NOTES ON SOME COALS IN WESTERN CANADA.

BY WM. HAMILTON MERRITT, F. G. S., ASSOC. R.S. M., TORONTO, CANADA.

(Ottawa Meeting, October, 1889.)

WITH the exception of the Vancouver Island coal, all the western coal-fields owe their present development to the completion, in the autumn of 1886, of the Canadian Pacific railroad. While it could not be expected that a very great deal could be accomplished in three years, enough has been done to pretty thoroughly establish the coal-bearing areas and their correspondence with those which have been developed to the south of the boundary along the lines of the transatlantic railroads in the United States.

This summer I visited some of the important developments in the coal areas of Washington Territory, largely with the object of being better able to appreciate the corresponding coal-bearing areas in British Columbia to the north.

In Western Canada, coal-bearing rocks have been found in three

zones:

1. In the plains to the east of the Rocky Mountains and in the eastern flanking ranges, the coal occurs in the Cretaceous formation (including the Laramie).

2. In the interior plateau of British Columbia, the coal is found in the Tertiary formation.

3. On the coast of British Columbia, Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks are found carrying coal, and on the Island of Vancouver the well known Nanaimo coal has been worked for years in the firstnamed formation.

In all of these zones, the coals vary from lignites up to higher grades, the factor determining quality being the amount of pressure to which they have been subjected. The intensity of this pressure is generally shown by the disturbance which the coals exhibit, and, in many cases, is almost directly in proportion to the distance of the deposits from mountain ranges. This seems to be also the opinion. expressed by Mr. Bailey Willis in connection with his Census Report on the coals of Washington. It has been elsewhere stated

that super-imposed strata have been thought to have been an important factor in these changes; but my observations for several years in all these areas lead me to the conclusion that it is pressure alone from distortion and upheaval that has altered these western coals into the many varying grades in which they are found to exist.

In the first zone, an enormous amount of coal occurs in the territory between the western borders of Manitoba and the Rocky Mountains. I shall merely note some of the seams, which are reached by rail, as examples of the character of the coals in the area mentioned. In the plains they are all lignites, changing to a high-grade lignite at the Galt mines (which are reached from the Canadian Pacific railroad by a branch railroad 110 miles long), and to a bituminous coking coal at the Bow River mines (where a 7-foot seam cuts across the main line of the Canadian Pacific railroad). The maximum result of the metamorphic influence is reached in the Cascade Valley, where the pressure of the mountains, on both sides of the Cretaceous trough, has altered the coal which it contains into an anthracite.

The following analyses, passing from east to west, convey some idea of the types of these coals:

a.—Medicine Hat, lignite (Geological Survey, analysis by fast coking).

In the interior plateau of British Columbia lignite and coal have as yet been found in only a few places. The following are the only occurrences yet discovered worthy of notice:

At Princeton or Allison's some 20 feet of alternating lignite and shale seams occur, lying at a gentle dip. The lignite can be obtained of a workable thickness, but the greater part of the bed is too much mixed with shale. The character of the lignite, as indicated by the analysis, is that of an inferior coal.

The lignite found at Marble Cañon, Hat Creek, is of a better description, as shown by the analysis. It is said to be of very considerable thickness. I did not think the quality sufficiently good to justify a visit to the place, which has been described in the Reports of the Geological Survey.

At Kamloops, close to the Canadian Pacific railroad, coal of a very fair bituminous character has been found; but as yet seams of only about a foot in thickness have been opened up. The vicinity is being tested by a shaft.

In the Nicola Valley, some 40 miles from the railroad, a seam of bituminous coal, about 5 feet in thickness, has been exposed. This coal has been subjected to a greater amount of metamorphic influence than any yet discovered in this zone. It lies adjacent to a mountain, which is probably a result of the disturbance that has altered it into a good coking bituminous coal.

On the Pacific Coast zone, on the main shore, there has as yet been located a very small amount of coal and lignite in the districts which correspond to the large areas developed along the Puget Sound, to the south of the international boundary. And, as has been ascertained to the south of the line, the coal which has been found near the coast is merely a lignite, but that which occurs inland, near the Cascade Range, has been altered into a bituminous coal. A sample of the latter type is found in a 2-foot, somewhat dirty, bed of coal, which has been opened on the slope of Sumas Mountain. Still further inland, the Cretaceous conglomerates occur near Chillawack, but all the coal which they have so far been found to contain consists of a few small masses forming part of the conglomerate, and some very thin strings of a coaly matter. The analysis from the above-mentioned Sumas Mountain seam is as follows:

BY R. W. ELLS, LL.D., GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, OTTAWA, CANADA.

(Ottawa Meeting, October, 1889.)

THAT portion of Quebec to which the few remarks I propose to make are more particularly intended to apply, viz., the Eastern Townships, has long been known for its mineral wealth, and has enjoyed a reputation for mining enterprises, second probably to no other part of Canada. Capital has been invested in large amounts at various points, some of which has yielded a handsome return to the investors, while in other cases the inevitable results of rash and foolish speculation have followed, much good money has been sent after bad, and the principal result has been a dearly bought expe

rience. This is a peculiarity which, I take it, is not entirely confined to Canada, and it can safely be said that this portion of Quebec does present to-day more advantageous openings for the investment of capital, wisely and skilfully applied, probably, than at any stage of its past history. It may be said, generally speaking, that these industries are at present confined to not more than half a dozen lines, among which may be enumerated, in the order of their present value, copper, asbestos, roofing and other slates, gold, the manufacture of lime. Silver, chromic-iron, antimony, nickel and the various ores of iron, have also been worked to some extent.

The relations between the geological structure of any country and its mineral wealth are very close and of the highest importance, but while, as officers of the Geological Survey, possibly the greater part of our energies have been devoted to the unravelling of the complicated problems of structure which have from time to time been presented in regard to the age of the several rock formations in Canada, a certain amount of attention has always been paid to the careful study of the economic aspect of the question. Some of the most intricate problems of geological structure have been encountered in that section of Quebec east of the St. Lawrence river, upon the elucidation of which much labor has been expended for more than forty years. It is no great cause of wonder, therefore, that changes of opinion have taken place concerning the age of certain portions, as new light has been presented by successive years of study.

To better understand the positions of the several mineral-bearing zones of eastern Quebec, it may briefly be stated that the rocks of that section are divisible into three grand classes, viz.: the crystalline schists, which occur in the form of extended anticlinal ridges, the slates and sandstones, often highly quartzose, which flank these ridges on either side, and the areas of volcanic rocks, diorites, granites, serpentines, etc., often of large extent, with which both the preceding divisions are intimately associated. As to their age, the views of those who have more recently studied these rocks differ widely from those expressed in the earlier publications of the Geological Survey. Instead of now regarding the great ridges of crystalline schists as altered Middle or Lower Silurian sediments, it has been very conclusively established, both from palæontological and stratigraphical evidence, that they are much older, being, in fact, for the most part, at least, pre-Cambrian, by which is meant that they underlie the lowest known fossiliferous Cambrian zone. In the same way much of what was forty years ago regarded as Upper Silurian,