 

 appear, indeed, to represent the surface of an old lava flow, which has 

 now again been brought to view by the removal of the superincumbent 

 strata. The appearance of these rocks is much like that of those of the 



