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C. Gordon Winder, Professor(emer.) of Geology University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, N6A 5B7, wrote the following essay on the occasion of the 200th birthday, April 20, 1998, of Canada's most eminent and revered geologist. The essay was sent out by e-mail across Canada and several dozen colleges in the United States. |
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What's this? a 200th Birthday! Excuse for a Party?
Whose? Sir William Logan!! Who's he? Founder and first director of the Geological Survey of Canada, from 1842 - 1869 - hey!! That’s before Confederation. YUP!! So what did he do? Walked, Paced, Counted steps for a zillion miles through thick Canadian bush with swarms of biting flies long before anyone thought of bug spray -- rain or shine, even snow yet -- mapping the geology, and making maps as he traveled - or those that existed he corrected - wore out dozens of field boots which lined the survey office walls in Montreal. OH! yes he did have three or four amateur helpers. The first summary volume of Canada's geology was published in 1863 - copy in university libraries - and a map in 1865, with a larger version in 1869, which Logan probably hand coloured each copy himself. Corel Draw was in the future.
So what's the date?? >>>APRIL 20<<<< it's a Monday!! Do we have a wingding of a party? No! WHY?? Sir William would not come. He'd rather be out walking a traverse. {My GOD!!! - how dull!! - well that's the way he was!!] When he was knighted in 1856, Montreal and Toronto held great soirees of celebration - he HAD to attend, and give a speech which he loathed. Montreal gave him a great magnificent ‘Stanley cup sized’ trophy, call the SILVER FOUNTAIN. For 25 years I have scoured Canada, USA, and the UK - not a trace. Even Canadian antique dealers, UK auctioneers, and Henry Birks were asked. Nothing!! I sometimes wonder if he just dropped in the Atlantic on one of his many crossings. [Titanic explorers alert!!!] His numerous medals are on display in Logan Hall at GSC headquarters in Ottawa. By the way, John Molson was a good friend!
If we don't have a party, then what? Can't miss a chance to celebrate. Do what Logan would have done -- go for a walk!! - what? go for a walk?? How dull! Where? Just around the block, or across the campus, or home - rain or shine - in field boots. What's the date again? April 20! A good walk will do you some good - remember Logan lived to age 77 when the average was probably about 50. Oh! didn't drink beer! - once in a while a nip of sherry.
Had enough of Logan? If so just STOP here and go on with important
business. But for the curious, there's more. Have you heard of Mt. Logan?
Canada's highest mountain - know after whom it is named? You guessed it - our
birthday boy. In the following there's a few more things which bear his name.
And if after reading though that and you're game for more, then delve into the
six essays published in the CIM BULLetin, 1991-92 -- which drew the comment -
"What detail!!" and these can be found in university libraries. .
H A P P Y 2 0 0 TH S I R W I L L I A M ! ! !
Source: Public Archives of Canada C7606
WILLIAM EDMOND LOGAN (1798 - 1875):
CANADA'S SUPER - ROCKER!!
Citizens who make notable contributions to society are memorialized by applying their name to a major award - Nobel; a way of thinking - Cartesian; a scientific law - Charles [or general law - Murphy]; a unit of measure - Ampere; and most commonly a geographic feature - Hudson Bay, Vancouver Island, etc. William Edmond Logan made a monumental contribution to Canada between 1842 and 1869. His name is applied to not one mountain, but two - Mount Logan (elev. 1100 m) located about 125 miles west of Gaspe, Quebec, and Mount Logan (elev.5959 m) in the south west corner of the Yukon territory, the highest in Canada and second highest in North America. His name is also applied to a range of mountains in central Yukon; a submarine canyon in the Atlantic continental shelf; two islands; a bay; a lake; an inlet; a township in Quebec; and a government park in Gaspe. Geologically his name has been applied to a mineral (weloganite); several fossils (such as Maclurites logani); the Logan sills at Thunder Bay; the Cretaceous Logan Canyon Formation in the subsurface of the Atlantic continental shelf; Logan's Line, the demarkation between the folded Appalachians and the flat-lying Paleozoic sediments, trending from Lake Champlain to Quebec City and beyond; and Logan's Loop, in the western Pacific, the path of earth's magnetic pole during the Proterozoic.
There is the Logan Medal, highest award of the Geological Association of Canada; Logan Tower, headquarters building in Ottawa of the Geological Survey of Canada; Logan Club, professional organization for GSC scientists; at McGill University, the Logan Chair for Geology, and Logan medals and prizes, financed in part by Logan; and Logan Day, a social gathering in early October when Canadian geologists gather locally for sports, story spinning, and general celebration.
