van  hise.]  THE    CORDILLERAS.  341 
Castle  mountain  group  and  the  upper  3,000  feet  of  the  Bow  river  series 
of  the  Eocky  mountain  section  the  Olenellus  fauna  is  found.  Nowhere 
in  any  of  the  sections  were  unconformities  seen.  In  sections  1  and  2 
no  fossils  have  been  discovered.  The  correlations  are  made  upon  rela- 
tive positions  and  lithological  grounds.  Between  the  Shuswap  and 
overlying  series  there  is  believed  to  be  a  great  time  break,  for  this 
lower  series  is  of  a  markedly  more  crystalline  character,  and  the  numer- 
ous granite  veins  which  everywhere  cut  it  at  no  point  enter  the  over- 
lying Cambrian  strata.  The  rocks  placed  in  the  Cambrian  are  then 
40,000  feet  thick.  The  use  of  the  term  Algonkian  to  designate  the 
rocks  conformably  below  the  Olenellus  fauna  is  objected  to,  it  being 
more  philosophical  to  include,  for  the  present  at  least,  the  whole  of  this 
great  conformable  mass  of  rocks  to  its  base  under  the  name  Cambrian. 
SUMMARY  OF  RESULTS. 
The  literature  of  the  vast  region  covered  by  the  western  coast  ranges 
and  British  Columbia  is  too  meager  to  make  possible  any  systematic 
comparisons  between  the  rocks  of  different  districts.  No  attempt  has 
been  made  accurately  to  map  any  considerable  areas  in  the  region. 
[The  crystalline  series  have  been  referred  to  the  pre-Cambrian,  Cam- 
brian, Huronian,  or  Laurentian,  as  the  particular  author  thought  ad- 
Usable. 
In  California,  Whitney  evidently  regarded  all  of  the  granites  and 
netamorphic  rocks  as  of  very  late  age,  but  Becker,  on  the  contrary, 
egards  the  main  mass  of  them  as  the  equivalent  of  the  most  ancient 
louiplex  of  Arizona  and  other  western  Territories.  The  earlier  ob- 
servers, such  as  Antisell,  speak  of  the  granites  and  metamorphic  rocks 
diich  occur  in  the  different  ranges  as  Primary,  but  this  reference  was 
Nearly  made  upon  lithological  grounds.  While  nothing  definite  can  be 
laid,  the  descriptions  of  some  of  the  areas  in  southern  and  southeast- 
ern California  and  in  the  district  along  the  Canada  de  las  Uvas  cer- 
ainly  suggest  that  in  these  districts  are  thoroughly  crystalline  Com- 
dexes which  are  lithologically  like  the  fundamental  complex  of  the 
fcocky  mountain  region,  but  it  can  not  be  positively  asserted  that  any- 
where in  this  region,  except  in  British  Columbia,  such  an  ancient  rock 
ystem  has  been  found.  Here  the  recent  work  of  Dawson  has  shown 
he  existence  of  a  fundamental  complex  in  all  respects  like  that  found 
i  the  Eocky  mountains  of  the  United  States. 
Nothing  definite  can  be  said  as  to  the  existence  in  California  of  pre- 
ambrian  clastic  series  later  than  such  a  possible  fundamental  com- 
|lex.  It  is  not  at  all  impossible  that  such  great  series  of  crystalline 
1  lists  as  that  described  by  Gilbert  at  Whites  peak,  in  the  Amargosa 
nge,  is  the  equivalent  of  the  elastics  of  the  Grand  canyon  group, 
his  series  was  by  this  author  referred  to  the  Silurian ;  but  the  Grand 
anyon  series  at  that  time,  when  the  lowest  fossiliferous  rocks  were  so 
died,  was  also  called  Silurian. 
