172 The Ottawa Naturalist. (December 



remarked, and to the end of his life he had abundant opportunity 

 to gratify his desire in many widely separated areas. In 1845, ^' 

 the ag-e of 21, he was first employed as an assistant geologist on 

 the survey of Great Britain, and received his earliest lessons in 

 field geology, from no less a personage than Prof. A. C. Ramsay, 

 who had the immediate supervision as local director of the work 

 in England and Wales. Sir Henry de la B^che, with the title of 

 Director-General, had control of the whole organization of the 

 Geological Survey. With Selwyn were associated as colleagues 

 such well known men as W. T. Aveline, Edward Forbes, Sir W. 

 W. Smyth, Sir Joseph Hooker, Dr. Lyon Playfair and others, 

 while Oldham J. Phillips, Murchison, J. W. Salter, J. Beete 

 Jukes and others, joined the Survey before Selwyn's retirement. 

 Of Selwyn's work on the Survey, we find Ramsay saying, " His 

 work there (on the Shropshire sheets) and here (North Wales) is 

 the perfection of beauty," while Sir A. Geikie years afterwards 

 states that " The geological structure is portrayed by Ramsay 

 and Selwyn with a boldness and vigour, and at the same time 

 with an artistic feeling which has hardly been equalled in 

 geological section drawing." Towards the end of July, 1852, after 

 seven years spent in the mountains of Wales, he was chosen by 

 the Secretary of State for the Colonies, on the recommendation of 

 his official chief, Sir Henry de la B^che, as Director of the 

 Geological Survey of the colony of Victoria, Australia. About 

 the same time he was married to Matilda Charlotte, daughter of 

 the Rev. Edward Selwyn, rector of Hemmingford Abbots, Hunts. 

 To his new duties, Selwyn brought the wide experience gained in 

 unravelling the intricate Lower Silurian rocks of North Wales, 

 with their associated volcanic deposits which greatly assisted 

 him in the mapping of the Silurian strata of Victoria. Under 

 him were such able geological assistants as C S. 

 Wilkinson, H. Y. L. Brown, C. B. Brown, R. Etheridge, Jr., and 

 others. He was almost continually in the field, and with the co- 

 operation of his assistants, produced an admirable series of geolo- 

 gically coloured maps of the colony, accompanied by reports. At the 

 time of Selwyn's appointment Victoria had just entered upon all 

 the excitement attending the opening up of its wonderful gold- 

 fields, so that almost his first work consisted in mapping out its 