Recognition during his lifetime is evident by one notable international award. At age 44 in April 1842, Logan was appointed founder and director of the Geological Survey of Canada. Less than 14 years later, on January 29, 1856, he was knighted by Queen Victoria, the first individual who was born in Canada, and a rare honour for a scientist. He also received honourary degrees from McGill University, and the University of Lennoxville(Bishop's), medals from the Geological Society of London; the Royal Society of London; Napoleon III of France; from Portugal, Order of the Tower and Sword; and medals for International Exhibitions in London(1851) and Paris(1855). The citizens of Montreal presented him with a Silver Fountain [present location unknown], and the citizens of Toronto organized a gala dinner, and commissioned his portrait.
William Logan was born in Montreal, April 20,1798, in a family whose father had immigrated from Scotland, was a successful baker, and wealthy farmer and property owner. He had three brothers and four sisters. In 1814 William was sent to Scotland to finish high school, and won several prizes. In 1816, he registered at Edinburgh University in medicine, and his classes, all large, were logic, mathematics, and chemistry. He achieved the highest class mark in mathematics, for which his award was a brass octant, with his name engraved in Latin. This instrument is like a sextant but only horizontal angles can be measured; it can be seen in the Logan Museum at the Geological Survey of Canada, Ottawa. [In 1944, the instrument was found near Llandeilo, Wales, in a barn loft owned by a descendant of one of his sisters; the octant ownership was evident but its significance was unknown to them]. Logan left the university at the end of the year, possibly upon hearing about surgery without benefit of anaesthetic. Within a week he was in London working for his uncle Hart Logan as bookkeeper and accountant. During his leisure hours, he took lessons in painting, languages, flute, and geometry. [The Latin roots mean earth measuring, the mathematics of dimension and volume.] In 1831, his uncle acquired an interest in copper smelting and coal mining near Swansea, Wales, and William was appointed manager. South Wales has broad river valleys with low rolling hills, on the sides of which could been seen the numerous small coal mines operated by one or two men. The smelting operation required a continuous supply coal which these small individual operations could not guarantee. Logan wrote his brother in London for old clothes, books on mineralogy, and a theodolite, and proceeded to construct precise geological maps. Whether he had any surveying instruction is unknown. The existing geological maps were by William (Strata) Smith, 1815, and George Greenough, 1820, for which the detail was highly generalized. Whether Logan was even aware of these maps is unknown. His maps were of sufficient detail with a high degree of accuracy, that the British geological survey adopted for publication; Logan's name is still on the modern versions for the area.
Did Logan have any interest in geology before going to Swansea in
1831? At Edinburgh University, the chemistry professor was T.C. Hope, an ardent
and vocal supporter of Wernerism. Another faculty member was Sir James Hall, an
original investigator in experimental igneous petrology, who argued
vulcanism. Logan probably heard the rhetoric about these understandings,
but probably little basic geology and principles. In 1833 at which time he was
starting his mapping, he was reading Conybeare and Phillips 'Outlines of the
Geology of England and Wales', published in 1822, in which are such words as
granite, travertine, and jasper without definitions. In 1834, he made a
business trip to France and Spain, and he was reading the third volume of
Charles Lyell's 'Principles of Geology', published that year. In 1829, Logan
made a trip to Italy and
his diary suggests as a tourist. He recorded the rock types used as
building stone - granite(11); porphyry(2); marble(8);
travertine(5);jasper(2);lapis lazuli; alabaster; and pozzulana. Would the
average tourist in 1829 be able to identify these rocks? -[or in 1998 for that
matter?] That Logan's uncle purchased an interest in a copper smelting
operation suggests his business was commodities broker, including building
stone. Logan would have been familiar as a business interest, and not science.
His mapping South Wales coal was his introduction to geology. In 1835, the
Swansea Philosophical and Literary Society was organized and Logan was curator
for geology. In 1838, his uncle Hart died, his employment was terminated, but
he continued his geological mapping until 1841.
In 1842, when Logan was appointed GSC founder and director, he was
probably the best prepared candidate, physically, intellectually,
scientifically, mentally, and by nationality. In stature, Logan was about
five foot nine inches, and possibly weighing 150 pounds. Walking was
annate!! In April 1828 for ten days, he, his brother and two friends, went on a
walking, climbing, riding, rowing, and sailing trip over 400 miles in the
western highlands of Scotland. One night after midnight by moonlight, they rode
in a farm wagon which had been used that day to haul manure. The next day
they walked 14 miles from Ballychullish to Fort William, and up and down Ben
Nevis, elevation 4406 feet. While living in London and Swansea, he walked to
work each day, possibly four to six miles. His field measurements in the
Canadian bush were made by counting steps using a compass, with a mercury
barometer for elevation. One feature of the Survey office in Montreal was a row
of his worn out field boots along the wall. His accuracy was evident because,
in the Grenville area north of the Ottawa River, he discovered errors in the
government land surveys. [On at least one occasion local people wondered
if he should be committed to the insane asylum - what strange antics, walking
along mumbling to himself, making notes in leather bound notebooks, peering at
a hand-held instrument, cracking rocks with a large sledge, wrapping the chips
in paper, and carrying away in a large wicker basket!!]
