148 MISCELLANEOUS. 



representative of the Committee of the subscribers, and, in the name of the citizens, 

 presented their gift; to Sir William Logan, in graceful terms of congratulation 

 and high respect. 



Sir William Logan replied: — It is a great satisfaction to me that I should 

 receive from so many of the inhabitants of my native city so distinguished a mark 

 of their regard and approbation, and that it should come through the hands of so 

 eminent and respected a citizen as your Lordship, and in the Hall of the ISTatural 

 History Society, whose members have already besto-wed on me the highest honor 

 •within their power. If in the Exhibitions of London and Paris, I was any way 

 instrumental in extending a knowledge of the material resources of Canada, it 

 was chiefly of those more immediately connected with the geological investigation 

 with which I am charged. In respect to other materials, ray exertions I fear 

 would have been of little avail, without the practical experience of those asso- 

 ciated with me in the management of the Canadian contributions. Those exhibi- 

 tions involved a very practical purpose, and seeing that what may be called 

 mineral manufactures had extended but little in this country, I rejoiced in the 

 opportunity offered of placing before the eyes of European judges some of the 

 results of the Geological Survey, persuaded that although we could not show that 

 we possessed the skill requisite to give to all our metallic ores and useful rocks 

 the various ultimate forms of which they were capable, we should at least con- 

 vince the world that Canada contained in her subsoil vast stores of mineral mate- 

 rials that would hereafter become available for the support of native industry. 

 The mere specimens exhibited, however, would have been an ineffectual means 

 of attaining the object, had they not been accompanied by a geological map, 

 showing that geographical distribution of the formations from which the minerals 

 were derived — thus making at once intelligible the position and abundance of 

 those things of which the specimens merely displayed the nature. Successful, 

 however, as our geological contribution proved to be, there was one branch of the 

 subject in which we were deficient : our fossils had not been arranged or described, 

 and it was, in consequence, impossible for us to prove the sequence of our rocks 

 from their position, except by an assertion that was not disputed. I am not my- 

 self a naturalist, to describe fossils. For many years of my life engaged in the 

 active pursuits of a practical miner for coal, and a practical smelter of copper 

 from its ores, my connection with geology relates more to the application of mate- 

 rials. But I well know the value of fossils as an indispensable means of research, 

 and unless Canadian fossils ai-e properly described, Canadians will never thoroughly 

 understand their own economic minerals, or even sufBciently know them to pro- 

 tect themselves from imposition ; nor will the study of Canadian minerals enter 

 into the educational systems of the country. In the form given to the testimonial 

 which you do me the honor to present to me, it is gratifying to me to observe 

 typified a discovery which, in my pursuits as practical collier, I was so fortunate 

 as to make, by which coal and its associated fossils were drawn into closer rela- 

 tion than had ever been known before. By it the practical researches for coal 

 were greatly facilitated ; and, as a practical collier, I can assure you that it is 

 only in a knowlege of the differences that exist between such kind of fossils as 

 this testimonial indicates, and others of a distinct description of organisms, that 



