lvi PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL society. [May 1902, 
the valley of the Liard to that of the Yukon. It may be that the 
love of Nature which led him to write— 
To rest on fragrant cedar-boughs 
Close by the western ocean’s rim ; 
While in the tops of giant pines 
The livelong night the sea-winds hymn, 
And low upon the fretted shore 
The waves beat out the evermore,— 
combined with his extraordinary intellectual vigour and great 
determination, caused him to overtax his powers and shorten his 
valuable life. 
To give a detailed account of his scientific work is impossible. 
Much of it will not be fully appreciated until the comparatively 
unknown tracts which he described so well become inhabited. His 
contributions are to be found in the Annual Reports of the 
Geological Survey of Canada, in our own Journal, in the ‘American 
Journal of Science,’ in the ‘Canadian Naturalist,’ and in many other 
publications. They are all characterized by lucidity and accuracy. 
He wrote freely but never carelessly, and all those who have 
followed him bear testimony to his thoroughness and reliability. 
His Reports are written from a scientific point of view, but they 
show a keen appreciation of the practical and economic side of 
geology and consequently command the attention of those who 
are actively engaged in developing the mineral resources of the. 
country. A writer in the Victoria ‘Colonist’ says :— 
‘The development of the Kootenay, the hydraulic mines of Cariboo, and 
the gold-mines of the Yukon are all foretold in the interesting pages of” 
Dr. Dawson’s earlier reports. Therefore, when we find in the voluminous 
products of his pen anticipations of great mineral development in parts of the 
province that are yet unexplored, we feel almost as if such development were 
guaranteed.’ 
In July 1883 he was appointed Assistant-Director of the Geological 
Survey of Canada, and in 1895, on the retirement of Dr.Selwyn, he. 
became Director and Deputy Head of the Department. 
Although it is as a geologist that we commemorate him, it must 
not be forgotten that he was also a keen naturalist and an accom- 
plished ethnologist. As one of the Commissioners appointed by 
Her Majesty Queen Victoria to prepare the British case for the. 
arbitration on the Behring’s Sea Fisheries, he visited the Northern 
Pacific and investigated the conditions of seal-life in that region. 
His services in connection with the arbitration were gracefully: 
