No. 1.] SIR WILLIAM EDMOND LOGAN. 35 



Lord Sydenham dying in 1841, it fell to his successor, Sir 

 Charles Bagot, to appoint a Provincial Geologist. Sir Charles 

 referred the matter to Lord Stanley, Secretary of State for the 

 Colonies, and His Lordship, on recommendation of Murchison, 

 De la Beche, Sedgwick, and Buckland, offered the position to 

 Mr. Logan in the spring of 1842. 



Logan was now thoroughly in love with geology, and seeing 

 in Canada the grandest of fields for original research, at once 

 accepted. Still he well understood the difficulties which lay 

 before him, and shortly afterwards addressed the following words 

 to De la Beche : " You are aware that I have been appointed 

 by the Provincial Government of Canada to make a Geological 

 Survey of that Colony. The extent and nature of the territory 

 will render the task a most laborious one ; but I am fully pre- 

 pared to spare no exertion of which I am capable to render the 

 work, when it is completed, satisfactory to those who have insti- 

 tuted the examination and creditable to myself 



No one knows better than yourself how difficult it would be for 

 one person to work with effect in all the branches of so extensive 

 a subject. To carry out the field-work with vigour, to reduce 

 all the sections with the requisite degree of accuracy, and map 

 the geographical distribution of the rocks, to collect minerals 

 and fossils, and to analyze the one, and by laborious and exten- 

 sive comparisons, to determine the geological age of the other, is 



quite impossible without a proper division of labour 



In Canada, all the expensive means of palaeontological compari- 

 son have yet to be brought together. There is no arranged col- 

 lection of fossils, and no such thing as a geological library to 

 refer to." 



Arriving in Canada late in August, 1842, Logan devoted 

 several months to making a preliminary examination of the 

 country, and to collecting information with regard to the topo- 

 graphical work which had been accomplished. This was done 

 entirely at his own expense. In December, he returned to 

 England to fulfil engagements there, but came out again in the 

 following spring, During his visit to the old country, he was so 

 fortunate as to secure the services of Mr. Alexander Murray, a 

 gentleman who afterwards proved himself an invaluable assistant 

 and friend, and who has contributed largely to our knowledge of 

 the geology of Canada, and, more recently, to that of Newfound- 

 land. 



