ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. dm 



made by Sir W. Logan to the Governor of that colony, Sir Edmund 

 Walker Head. The report embraces the labours of the years 1853, 

 1854, 1855, and 1856, and must, with its illustrative maps, be con- 

 sidered highly creditable, both to the observers themselves and to 

 the press of Toronto, the former capital of Upper Canada, by which 

 it has been published. In a comparatively new country, it is only 

 natural that economic questions should be considered the primary 

 objects of geological research ; but it will doubtless surprise many, 

 that Sir W. Logan should have been required by the Geological Survey 

 Act to ascertain the longitudes and latitudes of important places, 

 or, in fact, to fulfil one of the functions of the Topographical Survey ; 

 and for this purpose he has availed himself, wherever possible, of 

 the electric telegraph in order to exchange and compare signals. 

 The Laurentine rocks are described as gneiss interstratified with 

 important masses of crystalline limestone, the gneiss frequently con- 

 taining crystals of hornblende, and merging into a syenite which is 

 traversed by dykes of a porphyry analogous to the melaphyr of the 

 French ; and it is worthy of notice, that the overlying fossiliferous 

 rocks appear to have been sometimes deposited upon worn edges 

 of the porphyry, which must therefore have been erupted before 

 their deposition. Sir W. Logan considers four-fifths of Canada to 

 stand upon the unfossiliferous rocks, and the other one-fifth to have 

 become the seat of colonization from the superiority of the soil, pro- 

 duced by the decomposition of the fossiliferous rocks ; he in like 

 manner points out the natural direction given to settlement by a 

 similar result produced by the decomposition of the crystalline 

 limestone bands. Sir W. Logan remarks, indeed, that the lime pro- 

 duced from these bands is fully equal for economic purposes to that 

 obtained from the more earthy limestones j for constructive purposes, 

 I may say better fitted, as is certainly the case in Ireland, where 

 the beds of limestone which alternate with the mica-slate of the 

 north yield a lime much better suited for -mortar than the rich (as 

 it is technically called) lime of the chalk. 



Sir W. Logan's first report is principally of a mineral or economical 

 character, and he particularly notices the abundant occurrence of 

 lime-felspar, or labradorite, which forms a component of mountain- 

 masses. When it is remembered that this comparatively rare form 

 of felspar was first noticed in the Island of St. Paul, on the coast of 

 Labrador, and since by Dr. Bigsby in an island of Lake. Huron, it 

 may be fairly considered a mineral link by which the Laurentine 

 and Huron groups of crystalline rocks may be connected together in 

 one great system. The map which illustrates this report shows 

 that in the district, north of the Ottawa, the Laurentine group is 

 immediately succeeded by the Potsdam sandstone. The inquiry to 

 the westward was conducted by Mr. Alexander Murray, Assistant 

 Provincial Geologist. In describing the district between the Ottawa 

 and the eastern shore of Lake Huron, Mr. Murray points out many 

 interesting physical facts in connexion with the numerous rivers 

 and lakes of this remarkable country, in which the watershed- 

 lines are singularly varied. The level of Lake Huron is quoted from 



