Sketch of Dr. A. R. C. Sclwyu.—Aini. ii 
five years additional in Canada thus completing in December, 
1894, half a century of active geological wiork. He was not 
a voluminous writer for publication, but he was an excellent 
letter writer. He never spared himself in attending to the nu- 
merous letters which the correspondence branch of the Geo- 
logical Survey entailed. He did muchj to give the depart- 
ment the good name it has acquired, and for which it has been 
so favorably known as a bureau of .exact information on 
a thousand and one things of special interest and value to pros- 
pectors and investors in all the provinces of the Dominion, as 
well as in some of the remotest corners of our country. 
There is little doubt that the state of efficiency of the Can- 
adian survey grew apace under Selwyn. -Having had for 
many years closely associated with him as chief advisor and 
assistant the late and lamented Dr. George M. Dawson, Sel- 
wyn led the ship through thick and thin most successfully! It 
cannot be denied that it was under Dr. Selwyn's administra- 
tion that the survey reached the bight of its success in carry- 
ing out the objects and aims for which it was instituted. 
Nevertheless, it must not be understood that there were no 
■difficulties to overcome, or swords to cross in the long period 
during which he was director. 
Selwyn's aim from the start was to make the Geological 
Survey of Canada, an eminently practical Department, in 
which the records of mines and mineral statistics would be 
kept for the use and information of Parliament and the public. 
Accordingly, it is with satisfaction that we find him in the 
second month of his term of office (January 1870) busily en- 
gaged in organizing a branch of the geological survey for the 
purpose of collecting in a systematic way "Records of Mines 
and of Mining statistics of the production and consumption 
of Minerals in the Dominion." The decision he arrived at 
was published in the official "Canada Gazette" and Messrs. 
Edward Hartley and Prof. Robert Bell were requested to 
undertake the collection and arrangement of the returns made 
from year to year. The inadequacy of the buildings then 
at the disposal of the survey was a point on which Dr. Sehv}'n 
repeatedly dwelt, and a larger amount of the space necessary 
to the proper illustration and exhiljition of the mineral re- 
sources and industries of the different provinces was repeated- 
Iv urged hv him. 
