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B, N. A. BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 
them all as brown coals, are of afar superior quality, some of thera up- 
: proaching the St. Mary River coal, and equalling the best Tertiary ry 
ss fuels of the Western States. The water found in the various speci- if 
 , mens is as follows:—782, 11:81, 10-90, 12:93, 7:50, 11:09 per cent. 
Some of these are stated to crack and fall to pieces on exposure, while 


: ie others are little affected, and are considered suitable for transportation ee 
% a a distance. 4 "4 
Z | 425. On reviewing the whole of the analysis of these fuels, and refer- 
ss ring them to their localitles on the map, it will appear that lignites which 
i. contain, when thoroughly air-dried, above twelve per cent. of water, — 
a occupy the eastern part of the area covered by the Lignite Tertiary, — | 
, while beyond about the 113th meridian, many, if not most, of the fuels — 
‘ met with contain less than that amount of moisture, and pass by e2sy 
ae gradations, in some instances to coals indistinguishable from those of the 
= Carboniferous formation. These two regions are not, however, mutually — 
3 exclusive, for west of the line above indicated, lignites of the former class 
: are often found, and also, apparently, fuels representing all intermediate 
stages. This mixture of the two classes in the extreme west would sug- 
gest either the presence of two distinct coal-bearing formations, or two 
different horizons of the same series of rocks. From the apparently 
complete gradation in the quality of the fuels, and analogy with the better 
known regions to the south, the latter would appear at present the more 
probable explanation. In the Western States, thisarrangementis exactly = 
paralleled, and the poorer lignites of the Fort Union Beds, are represented 
in the far west by those of good quality and comparatively small percent- 
age of water in Colorado, Utah, &c. 
426. The total area of the western part of the prairie region | 
between the forty-ninth and fifty-fourth paiailels, né6w known by more ~ 
or less connected lines of observation, to be underlaid by the lignite and _ 
coal-bearing formation, or formations, does not fall short of 80,000 square — 
miles; and should future investigation result in affixing some of the 
fuels to the Lower Cretaceous, it must be very much greater. The 
importance of these great deposits of fuel, in a country naturally so 
destitute of wood over great areas, cannot be exaggerated. In Colorado 
the thick and workable lignite beds seem to occur only at the very 
base of the Lignite Tertiary formation, and though this may also be the 
case in the vicinity of the mountains further north, it does not hold with 
the eastern portion of the formation, on the forty-ninth parallel, where 
lignites are equally characteristic and abundant at all horizons exposed. 
