1902] Dr. Alfred R. C. Selwyn. 175 



years of his life, he added little or nothing- to g-eological litera- 

 ture. In this connection it may be stated that although he had a 

 wonderful command of the English language, being a rapid and 

 accurate writer, he continually affirmed his dislike of " rushing 

 into print." Indeed, in the address above referred to he says: 

 " being conscious of my lack of oratorical or scriptorial quali- 

 fications, I have rarely been induced either to talk or to write for 

 publication, or I may have been like Werner, who we are told had 

 an antipathy to the mechanical labour of writing. However this 

 may be, the result was, that I had more time for observation by 

 which I certainly gained, and probably no one lost anything ; 

 because whenever I made out, or thought I had made out a fact 

 having a practical bearing, it was at once communicated to the 

 persons who were immediately and directly interested, and 

 could practically test the correctness or otherwise of the 

 observation." This excuse however can scarcely be considered 

 sufficient in itself to account for the fact that there are not more 

 publications credited to him, while director of the Canadian 

 Geological Survey. It must nevertheless be perfectly obvious to 

 anyone who has the slightest acquaintance with the work of the 

 Geological Survey, that the man who undertakes the very 

 arduous duties incident to the administration of a department with 

 functions necessarily so varied, and territory to be covered so 

 vast, must be cheerfully content to live as a geologist through the 

 labours of his staff. Notwithstanding these administtative 

 duties, however, Selwyn generally found time each year to make 

 some special investigation or by travel through wide stretches of 

 territory to gain such an insight into the general geology of the 

 country, as would enable him to supervise more intelligently the 

 work of the other geologists under him. In Canada his influence 

 was perhaps most directly felt in the fresh impulse he imparted to 

 the recognition of the importance of stratigraphical geology. 

 The emphasis he laid on the value of this, to him the most 

 valuable criterion for the determination of the age of the various 

 sedimentaries, may be gathered from his oft-repeated assertion : 

 *' If the fossils do not agree with the stratigraphy so much the 

 the worse for the fossils." Another point on which still 

 greater insistance was made, was the certainty of the frequent and 



