240 The American Geologist. April, isw 
north shore of lake Superior it seems to be relatively scarce compared 
with the copper output of the mines on Keweenaw point on the south 
shore. 
There are many interesting geological and mineralogical facts stated 
in this report. On scientific principles it is rather dogmatic, even on 
controverted questions, but perhaps that is unavoidable in a report 
designed primarily not for geological students but rather for general 
readers and capitalists desiring general information. 
Geological and Natural History Survey of Canada; Annual Report, 
vol. III. new series, for 1SS7-88. Montreal, 1889. This ponderous 
volume of more than 1450 pages, with 35 plates and 16 sheets of maps 
and sections, is published in two parts, comprising thirteen separately 
paged reports. 
Director A. R. C. Selwyn's administrative report occupies 117 pages, 
summarizing the work of the survey during the years 1887 and 1888. 
The professional staff numbered thirty-six, with seventeen other assis- 
tants ; and the appropriation each year was about $100,000. The num- 
ber of visitors to the survey museum in Ottawa averaged fifty-four 
daily ; and the director believes that the number would be largely 
increased by opening the museum to the public on Sunday afternoons, 
which he recommends. Referring to the objections urged against this, 
he remarks that "in the museum the work, and in the church and 
Sunday school the word, of the Creator is expounded. 
Dr. George M. Dawson's Report on an exploration in the Yukon dis- 
trict, N. W. T., and adjacent northern portion of British Columbia, 1SS7, 
fills 277 pages, and is accompanied with nine plates and two maps. 
The detailed map of the route traversed, amounting to 1,322 miles, is 
in three sheets, on the scale of eight miles to an inch. It extends from 
the Pacific coast up the Stikine river and across the watershed to 
Dease lake, down the Dease river to the Liard, thence northwestward 
along the Frances and Pelly rivers to the junction of the latter with 
the Lewes, forming the Yukon, and thence northward up the Lewes 
to its head in the Chilkoot pass and to Lynn Canal on the Pacific. The 
drainage basin of the Yukon, according to Dr. Dawson, measures 
about 330,000 square miles, of which the upper half, approximately, is 
in Canadian territory. He believes the Yukon much inferior in size 
to the Mackenzie, which has twice as large area of drainage, while 
that of the Mississippi exceeds both of these together, though sending 
proportionately less water to the sea. 
The Coast ranges are found to consist mostly of granite and granitoid 
rocks, probably erupted between the Triassic and Cretaceous periods, 
as the author has shown for their continuation to the south, near the 
northern part of Vancouver island. The interior region consists mostly 
of Palaeozoic rocks of very varied appearance, probably belonging to 
several subdivisions of the geological scale. Fossils of Cambro-Siluri- 
an, Carboniferous, and Triassic age are reported. Overlying the Car- 
boniferous limestones, and partly interbedded with them, are more or 
