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very mucli relating to its geology. While some notice was taken of the 

 occurrence of some of the best known minerals, such as iron and coal, 

 no attempt was made in any way to interpret the structure or explain 

 the general geological conditions which prevailed. This can easily be 

 accounted for from the fact that the study of the science at that date 

 was in its earliest stages, and even in England and on the continent of 

 Europe, the discussion of geological problems was attended with but 

 small satisfaction. The formation of the Geological Society of London, 

 in 1807, furnished a starting point for better work and more careful 

 observations, and marks the beginning of the era when the study ot the 

 various rock formations may be said to have been undertaken in the 

 right spirit. In Canada itself the conditions of geological study were 

 somewhat peculiar. Prior to Confederation, each province, with the 

 exception of Ontario and Quebec, controlled its own afiairs in this direc- 

 tion, and although the present Geological Survey was established nearly 

 fifty years ago, or in 1842-.3, its operations were for twenty-five years 

 almost entirely confined to the provinces mentioned. Before this date, 

 however, individual explorers, or rather observers, prominent among 

 whom may be mentioned the names of Bigsby, Bayfield, Bonnycastle, 

 Ingall and Lyell, had, in the course of their wanderings, begun to study 

 in some detail the character of the various rock masses encountered, 

 and their papers, communicated to the Geological Society of London 

 and to the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, constitute the 

 first literature on the subject of Canadian geology. Of these, in so far 

 as I can learn, the earliest geological desciiption of any section is con- 

 tained in a paper read by Dr. Bigsby, in London, in 1823, and published 

 in the Transactions of the Geological Society, in 1826. on the " Geog- 

 raphy and Geology of Lake Huron," in which the character of the I'ocks 

 about the great lakes and at various points along the north side of the 

 St. Lawrence was described. In this paper the rocks are simply divided 

 into the Primitive, a term which was held to embrace much or all of 

 what we now regard as Laurentian and Huronian, or at least Archean, 

 and the Secondary or stratified portion : the present arrangement of 

 geological sj'stems of nomenclature not having been invented till some 

 years later. 



