266 The American Geologist. ^^^y- ^9°^- 
the St. Lawrence Academy at Potsdam, in the state of Xew 
York, of which the Rev. Asa Brainard was principal. 
On leaving this institution Mr. Billings entered the Law 
Society of L'pper Canada as a student in 1839, and was ar- 
ticled to Mr. James Mcintosh, a barrister in Bytown. Mr. Mc- 
intosh died in the same year and was succeeded by Mr. Au- 
gustus Keefer, with whom Mr. Billings remained for nearly 
four years ; and it appears that he was for a short time also in 
the office of the late Mr. George Byron Lyon Fellowes in the 
same town. In 1843 l^^ went to Toronto, and studied for a 
tw-elve-month longer with the legal firm of Baldwin & Wilson, 
and w'as admitted to practice as an attorney in the fall of 
1844. Soon after this he returned to Bytown and entered into 
partnership with Mr. Christopher Armstrong, who was then 
one of the judges of the county court, but a law having been 
passed prohibiting judges from pleading, the partnership was 
dissolved after having lasted only six months." 
In 1845 Mr. Billings married a Toronto lady, a sister of 
the Hon. Judge Adam Wilson. Between 1845 and 1848, he 
practiced law in Bytown, having been called to the bar in 
1845 • i'"^ 1849, however, he removed to Renfrew where he 
practiced his profession until June, 1852, when he returned to 
Bytown, where most of his time was engaged in journalistic 
and scientific pursuits. He occupied the editorial chair of 
The Citizen from the fall of 1852 until late in 1855. Many 
of Mr. Billings' leading articles in the Citizen of those days 
comprised popular disquisitions on geological topics and 
natural history subjects, which served to indicate the trend of 
thought of the man whose subsequent life led him into in- 
quiries of the highest scientific type, whose writings are now 
held in highest esteem and well known the whole scientific 
world over. It was during these years of his residence in By- 
town that he began the systematic study of the fossiliferous 
rocks which are so extensively developed along the banks of 
the Ottawa river in the vicinity of our city. 
Probably at first entered upon more as a pastime and re- 
laxation from his journalistic duties these researches cul- 
minated in his final adoption of geological studies, especially 
in the department of fossil organic remains, for the remain- 
der of his life. 
