xlii OBITUARY 



mining pages of the late "Industrial Advocate" of Halifax. In 1915 he pub- 

 lished a bound volume on the "Gold Fields of Nova Scotia: a Prospector's 

 Handbook," a useful work which contains a very great amount of original 

 information and which has been much praised. He always possessed great 

 stores of systematic notes on his observations in the field, from which he 

 could always draw. 



In 1919 and 1920 he devoted some time to collecting ants, with the view 

 of eventually publishing a paper on the subject; but this he did not live to 

 accomplish. (See Trans. N. S. Inst. Sc, vol. I 5, pt. 4, p. 169.) 



In the year of his death he spent some months in the libraries of Boston, 

 studying daily from early morning till late at night; and as a result left a 

 voluminous manuscript nearly ready for the printer, dealing with the 

 origin of religions, etc., which evidences much research into all literature 

 bearing on the subject.* 



Probably next to Dr. Faribault, of the Geological Survey, he had become 

 recognized as a high authority on problems relative to the Gold Measures of 

 this province, and also an authority on local glacial geology; and his name 

 and writings are known to most of the foremost geologists of America, with 

 many of whom he corresponded. 



In November, 1894, he was elected a member of the N. S. Institute of 

 Science, and he became a constant reader of the technical journals in that 

 society's library, and his reading embraced most of the very latest and best 

 monographs on geological and anthropological subjects. He had acquired 

 a knowledge of some foreign languages, such as French and German, and was 

 not daunted in extracting information from a paper in those languages. 



Although unable to secure a college education himself, he was an advocate 

 of the great advantage of such a training, and deeply regretted his own in- 

 ability to take a collegiate course. His self-education was a form of labor- 

 atory training, in which he had to find out things for himself, and his labor- 

 atory was the realm of nature. He never failed to take advantage of all 

 the best that scientific men made public, and therefore was thoroughly modern 

 in technical ideas Of late years he lamented that he was denied the leisure 

 to keep up his reading of the latest contributions to knowledge. In his de- 

 meanour he was modest and unassuming to a fault; but when he used his 

 pen he comjjelled attention. 



That his country did not show its appreciation of his merits in a monetary 

 way. is a matter we may have to reproach ourselves with. Among students 

 of Nova Scotian geology, he will not be forgotten, for his writings will always 

 have to be reckoned with. His life was a long, brave struggle with adverse 

 circumstances, against which he nobly bore up; and his achievements show 

 what can be done by persistence and intense application. 



*Thi8 manuscript, closely written in two volumes, is at present in the custody of Mr. Fred 

 P. Ronnan, of Halifax. 



