82 Sir William Edmond Logan. 



1834, he made a tour through France and Spain, visiting many 

 of the mines in the latter country, and making many observa- 

 tions on the geology of the regions through which he passed. 

 In 1838, his uncle dying, Mr. Logan resigned his position at 

 Swansea. But the nine years he spent here were well-spent 

 years ; for not only had he gained a practical knowledge of 

 mining and metallurgy, which afterwards proved of the greatest 

 value to him, but had done a large amount of very excellent 

 geological work — work which caused Dr. Buckland, of Oxford, 

 to say of him, " He is the most skillful geological surveyor of a 

 coal-field I have ever known." During his stay at Swansea, he 

 was an active worker for the interests of the Eoyal Institution 

 of South Wales. He was Honorary Secretary and Curator of 

 the geological department, and the Institution is indebted to 

 him for valuable collections of minerals and metallurgical pro- 

 ducts, besides books, drawings and laboratory apparatus. The 

 whole of his geological work in South Wales he placed gratuit- 

 ously at the disposal of the Ordnance Greological Survey of 

 Great Britain, and it was not only gladly accepted, but pub- 

 lished " without alteration,'' and made the basis of future work 

 in that region. Concerning it, Sir H. T. De la Beche after- 

 wards wrote as follows : 



" Prior to the appearance of the Geological Survey in that 

 part of the country, Mr. W. E. Logan had carefully investigated 

 it, and at the meeting of the British Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science, held at Liverpool in 1837, he exhibited 

 a beautifully executed map of it. 



'The work on this District being of an order so greatly 



Liperior to that usual with geologists, and corresponding, 

 linuteness and accuracy of its detail, with the maps ai 

 ons executed by the Ordnance Geological Survey, we f 



1 of it, when Mr. Logan most hand- 

 somely placed it at our disposal. Having verified this work 

 . with great care, we find it so excellent that we shall adopt it 

 for that part of the country to which it relates, considering it 

 but fair and proper that Mr. Logan should obtain that credit to 

 which his labors so justly entitle him. 



" His sections are all levelled and measured carefully with 

 proper instruments, and his maps are executed with a precision 

 only as yet employed, except in his case, on the Ordnance Geo- 

 logical Survey ; it being considered essential on that survey, for 

 the right progress of geology, and the applications to the useful 

 purposes of life, that this accuracy and precision should be 

 attained." 



In 1840, Logan read a paper before the Geological Society of 

 London, in which he explained, for the first time, the true rela- 

 tion of the Sligmaria underclays to the overlying beds of coal, 



