86 Sir William Edmond Logan. 



his work was not finished, for while his Indians — often his sole 

 companions — smoked their pipes round the evening fire, he 

 wrote his notes and plotted the day's measarements. 



To give details of his work during the many remaining years 

 of his life would be to write a book ; and all that we can do 

 here is to trace briefly what his movements were, at the same 

 time calling special attention to those of his labors which have 

 given him a world-wide fame. 



The summer of 1846 found him studying the copper-bearing 

 rocks of Lake Superior. These he showed to consist of two 

 groups of strata, the " upper " and the " lower," the latter of 

 which was seen at Thunder Bay to rest unconformably upon 

 chloritic slates belonging to an older series, to which the name 

 of Huronian was subsequently given. This older set of rocks, 

 which he had already observed, in 1845, on Lake Temiscamang, 

 he had ample opportunity of studying in 1848, when he de- 

 voted several months to an examination of the Canadian coast 

 and islands of Lake Huron, where the formation attains — as 

 shown by Murray — a thickness of 18,000 feet. 



The seasons of 1847 and 1849, and a portion of that of 1848, 

 were employed in studying the rocks of the Eastern Townships. 

 Part of these were shown to be a prolongation of the Green 

 Mountains of Yermont, and to consist of altered Silurian strata 

 instead of "Primary strata,'' as was previously supposed by 

 American geologists. In 1849 also, a short time was spent in 

 an examination of the rocks about Bay St. Paul and Murray 

 Bay, where coal had been reported to exist. The member for 

 Saguenay County had previously made application to the Leg- 

 islature for means to carry on boring operations ii» the vicinity 

 of Bay St. Paul, but before his request was granted it was 

 deemed advisable to obtain the opinion of the Provincial Geolo- 

 gist. By this means the Government was saved a large and use- 

 less expenditure of money. 



In 1850 an examination was made of the gold-bearing drift of 

 the Chaudi^re, and the auriferous district found to extend over 

 an area of between 3.000 and 4,000 square miles. Most of the 

 year, however, was devoted to the collection of specimens for 

 the London Exhibition of 1851, at which Mr. Logan acted as 

 Juror. His visit to England at this time must have been for 

 him an agreeable change. After a lapse of eight years to meet 

 again with men like De la Beche, Murchison and Lyell, to hear 

 from their own lips of the strides which science had been mak- 

 ing, and in turn to tell of all that he had himself seen and done ; 

 surely this was a treat that none but the scientific man can 

 understand who has long been well-nigh deprived of the society 

 of brother scientists. For him, however, there was little relaxa- 

 tion from labor, for he toiled early and late in order that the 



