92 Sir Willmm Edmoud Logan. 



Government for about half the amount which he could have 

 obtained from other tenants. To Logan also, McGrill University 

 owes much; for, in 1864, he founded and endowed the "Logan 

 Gold Medal " for an honor coarse in geology and natural science, 

 and, in 1871, gave $19,000, which, together with $1,000 given 

 by his brother, "the late Mr. Hart Logan, forms the endowment 



• of the Geological Sur- 

 vey, he has earned on explorations at his own expense, and, at 

 the time of his death, arrangements had been nearly completed 

 for putting down a bore-hole in the Eastern Townships, at a cost 

 of $8,000 ; as he thought that this would enable him to prove 

 the truth of his views with regard to the age of the metamor- 

 phic rocks there 



Sir William was the first to give us any definite information 

 about those wondrous old Laureniian rocks which form the 

 backbone of our continent. He showed us that they were older 

 than the Huronian, and that they consisted of a great series of 

 metamorphosed sedimentary rocks, which are divisible into two 

 unconformable groups, with a combined thickness of not less 

 than 30,000 feet.^ The great beds of limestone which he found 

 in the lower series, the plumbago, the iron ores, the metallic sul- 

 phurets, all seem to point to the existence of life in the Lau- 

 rentian days; but the discovery of Eozoon Canadense m^'^e: 

 conjecture gi ve place to certainty.' Now we know that the world 

 of that far-off time was not a lifeless world. Life, whatever that 

 may be, had been joined to matter. 



the first specimens of Eozoon were found by Dr. James 

 Wilson, of Perth ; but at the time of their discovery were regarded 

 merely as minerals. In 1858, however, Mr. J. McMullen, of 

 the Geological Survey, discovered other specimens, the organic 

 orig.n of which so 'struck Sir William that in the following 

 year— four years before their true structure and affinities were 

 determined by Dawson and Carpenter — he even exhibited them 

 as fossils at the meeting of the American Association. 



In widely extending our knowledge of the early geological 

 history of the earth, Sfr William has done a great work ; indeed 

 this may be regarded as his greatest work. Its importance has 

 everywhere been recognized, and the name Laurentian. which 

 he ciiose for the rocks at the bottom of the geological scale in 

 America, has crossed the Atlantic, and is now applied to the 

 homotaxial rocks of Europe. Sir Eoderick Murchison, who 

 dedicated the fourth edition of " Siluria " to Sir William Logan, 

 even substituted Laurentian for " Fundamental Gneiss," the 

 name which he had given to the rocks of the W^est Highlands of 

 Scotland. " I at first," says Murchison, " termed them ' Funda- 

 mental Gneiss,' and soon after, following my distinguished friena 



