THE TERTIARY COAL OF THE NORTH-WEST. 



347 



extensive formation vary in thickness as well as in purity 

 at different localities. On the Yellowstone they are 

 found seven feet in thickness. At Fort Berthold on the 

 Missouri a two-foot bed is pure enough to be used as 

 fuel.* 



Governor Stevens states, in his Eeport of the Exploration 

 of a route for the Pacific Eailway, that Lignite has been 

 traced from the Coulees of the Mouse (Little Souris) 

 Eiver to the head waters of Milk Eiver, a distance of 

 500 miles, apparently underlying the whole of that 

 extensive district of country, with a thickness of bed 

 varying from a few inches to six feet ; he regards it as a 

 source of fuel not to be overlooked.^ 



The Coal or Lignite at Edmonton occurs in three or four 

 beds, the principal of which is from four to six feet thick. 

 Dr. Hector says that it is of very inferior quality, burns 

 with no flame, but rather smoulders away, leaving a plen- 

 tiful ash. It is used in the forge at the Fort, and found 

 to answer tolerably well. At Eocky Mountain House, 

 Dr. Hector found the beds containing Tertiary coal 

 exposed on the banks of the Saskatchewan, but no bed 

 exceeded two feet in thickness. The coal-bearing strata 

 are exhibited more or less all the way from Eocky Moun- 

 tain House to Fort Edmonton, 211 miles by the river. 

 Four miles below this place the coal was seen by Dr. 

 Hector for the last time in descending the river on the ice, 

 and eighty miles below the Fort the associated beds disap- 

 pear, and upper Cretaceous rocks come to the surface 

 conformably. J 



* Page 9. Remarks on the Tertiary and Cretaceous Formations of 

 Nebraska, &c.. by F. B. Meek and F. V. Hayden ; M.D. 

 f Pacific Railway Reports, vol. i. p. 95. 

 X Blue Book. 



