MEMOIR OF SIR J. WILLIAM DAWSON 555 



Lady Dawson, with three sons and two daughters, survive him. His 

 eldest son, Doctor George M. Dawson, the present director of the Geo- 

 logical Survey of Canada, has inherited his father's taste for geological 

 studies and has achieved wide distinction in the world of science. 



Sir William's first original contribution to science was a paper read 

 before the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh in 1841 on a species of field 

 mouse found in Nova Scotia. From that time onward he was a con- 

 tinuous contributor to scientific journals and to the publications of 

 various learned societies. His papers were very numerous and covered 

 a wide range of subjects in the domain of natural history. The most 

 important work of his earlier years was an extended study of the geol- 

 ogy of the eastern maritime provinces of the Dominion of Canada. His 

 results are embodied in his "Acadian Geology,' 1 already mentioned. It 

 is a volume of nearly 1000 pages, is accompanied by a colored geological 

 map of Nova Scotia, and has passed through four editions. In writing 

 to Sir William in 1868 Sir Charles Lyell says of this work: 



" I have been reading it steadily and with increased pleasure and profit. It is 

 so full of original observations and sound theoretical views that it must, I think, 

 make its way, and will certainly be highly prized by the more advanced scientific 

 readers." 



It is the most complete account which he have of the geology of Nova 

 Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward island, although since it 

 appeared large portions of these provinces have been mapped in detail 

 by the Geological Survey of Canada and Sir William's conclusions mod- 

 ified in some particulars. In carrying out this work Sir William paid 

 especial attention to the paleontology of the Carboniferous system and 

 to the whole question of the nature and mode of accumulation of coal. 

 He subsequently studied the paleontology of the Devonian and Upper 

 Silurian systems of Canada, discovering many new and important forms 

 of plant life. 



In 1884 he began the study of the Cretaceous and Tertiary fossil plants 

 of western Canada, and published the first of a series of papers on the 

 successive floras from the Lower Cretaceous onward, which appeared in 

 the Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada. He also contributed 

 a volume, entitled "The Geological History of Plants," to Appleton's 

 International Scientific Series. In 1863 he published his "Air breathers 

 of the Coal period," in which were collected the results of many years' 

 study in the fossil batrachians and the land animals of the Coal Meas- 

 ures of Nova Scotia. The earliest known remains of Microsauria were 

 then discovered by him in the interior of decayed tree stumps in the 

 Coal Measures of South Joggins. The results of his later studies in 



