Vili THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
the earlier chapters of our Canadian Geology, and laid the broad found- 
ations upon which that Geology rests to-day. 
It would be quite beyond the range of a brief biographical sketch 
such as the present, to chronicle in detail the geological investigations 
that were carried on by Dr. Ells in nearly every Province of the Do- 
minion. To the discharge of the duties of his chosen profession during 
a period of nearly forty years he brought to bear all his energies, 
and it may thus be truly said that his life was devoted to the ad- 
vancing of the interests of his country. In the study of problems con- 
nected with the geology of Canada, no undertaking was considered too 
arduous, no labours too severe, and it was apparently exposure on 
one of his later journeys made in connection with his work, which a few 
years later terminated fatally. 
In addition to Dr. Ells’ academic honors, he had for many years been 
a prominent Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and also of the Geo- 
ogical Society of America. For several years he was President of the 
Ottawa Field Naturalist Club, and was a past President of the Ottawa 
Literary and Scientific Society, as well as of the Ottawa Valley Grad- 
uates’ Society of McGill University. Moreover, as Representative 
Fellow of McGill for the Province of Ontario he had for a number of 
years past, been a member of the Corporation of that University. 
Dr. Ells was a most prolific writer. His published reports dealt : 
with geological problems and with the mineral resources of nearly every 
Province, particular attention however being given to the geological 
work in Eastern Canada. In addition to these reports issued chiefly 
as publications of the Geological Survey Department, he still found 
time to contribute numerous Scientific papers to the Royal Society of 
Canada, the Geological Society of America, the American Institute of 
Mining Engineers, the Canadian Mining Institute, the Nova Scotia 
Mining Institute and other scientific associations. 
Possibly one of the more important phases of Dr. Ells’ later work, 
ras that in connection with the important deposits of Bituminous shales 
in the Province of New Brunswick. Indeed it is in no small measure 
due to his learned advocacy, that the great economic importance of 
these deposits has at length been recognized. Not only did he care- 
fully explore the Oil shale deposits of Eastern Canada, but during the 
course of travels in Scotland and in the British West Indies, he was 
enabled to make a comparative study of, and to correlate, the Bitumi- 
nous deposits in different parts of the world. Nor was his interest 
entirely confined to questions of a purely geological nature. Many 
years ago, when the construction of the Georgian Bay Canal was being 
agitated, he published an important paper in which that great under- 
