rises on one side to the Rockies; on the other to the Omineca-Parsnip
Mountain watershed. F. W. Valleau in 1897 reported finding drift-
lignite on Omineca River, 10 miles up.

OIL POSSIBILITIES.

That part of the Province lying east of the main range of the
Rocky Mountains and extending northward from about the 54th parallel
has for some years been looked upon as a promising field for the discovery
of commercial bodies of oil.

The Lower Cretaceous strata of Southern Alberta, in which are
found coal and some oil and oil-seepages, have their equivalent in the
rolling plains bordering the foot-hills in the Peace River region, and it
is to this region that, during the last two or three years, the Government
of the Province has been devoting attention by way of geological study
and latterly by diamond-drilling. The area in question, including 78,729
square miles, has been reserved from application and alienation while
the effort to locate and study the geological formations with a view of
determining the existence of suitable structure has been in progress.
Field examinations on behalf of the Department of Lands were made
in the summer of 1919 by the late J. C. Gwillim, Professor of Mining at
Queen’s University, and in 1920 by John A. Dresser, Consulting Mining
Engineer, of Montreal, and Edmund M. Spieker, Geologist, of Baltimore,
Md.

Following the 1920 investigations, diamond-drill equipment was sent
to a selected part of the district covered and exploratory drilling has
since been carried on. Surface exposures of rock are infrequent over
considerable areas of the country, and their correlation is made easier
and more certain by the positive results of drilling, while the presence of
domes or anticlinal structures favourable to the retention of petroleum
may be determined.

Professor Gwillim expressed the opinion that there is possibility of
oil existing below some of the favourable structures—most likely beneath
the St. John shales, which are impervious enough to hold down oil. The
Bullhead sandstones lying below the shales are geologically more or less
contemporaneous with or equivalent to the oil-bearing Loon River
strata and the Athabaska tar-sands, occurring farther eastward. They
also resemble the Kootenay formation of Southern Alberta of much the
same horizon, which is believed to be the oil-carrier at Black Diamond
field. He considered the Bullhead sandstones as structurally favourable
and believed it to be possible, considering the activity of the Imperial
Oil Company, that somewhere within the great extent of these Alberta
and British Columbia foot-hills an oil discovery of commercial value
might be made.

It was on the recommendation of Professor Gwillim that the studies
of this area have been continued.

Mr. Dresser examined the area north of Peace River, west of the
Peace River Block, and south of Graham River. He also concluded

Eight.