254 



REPOKT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



[1855. 



The means placed by the gOTernment at Mr. Logan's dis- 

 posal were £1,500 in the first instance, then £2,000 per annum 

 for five years from March, 1845 ; £2,000 per annum for five 

 years from July, 1850 ; and £1,000 for fitting up the Museum, 

 making a sum total of £22,500 for the whole expenses of the 

 Survey during a period of eleven years. The Survey of the 

 State of New York cost half a million dollars. From want of 

 a liberal grant Mr. Logan has been compelled to supply at his 

 own expense nearly all the scientific books indispensible for the 

 proper prosecution of the Survey, and all the more costly 

 instruments required both for topographical surveying and 

 chemical analysis, and has in various other ways met the defi- 

 ciencies of the government appropriation from his private 

 exchequer. While enumerating these difficulties he is not 

 unmindful of his friends. He reminds the Committee that 

 the present increased value of all the necessaries of life press 

 severely on those associated with him in the investigation. 

 The physical difficulties of the Survey have been both numer- 

 ous and constant ; besides those incident to travelling in canoes 

 up shallow rivers, and travelling on foot through the forest, 

 the endless measurements and remeasurements arising from the 

 want of a good topographical map of the country have been a 

 serious labour in themselves, and retarded in a veiy great 

 degree the progress of the geologists. " Boundary lines that on 

 paper are represented as straight go staggering through the 

 bush in zigzags that would surprise an Indian hunter." 



The work of the Survey is too extensive for the staflF employ- 

 ed on it. All the general oifice work falls on Mr. Logan ; he 

 keeps a set of books by double entry, detailing every penny 

 expended on the Survey and the purpose to which it is applied. 

 Formerly he was accustomed to write with his own hands four 

 manuscript copies of his report, often amounting to more than 

 100 printed pages. The present staff consists of a director, 

 (Mr. Logan) an assistant geologist, (Mr. Murray) a chemist 

 and mineralogist, (Mr. Hunt) an explorer, (Mr. Kichardson) 

 and a messenger. The siaff now proposed by the Committee 

 is mentioned in their report. (Sec May No. of Canadian 

 Journal.) jMr. Logan renders public thanks to Mr. Abraham, 

 Dr. Wilson, the Rev. Mr. Bell, Mr. Billings and Mr. Sheriff 

 Dickson for the valuable information they have from time to 

 time communicated to him. " An excellent vein of geological 

 knowledge seems to run up the Ottawa." Specimens of 

 minerals and rocks have been occasionally sent to the Crown 

 Land Office from provincial surveyors for transmission to Mr. 

 Logan but have not yet reached the office of the Survey. The 

 packages having been opened, and probably handled by several 

 persons, the labels may have been misplaced, and thus a doubt 

 becomes attached to the whole of them which destroys their 

 value. This advantageous method of obtaining, without ex- 

 pense or trouble, much valuable information respecting the 

 geographical distribution of various rocks, has hitherto been 

 of no avail through the want of method and co-operation on the 

 part of the authorities of the Crown Land Office. 



Illustrations of the practical value of the Survey are occurring 

 every day. The information contained in the reports has led 

 to the establishment ot the iron works of Forsyth & Co. at 

 Bytown. These gentlemen (from Pittsburgh) express their 

 thanks to Mr. Logan for bis information in leading to and 

 assisting their present enterprise. Mr. Keefer ascertained at 

 once by an inspection of the geological map where he was to 

 obtain his materials for the Kingston and Toronto railroad. 

 Mr. Gzowski, in the reports of the St. Lawrence and Atlantic 

 Railroad Company, has publicly thanked the Survey for similar 

 information. The Gasp(5 Coal and Fishing Company suddenly 



melted into thin air, upon the expression of Mr. Logan's opin- 

 ion, that Coal was not to be found in Gasp6. The question of 

 coal in Canada Wesc was again agitated in the spring of 1854, 

 and " in so serious a manner as might have led to futile but 

 expensive borings in bituminous shale, (at Collingwood), and 

 affected the value of property in its vicinity, had I not fortu- 

 nately in the beginning of the year communicated to the 

 Canadian Institute at Toronto a paper on the Physical Struc- 

 ture of the Western District of Upper Canada, with a geolo- 

 gical map of nearly two-thirds of the Upper Province. These 

 comprehended the whole subject, and the publication of them 

 in August last in the Journal of the Institute has, I should 

 think, settled the question in the minds of all sensible men." 



Villagers and isolated settlers have frequently been aston- 

 ished and delighted at finding themselves actually standing a 

 few feet above that indispensable necessary of life — common 

 limestone. Many instances have occurred to the officers of the 

 Survey of settlers journeying miles for limestone when it lay 

 just beneath their log shanties. An enterjjrising farmer once 

 said to Mr. Logan, " Now, if you will find limestone near this, 

 I'll give you five dollars." His astonishment was unbounded 

 when Mr. Logan replied, " Why my good friend, you are 

 standing on limestone." 



Side by side with what in comparison may be termed the 

 minor instances of the practical results of the Survey, we 

 have most important generalizations, which apply to mil- 

 lions of acres in the Laurentian region of Canada. The 

 rocks of the Laurentian mountains consist largely of lime 

 feldspars, and produce upon disintegration an exceedingly 

 fertile soil. " The vallies underlaid by these rocks have always 

 constituted in my mind the main hope for the Laurentian 

 country in an agricultural point of view ; but the discovery of 

 important ranges, largely composed of lime feldspars, greatly 

 extends the prospect of advantage. These rocks have been 

 met with in several localities, from Aberoomble to the Saiilt 

 ^-la-Puce in Chateau Richer j and as the Laurentian series in 

 which they occur reaches from Labrador to Lake Huron, they 

 are a subject of real importance to both sections of the Pro- 

 vince." The director of the Geological Survey of England 

 has been reminded by Mr. Logan, that if the ancient phospha- 

 tic shells were found in any part of the Lingular beds in Eng- 

 land in the same abundance that calcareous shells are in 

 calcareous rooks, the farmers of England would have to thank 

 Canada for pointing out another source of this mineral manure. 



Among the instances of new facts established by the Survey 

 of a scientific character, Mr. Logan enumerated : 



1st. The Laurentian series of rocks constitutes a mountainous region 

 from Labrador to tlie Arctic Ocean. Tlie first fossiliferous roclis on tlie 

 soutli side of it belong to tiie Lower Silurian series. Tliis series, we have 

 shewn, is wanting on the north, the first fossiliferous rocks there met with 

 being of the Upper Silurian age. The inference is that the north side 

 was above water during the Lower Silurian period, while the south 

 was beneath it, and the Laurentian series, for many thousand miles, 

 would thus appear to have been the limit of a Lower Silurian Sea — 

 a great fact in palceozoio geography. 



2d. The want of conformity in what I have called the eastern area of 

 Canada, between the Lower and Upper Silurian rocks, and between 

 the Devonian and the Carboniferous, with the fact that the successive 

 disturbances in them all run in lines having parallel dii'ections, has 

 enabled us to shew, that a uniform set of forces producing the undu- 

 lations have been in operation, from the time of the first traces of 

 organic existence on the face of the globe, until the termination of the 

 Cai'boniferous era, — a great fact in geological dynamics. A paper on 

 these subjects was read by me before the British Association at Ips- 

 which in 1851, and it was considered of sufficient importance to obtain 

 the recommendation of the geological committee, that it should be 



