THE MINERAL RESOURCES ALONG THE CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAY BETWEEN

PRINCE RUPERT AND PRINCE GEORGE, BRITISH COLUMBIA.
By F.A.Kerr
CHAPTER I
THE COAST RANGE BELT: WESTERN SECTION

Leaving Prince Rupert the railway skirts the coast for a
short distance and then swings inland along Skeena River valley,
which is like the many other great fiords along the coast except
that it has been extensively filled with delta deposits. Hastward
it narrows and the low, rounded hills that border it at the coast
give way to mountains increasing in height inland to where they
rise in rugged, 8,000-foot peaks, but which farther inland drop
away and at Remo are abruptly replaced by a great north-south
valley with a width ranging from 1 to 10 miles. This wide, flat
valley marks the inland edge of the western section of the Coast
range. It extends southward for 40 miles to Kitimat arm and
northward for an even greater distance, and is occupied by
several rivers of very small size compared with the Skeena.

The base of this wide valley is largely covered with
great thicknesses of gravel, glacial drift, and alluviun. Near
Skeena river the valley is flanked by mountains that are either
entirely granitic or have a shell of other rocks facing the
valley. From Skeena river northwards to Kitsumgallum lake the
granitic rocks of the slopes on the east side of the valley by
their character, inclusions, and mineral deposits are clearly
indicated to beborder phases of the intrusion. On the southwest
slope of Thornhill mountain from top to bottom contact conditions
with numerous roof pendants exist. South of the Skeena, west of
Lakelse lake, it is reliably reported that much limestone occurs.
These features suggest that the rocks in which the great valley

was developed were largely non-intrusives.

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