Sea side accommodation while mapping the Gaspe
Source: Harrington 1883
He had superior intelligence. He won prizes at high school, and the octant for mathematics at university. He must have taught himself about rock types, and geological field mapping; he progressed from near flat-lying rock in south Wales, to simple and complexly folded and faulted rocks in the Appalachians, to the metamorphic terranes of the Grenville. Presumably he was self-taught about minerals and rocks while employed by his uncle, and as curator at the Swansea Institute. Fossils received his special attention; he called them the 'poetry of geology'.
With respect to personal relation, he was an eccentric. Every day he did talk to each of the four or five Survey employees about their problems - T.Sterry Hunt, the chemist; Elkanah Billings, the paleontologist; James Richardson, field mapper; and the map maker, and the handyman; but not Alexander Murray, his senior field man, because he lived in Woodstock about 500 miles away. He expected his employees to work long hours, and they did, because they knew Logan worked even longer hours. He wrote out by hand four copies of the professional reports before printing, and kept the Survey account books. Even at midnight a light could be seen in the Survey office, in which he worked and slept. Some wondered if he ever slept. Politicians always received special attention because they provided the funding. On a personal basis he usually wore field clothes every day. After his knighthood in 1856, he was probably one of the best known individuals in Canada, but few were able to identify him. One visitor to the Survey office mistook him for the handyman, and the well dressed handyman for the director. And when the demands and frustrations as director became overwhelming, he would disappear into the bush for several weeks.
That Logan was born in Canada probably was a factor in his appointment. In 1845, he was offered the directorship for a Survey in India. He declined. I speculate about another factor. Logan's father, also named William, was a Scottish Presbyterian; his portrait conveys the image of a highly successful business man who, if he smiled, his face would crack!! His four sons, none of whom married, were probably tutored that dedication and determination in a chosen career are mandatory, and ensured success in life. In the Presbyterian Church, one teaching was predestination, which has the corollary that a career opportunity once evident, would indicate divine direction. Whether William Edmond Logan viewed his appointment as founder of the Geological Survey of Canada in this light is unknown. But his drive, determination, vigour, resolve, and focus, allow such speculation.
Logan's two hundredth birthday is
April 20, 1998.
Celebrate!
GO FOR A WALK!
REFERENCES
----------
Bell, Robert, 1907, Sir William Logan and the Geological Survey of
Canada: The Mortimer
Co., Montreal, 28p.
Harrington, B.J., 1883, Sir William Logan, Kt: First Director of the
Geological Survey of
Canada: Dawson Brothers Publishers,
Montreal, 432p.
Winder, C.G.,1965, Logan and South Wales: Geological Association of
Canada, Proceedings,
v.14, pp.103-124.
Winder, C. Gordon, 1991-92, William Edmond Logan (1798-1875)[six
articles,
different titles]: CIM
BULL, v.84, no.954,pp.14-18; v.84,
no.956,p.8-12; v.85,
no.957,pp.10-16; v.85, no.958,pp.27-40; v.85,
no.959,pp.13-18;
no.960,pp.13-21 [last includes numerous
references.]
98/06/01
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Email me cwinder@uwo.ca |
EXTRA!
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The
July 1, 1998 issue of MACLEANS, Canada's Weekly Newsmagazine, was devoted to
The 100 Most Important Canadians In History. Readers were invited to
nominate individuals in ten fields - heroes, thinkers, nation builders, discoverers,
artists, scientists, activists, characters, stars, and entrepeneurs. The
above essay was sent to nominate Logan. The selection committee consisted of
25 experts and knowledgeable individuals, with a York University professor of
history as chair. |
|
Citation in MACLEAN's, July
1, 1998, p.39, Added to original essay
98-08-05 |
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An Anthology
WILLIAM
EDMOND LOGAN (1798 – 1875)
Knighted Canadian Geologist
C. Gordon Winder
This book is an anthology of papers published in professional and general periodicals.
Trafford On-Demand Publishing, Victoria, British
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C. Gordon Winder is Professor(emer.) of
Geology, University of Western Ontario, London,
Ontario, CANADA, N6A-5B7 :: URL-www.uwo.ca/earth/Winder.html
:: cwinder@uwo.ca
Added to original – 05-01-04