PROCEEDINGS FOR 1900 XIX 
It is the duty of the section with which he was directly connected to 
lose no time in selecting some competent hand to write his biography 
for the Transactions of the Society. All that we attempt to do in the 
report of Council from year to year is.simply to make such references 
to departed friends and associates as will recall some salient features 
of their services in the departments of science or letters to which they 
may have especially devoted themselves. When Sir William Dawson 
died, he had closed a life of eighty years, abounding in countless evi- 
dences of usefulness in the work of education, and-in.the dissemination 
of scientific knowledge throughout the Dominion. He performed good 
service for the educational development of his native province of Nova 
Scotia as superintendent of education from 1850 to 1853. Subse- 
quently he became connected with McGill University as principal and 
professor of Natural History. All of us are aware that this great insti- 
tution owes a large measure of its success to his administrative ability, 
and to his great scientific knowledge which has given a decided scientific 
bias to the studies of the university. When he first became associated 
with its fortunes, McGill was sadly crippled from want of funds, but he 
spared himself no labour for years to give the largest facilities to 
students to acquire scientific knowledge. He had the good fortune to 
enlist the practical sympathy of wealthy men in Montreal in its support, 
and when he died full of years and honours, he had the gratification of 
seeing his loved university hold a foremost place among the great 
educational institutions of this continent. He was a constant contri- 
butor to the scientific publications of the two continents for more than 
half a century, and the author of several scholarly books on geology 
and natural history. All his essays and books are enumerated as late 
as 1894 in the bibliography of the fellows that appeared in the twelfth 
volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society. His reputation in 
the scientific world rests mainly on his geological investigations and 
discoveries, more especially in relation to the carboniferous and post- 
pliocene formations, and to fossil plants. Probably his best known 
work in Canada is his “Acadian Geology,” which was first published in 
1855, and has reached its fourth edition. He was among the 
very few able and scientific writers of the present day who 
have endeavoured to reconcile the teachings of geology with the in- 
terpretation of the Scriptures, and wrote several books to show 
that there need not be any conflict between science and revelation, 
when rightly understood and explained. As a writer he was remark- 
ably lucid, able to invest the most abstruse scientific subject with deep 
interest and make it intelligible to the most ordinary reader. For 
R Proc., 1900. B. 
