OT ILL LCN a ET TTI PTI a ITNT I OT RTT REE TT RR PO ER Te LT a LTT A

TPES TE wr

2 oR TT

“* Fire stone.”

Fine view from
Tsi-tsutl
Mountain.

32 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA.

that few of them had been over the trail I wished to follow. By giving
the chiefa small present of tobacco, however, and after much talk, a man
was finally induced to promise to go.

July 12—Started on foot to examine a locality which I had learnt from
the Indians yielded ‘fire stone.” Followed the trail towards Bella
Coola, crossing the Tai-a-taesli, where it leaves the lake, a stream twenty
feet wide by two deep, with slow current; the Tsul-tel-a-ko, a stream
of: forty feet by two feet, with a slope of about one in ten, shortly after
leaving camp; and the Ko-has-gan-ko, sixty feet wide by two feet deep,
with a similar steep inclination. The two last named streams flow from ,
the flanks of the Tsi-tsutl range, and are fed chiefly at this season by the
melting snows, being much larger in the afternoon than in the morning,
after the cold of the night. On the Ko-has-gan-ko, five miles from camp,
the “fire-stone”’ was found, and proved to be lignite of good quality,
which, with its associated rocks dips below the volcanic accumulations,
forming the Tsi-tsutl Mountains.

July 13.—Set out with our Indian guide, following the trail walked
over yesterday to the Ko-has-gan-ko, and continued southward beyond it
for about six miles. The Indians had led us to expecta bad trail, which
was quite borne out by the facts. We crossed one other considerable
brook, ten feet wide by six deep, with rapid current, and continued
ascending diagonally over the north-western flank of the range. Gravel
mounds and ridges apparently morainic, and densely timbered, alternate
with swamps, in which the mules were constantly miring. Camped
near dark at a height of 3,700 feet in a notch holding a swamp
with some grass, and separating a rocky knoll from the main slope
of ‘the Tsi-tsutl Mountain. From this knoll a magnificent view is
obtained over the whole surrounding country. Westward, the serried and
snow-clad peaks of the inner ranges of the Coast Mountains are seen
across lower rounded hills, and the valley of the Tahyesco. Through
these the hollow of the Salmon River valley was indicated by a blue haze,
with which it was filled, while the river itself is entirely concealed by the
high intervening land. Northward, a portion of Si-gut-lat Lake appears
up the valley of the Iltasyouco, while very distant snowy mountains—
probably the Quanchus Range—rise above the horizon in one _ place.
Tanyabunkut Lake lies too deep to be seen, but the broad hollow by which
the trail reaches it from the Salmon River crossing is apparent. From
the south-east side of the lake the whole surface gradually rises toward
the peaks of the Tsi-tsutl range, here and there, however, showing only
broken remnants of a surface which has at one time been a continuous