Iviii PROCEEDINGS. 



of London. He also published at London in 1880, an inter- 

 esting volume of 142 pages, entitled "Notes on the Northern 

 Atlantic for the use of Travellers", which contains many 

 natural history observations. He likewise is the author 

 of a well-known 'History of Cape Breton' (1869). He was 

 a fellow of the Geological Society of London, as well as of 

 the Royal Geographical Society. 



Sir John William Dawson, geologist and palaeonto- 

 logist, born at Pictou, 1820, and died at Montreal, 1899, has 

 become so famous in the world of science, that I will barely 

 mention him here; and he furthermore belongs to a later 

 period than would rightly place him among the pioneers. 

 It will merely be noted that the visit of Sir Charles Lyall 

 in 1842 filled him with enthusiasm and thereafter he began 

 a long series of geological and palseontological works, chief 

 of which, to us at least, was his 'Acadian Geology'. In 

 1848 he prepared a little 'Hand Book of the Geography and 

 Natural History of Nova Scotia,' third edition in 1852, 

 which is of interest as being one of the first works to give 

 anything like a general scientific list of our fauna. It had 

 been' preceded in this respect, by the lists in the second 

 volume of Haliburton's "Nova Scotia," 1829, which were 

 supplied by various persons. 



There are four others, who although but visitors to the 

 province, gave a most marked impetus to the study of local 

 geology and mineralogy. In May, 1826, Francis Alger of 

 Boston visited Nova Scotia and in the next year published 

 'his "Notes on the Mineralogy of Nova Scotia" (Silliman's 

 Journal of Science and Arts, vol. 12, June, 1827, p. 227); and 

 in 1828 and 1829 appeared Charles T. Jackson and Francis 

 Alger's elaborate "Description of the Mineralogy and Geo- 

 logy of a part of Nova Scotia" (Silliman's Journal, vol. 14 

 [July, 18281,, pp. 305-330, with geological map; vol. 15 [Jan. 

 1829], pp. 132-160, 201-217). This coloured geological map 

 is the first we had. Their work profoundly affected the in- 



