OCT 1 lioo 



THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE IV. VOL. Vi. 



No. II.— FEBRUARY, 1899. 



I. — Eminent Living Geologists : Alfred Richard Cecil Selwyn, 



C.M.G., LL.D., F.E.S., F.G.S., etc. 



(WITH A PORTRAIT, PLATE II.) 



THE number of eminent living geologists surviving since the 

 days of De la Beclie and Ramsay and the beginnings of the 

 Geological Survey must indeed be very few, but in Dr. A. R. C. 

 Selwyn, the subject of this brief notice, we have a living illustration 

 of one of those active and enei'getic early workers whose labours 

 have extended from Britain to Australia and Canada, and who, after 

 half a century of active service in the field, is now enjoying his 

 well-merited repose in British Columbia, "the land of the far West." 



Alfred R. C. Selwyn, the son of the Rev. Townsheud Selwyn, 

 Canon of Gloucester, was born in 1824, and educated in 

 Switzerland, where he early imbibed a passion for geology. In 

 the year 1845, at the age of 21, he was first employed on the 

 Geological Survey of Great Britain, and received his eai'liest lessons 

 in the art of geological surveying from A. C. Ramsay ; but he soon 

 proved himself so proficient in the work of field-surveying that he 

 was speedily entrusted with the task of mapping a large tract of 

 intricate Lower Silurian rocks in North Wales, which he carried out 

 in a masterly manner. 



At that time Sir Henry De la Beche had chai-ge of the whole 

 organization of the Geological Survey, with the title of Director- 

 General. The immediate supervision of the work in England and 

 Wales (and afterwards in Scotland) was assigned to A. C. Ramsay, 

 as local Director for Great Britain. Edward Forbes was appointed 

 Paleeontologist ; Sir W. W. Smyth became Mining Geologist; Sir 

 Joseph Hooker, Botanist; Dr. Lyon Playfair, Chemist; Richard 

 Phillips was in charge of the Laboratory and Museum; and Robert 

 Hunt, Keeper of Mining Records. The staff of Geological Surveyors 

 under Ramsay comprised W. T. Aveline, Trevor E. James, D. H. 

 Williams, H. W. Bristow, W. H. Baily, and A. R. C. Selwyn. 

 R. Gibbs was the Collector of Fossils, and proved to be one 

 of the best men in that capacity ever attached to the staff of the 

 Survey. Mr. C. R. Bone was employed as Artist to draw fossils 

 described by the Paleontologist ; and Mr. J. W. Lowry was Engraver 

 both of the plates of fossils and of most of the early geological 

 sections. Never since has the Survey been so admirably equipped. 



DECADE IV. VOL. VI. — NO. II. 4 



