6 The Amefican Geologist. July, i90o 
principal and professor, also a governor's fellow and honorary 
curator of the Peter Redpath Museum. In 1895 the rare 
distinction of honorary fellowship of the Royal Society of Eng- 
land was conferred upon him. Sir William Dawson was also a 
corresponding fellow of the Geological Society of Edinburgh, 
a corresponding member of the Victoria Institute or Philo- 
sophical Society of Great Britain, a corresponding member of 
the Geological Society of France, of the Nova Scotian Institute 
of Science, Halifax, and he was also many years president of 
the Natural History Society of Montreal, which society he did 
much to bring to its present status in the world of science and 
research, and up to the past year was Honorary President of 
the same. 
He was also member of many active bodies engaged in 
scientific pursuits throughout the world. He was also in touch 
with the various graduate societies of McGill University 
throughout the length and breadth of this continent and was 
particularly happy when he found himself in the midst of a 
body of old graduates of McGill to whom he could speak of 
the past, present and future of the University for which he had 
laboured so faithfully and so long with such remarkable suc- 
cess. 
In 1884 Sir William received the degree of LL. D. from the 
University of Edinburgh. 
Sir William was highly systematic in all the work he un- 
dertook and though his was a busy life, he was ever calm and 
collected with any amount of reserve force and energy at his 
back. He met even the humblest child with courtly grace, 
generous spirit and dignity, commanding the respect and ad- 
miration of all those with whom he came into contact. He 
was a true friend of the student, he had the wonderful faculty 
of remembering faces and names so that even a student in the 
junior years he would recognize and salute first, wherever 
they met. 
As an educationist. Sir William takes rank with the few' 
who built up our educational institutions in Canada, and gave 
them a high character. From the early years of his career in 
Nova Scotia as superintendent of education until 1894 when 
he resigned the principalship of McGill University he never 
ceased to work in the interests and for the promotion of learn- 
