


> vs? | =. * =~ i ps 
COMBUSTION OF LIGNITE BEDS. 167 
391. Similar combustion of lignite in situ, has been observed to occur 
at various places, over an immense area. South of the Line, Lewis and 
Clarke have noted the phenomenon in the account of their journey up the 
Missouri, and numerous references to it will be found in Dr. Hayden’s 
various reports. Mr. J. A. Allen, in his interesting paper already 
referred to,* has collected a great deal of information on this subject, and 
added the result of his own observations. As an example of the great 
areas over which it may extend, he mentions the Bad Lands of the Little 
Missouri, where, ‘“ with a breadth of twenty to thirty miles, these appear- 
ances are said to be continuous for fully two hundred miles. Throughout 
this vast area, all the ridges and buttes are capped, or banded with the 
reddened and indurated shales.” He is in error, however, in supposing 
that the phenomena do not occur north of the forty-ninth parallel, for, 
according to the accounts of various travellers, they extend even to the 
shores of the Arctic Sea. 
’ 
392. The earliest notice of appearances referable to this cause appears | 
however, in Sir Alexander Mackenzie’s account of his voyage up the 
Peace River in 1793, where he refers to certain “chasms in the earth, 
which emitted heat and smoke, which diffused a strong, sulphurous 
stench.” A lignite bed on the Mackenzie River, near Bear River, was 
also observed to be on fire by Sir Alexander Mackenzie in his first voyage 
of discovery in 1792. Sir J. Richardson, in 1848, found it still burning, 
and emitting smoke and flame, visible by night. ‘‘Some portions of the 
clay were semi-vitrified, and so hard as to receive no impression from a 
file.’ Sir J. Richardson also noted ‘“ bituminous shale” to be on fire, in 
1826, near Cape Bathurst on the Arctic Sea. ‘The clays which had 
been exposed to the heat were baked and vitrified, so that the spot re- 
sembled an old brickfield.” He also had information from Chief Factor 
Alexander Stewart, “that beds of coal are on fire on the Smoking River, 
which is a southern affluent of the Peace River, snd crosses the fifty- 
seventh parallel of latitude.” ‘There are coal beds on fire also near 
Dunvegan, on the main stream of the Peace River.”+ Dr. Hector, in his 
report, mentions several localities where lignites have been thus de- 
stroyed. Near Fort Edmonton, the appearances seem to be particularly 
striking. Of a locality on the Red Deer River, lat. 52° 19/ 25”, long. 
113° 3’, he writes :—“It was found to be as the Indians had asserted, 
and far along the banks of the Red Deer River, where the coal appeared, 

* Proc. Boston Society of Natural History, vol. xv1. in 
¢ Journal of a Boat Voyage through Rupert’s Land, vol, 1., pp. 189, 191, 271, 195, 
