162 



second to that of no other colony or nation in the civilized world. This 

 enormous and sudden increase in the work thrown upon the Survey 

 necessitated an almost complete change not only in methods but a very 

 considerable cliange in the personnel of the staff itself; an amount of 

 work, in fact, which can scarcely be estimated by anyone without careful 

 study and comparison with similar work done in this branch of science 

 by other countries. For while the importance of a systematic geologi- 

 cal survey has for many years been recognized by all nations and 

 regarded as a very considerable factor in connection with the national 

 progress and development, the areas enibraced in the several countries 

 in which such surveys have been carried on are, for the most part, 

 of very limited extent as compared with the great stretch of country 

 called Canada, and the entering upon the geological study of half a 

 continent by S3 comparatively young a nation may well be regarded as 

 one of the greatest and most important events in the history of the 

 science. 



Probably one of the most elaborately conducted surveys in recent 

 times is that of the British Islands, in which we have an area embraced 

 in tlie three divisions of England, Ireland and Scotland, scarcely two- 

 thirds the extent of the Province of Quebec alone ; densely po[)ulated 

 and so arranged that the work of the geologist was facilitated to the 

 utmost degree by the open charac:er of the whole country and by the 

 pr.'sence of the most carefully constructed large scale maps possible to 

 be obtained; yet for more than half a century the combined skill of the 

 geologists of England, Scotland and Ireland, aided by the most recent 

 improvements in instruments and in appliances for conducting all 

 necessary examinations, and by a financial backing s'lfificient to meet 

 every requirement, has been devoted to the determination of their 

 geological structure and mineral resources. Even the great Geological 

 Survey of India, which, with the exception of the United States and 

 Canada, is probably on the most extensive scale of any in the world, 

 embraces in the whole Indian Empire an area of only one and a half 

 million square miles, while the gigantic colony of Australia, even were 

 the confederation there complete, would still in the whole island fail to 

 approach the area embraced in the Survey's operations in Canada by 

 half a million of square miles. In point of fact we here in Canada 



