lxii PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May I9O3, 



He was born at Kilmington (Somerset), on July 28th, 1824, and 

 was educated in Switzerland, where he acquired a taste for geology. 

 At the age of 21, that is, in 1845, he received an appointment on the 

 field-staff of the Geological Survey of Great Britain under Sir Henry 

 de la Beche and Sir Andrew Ramsay ; and with the latter, with 

 Aveline, Jukes, Howell, Phillips, Smyth, and others, contributed 

 much to our knowledge of the geological structure of North Wales 

 and the adjacent portions of Western England. He is credited 

 with no less than sixteen geological maps, prepared either entirely 

 by himself or in conjunction with his colleagues. 



In 1852 he accepted the position of Government Geologist to the 

 Colony of Victoria (Australia), and for 17 years he acted as Director 

 of the Geological Survey of that colony. His training in the 

 older Palaeozoic rocks of Wales was of especial value to him in his 

 new sphere of action ; and accordingly he set himself the task of 

 mapping out the gold-bearing rocks and gravels of different ages, and 

 in tracing their relations to other rocks of the district. Here, how- 

 ever, he had a field of work nearly twelve times greater than he had 

 had in Wales. During his period of office Selwyn, besides issuing an 

 extensive series of geological maps of Victoria, prepared numerous 

 reports and papers bearing more especially upon the economic 

 resources of Australasia. 



In 1869 Selwyn was called upon to succeed Sir William Logan as 

 Director of the Geological Survey of Canada, a position which he held 

 for twenty-five years. This period was one of great activity in 

 the Canadian Survey, no less than twenty large volumes of Annual 

 Reports, with accompanying maps and sections, being issued, in 

 addition to other works, palasontological memoirs, etc. Notwith- 

 standing the arduous administrative duties which Selwyn was called 

 upon to fulfil in planning out the work to be carried on by his staff, 

 and arranging all matters relating to the expenditure of the grant 

 allowed by the Canadian Government, as well as in editing the 

 reports of his assistants and writing his own, he yet found time 

 to traverse and personally explore large extents of unmapped 

 territory. 



In addition to these duties, the Dominion Government requested 

 Dr. Selwyn to act as Assistant to the Canadian Commissioners at 

 the Centennial Exhibition held in Philadelphia in 1876, at the 

 Paris Universal Exhibition in 1878, and at the Colonial & Indian 

 Exhibition in London in 1886 • these appointments involved an 

 enormous amount of labour, and included the preparation of 



