Alfred Richard Cecil Selwyn. 327 



Survey a store-house of information on the various subjects on which 

 geology bears. He was the first to make out the geologic structure of 

 the eruptive districts of Eastern Canada. 



Nor was his Canadian work limited to the Geological Survey. He 

 was Assistant to the Canadian Commissioners for three great 

 Exhibitions, namely, the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876, 

 the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1878, and the Colonial and Indian 

 Exhibition of 1886, in London. These posts involved the making of 

 descriptive catalogues of Canadian minerals, rocks, &c. 



Selwyn was one of the original members of the Royal Society of 

 Canada, and he held the office of its President in 1895, 6. He took an 

 active part in the meeting of the British Association at Montreal in 

 1884, and the geologists who attended that meeting will remember his 

 kindness during the excursions round Ottawa, and (after the meeting) 

 along the Canadian Pacific Eailway, during the latter of which he had 

 a narrow escape from a mass of rock which fell across a wooden tressle- 

 bridge as some of the party were crossing it : indeed, had it not been 

 for his quickness in seeing the danger, there might have been damage 

 to life or limb. 



Curiously enough, the writer of this notice (with an Engineer who 

 was also smitten by the desire of walking as far down the Pacific slope 

 as time would allow), had passed the spot some time before. Both had 

 been struck with signs of instability, and both had come to the con- 

 clusion (as geologist and as engineer), that something ought to happen 

 there some da} r . On their return they found that it had happened, a 

 short length of railway along which they had gone having been 

 destroyed, luckily without damage to anyone. 



Selwyn died at Vancouver, October 19, 1902. 



By nature and by upbringing, Selwyn was a stratigraphical geologist, 

 and he had a strong liking for districts of complex structure. The 

 picking of geologic threads out of a tangled skein was the kind of 

 work that pleased him. 



He was a scholarly man, who gave much time to the preparation of 

 reports and papers, and who expected those under him to follow his 

 example of neatness. Moreover, he was a disciplinarian, a quality 

 sometimes wanting in scientific chiefs. Tall in stature, quick in action, 

 of nervous temperament, he was a good specimen of the English 

 geologist of the early days of the Geological Survey, worthy to rank 

 with De la Beche, Ramsay, Forbes and Jukes, and no higher praise 

 than this would he have wished for. 



Selwyn was elected F.G.S. in 1871, and F.R.S. in 1874. He 

 received the Murchison Medal from the Geological Society in 1876, 

 and in accepting it, on his behalf, his old friend Ramsay well said 



