THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE IV. VOL. IV. 



No. v.— MAY, 1897. 



L — Eminent Living Geologists, No. 9 : Dr. G. M. Dawson, 

 C.M.G., LL.D., A.E.S.M., F.R.S., F.G.S., F.E.S.C., etc., Director 

 of the Geological Survey of Canada. 



(WITH A PORTRAIT, PLATE VII.) 



^R. GEORGE MERCER DAWSON, F.R.S., whose portrait we 

 present to our readers this month, is the son of Sir William 

 Dawson, F.R.S., for many years Principal of McGill College, 

 Montreal. Dr. Dawson was born at Pictou, Nova Scotia, August 2, 

 1849, and his early years were passed in Canada. After continuing 

 his education in Scotland, he obtained his special training for 

 a scientific career in the Royal School of Mines, Jermyn Street, 

 of which he is an "Associate," and where he was also awarded 

 the " Murchison " and " Edward Forbes " Medals. His first 

 scientific appointment was as Geologist and Botanist to the British 

 North American Boundary Commission, which in the seasons of 

 1873-4 mai'ked out the International Boundary between the United 

 States and the Dominion of Canada, for a distance of 800 miles in 

 length, from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains. 

 Dr. Dawson devoted his observations more especially to the geology 

 of the region traversed by the Commission, a large part of 

 which was, at the time, quite unknown ; and he gave an admirably 

 succinct account of this and other features of the country, in his 

 Report on the Geology and Resources of the Region in the vicinity 

 of the forty-ninth parallel, published in 1875. This work clearly 

 proved his capability as a field geologist, and -in the same year 

 he was appointed to the Geological Survey of Canada, with which 

 he has since been connected, first as Assistant-Director under 

 Dr. A. R. C. Selwyn, F.R.S., and afterwards as Director, on the 

 retirement of Dr. Selwyn in 1894. 



Dr. Dawson's geological work has been mainly carried on in 

 the North-West Territories of the Dominion and in British Columbia. 

 For many successive years he has been engaged in field-work in 

 these wild and unsettled regions, where geological investigation 

 is necessarily of a very arduous character, and much physical 

 energy and endurance are required to cope with its hardships. In 

 the course of his explorations. Dr. Dawson has visited such outlying 

 regions as the Queen Charlotte Islands (1878), the northern part of 



DECADE IV. VOL. IV. NO. V. 13 



