William Edmond Logan
|
Timeline
| Date | Details |
|---|---|
| 1798 | Born. |
| 1835 | Appointed. |
| 1842 | Resigned. |
| 1842 | Initiated Geological Survey of Canada. |
| 1843-1869 | Director Geological Survey of Canada. |
| 1851 | F.R.S. |
| 1856 | Knight. |
| 1856 | Wollaston Medal. |
| 1867 | Royal Medal. |
| 1875 | Died. |
Biographies and obituaries
Life of Sir William E. Logan, B.J. Harrington. 1883.
Q.J.G.S. 1876, p. 76.
Sir William Edmond Logan journals, 1843-4. Reference: NLW MS 21715-16B The National Library of Wales
William Edmond Logan — Wikipedia article
Winder, C. Gordon, Logan, Sir William Edmond, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. X.
Vodden, Christy, No Stone Unturned: The First 150 Years of the Geological Survey of Canada, Minister of Supply and Services, Ottawa, 1992
Smith, Charles and Dyck, Ian (editors), William E. Logan's 1845 Survey of the Upper Ottawa Valley, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, 2007
Winder, C. Gordon, William Edmond Logan (1798-1875): Knighted Canadian Geologist, Trafford On Demand Publishing, 2004
Portrait William Edmond Logan Canadian Museum of History
Winder, C.G. William Edmond Logan (1798-1875): Knighted Canadian Geologist. Trafford Publishing, 2006
Sir William E. Logan and the Geological Survey of Canada Toronto Public Library
Geological Survey of Canada Sir William Logan 1798 - 1875 Wayback Machine
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, wrote six articles on Logan: CIM BULL, v.84, no.954,pp.14-18; CIM BULL, v.84, no.956, pp.8-12; CIM BULL, v.85, no.957, pp.10-16; CIM BULL, v.85, no.958, pp.27-40; CIM BULL, v.85, no.959, pp.13-18; no.960, pp.13-21 (See William Edmond Logan (1798 - 1875): Canada's Super-rocker!!
Publications
Works listed in the BGS Library catalogue
Logan, W.E. ; Hunt, T.S. (1855). Esquisse geologique du Canada pour servir a l'intelligence de la carte geologique et de la collection des mineraux economiques envoyees a l'exposition Universelle de Paris, 1855. Paris, France : Hector Bossange et Fils.
Logan, W.E. ; Geological Survey of Canada (1999). Geological Survey of Canada. In: Logan, W.E. ; Smith, C.H. ; Geological Survey of Canada. William Logan's 1850 history of the Geological Survey of Canada : Geoscience Canada 26(3) 1999 p.111-120.
Harrington, B.J. ; Logan, W.E. ; Canada. Dept. of Mines and Resources (1883). Life of Sir William E. Logan, Kt.... : first director of the Geological Survey of Canada. London : Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington.
Winder, C.G. ; Logan, W.E. Logan and South Wales : Proceedings Geological Association of Canada 16 1965 p103-125.
Logan, W.E. (1865). On the history of Eozoon canadense. Montreal : [s.n.].
Logan, W.E. ; Fletcher, H. (1908). A section of Carboniferous rocks in Cumberland county, Nova Scotia. Halifax, NS : Nova Scotian Institute of Science.
Geological Survey of Great Britain ; Logan, W.E. ; Woodward, H.B. ([1856] rev. 1872). Sheet 37 [E&W one inch old series]. (Geological Survey of England and Wales one inch to one mile [1:63 360 old series]). Southampton : Ordnance Survey for the Geological Survey.
BGS archives
| Ref No | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|
| GSM/DC/A/C/11/26,31,33 | W E Logan: Letters on his appointment in Canada. | |
| GSM/DC/A/C/11/31 | W E Logan: Letter to H T De la Beche. | |
| GSM/DC/A/C/11/31 | W E Logan: Letter to H T De la Beche. | |
| GSM/DC/A/C/11/33 | W E Logan: Report on Logan by H T De la Beche. | |
| GSM/DC/A/C/13/79 | W E Logan: Printed catalogue of Canadian minerals | |
| GSM/DR/Bc/A/2 | Correspondence with other geologists inc T.Reeks, R.Phillips, T.Sopwith, C.Roach and W.E.Logan re models and a medal | |
| GSM/GX/Lo | William Edmond Logan | Obituary file. Logan was a member of a mining company operating in the South wales area. He has begun mapping coal seams and othe geological information on the 1" OS sheets as soon as they were produced and his work was used by De la Beche until Logan left for Canada in 1842. Logan introduced more detailed horizontal and vertical sections and used a 6" scale for detailed topographical mapping. |
Other archives
Written in Stone: William E. Logan and the Geological Survey of Canada Library and Archives Canada
Sir William Edmond Logan FRS (1798–1875)
Sir William Edmond Logan, a Canadian, was influential amongst early nineteenth century British geologists and collaborated with the BGS's first Director, Henry de La Beche, mapping parts of South Wales.
Sir William Edmond Logan was born in Montreal, Canada in 1798; his parents were Scottish émigrés, but Logan returned to Scotland to attend school and university.
Later he became the manager of a copper works in Swansea, where his interest in the local coalfield geology began.
In 1842 Logan returned to the land of his birth to become the first Director of the Geological Survey of Canada, where he continued to work for many years, before retiring to West Wales. He died in 1875.
Today, Logan is recognised as Canada’s most important scientist, a trailblazer, and Canada’s highest mountain is named in his honour.
From Flett's history of the Survey
William Edmond Logan
William Edmond Logan was a member of a Scottish family which had emigrated to Canada but subsequently returned to Scotland. Logan was educated in Edinburgh, at the Royal High School and subsequently at the University, where he studied logic, chemistry and mathematics for one session only. He then went to London, and entered the counting house of his uncle, a successful business man. From 1817 to 1828 Logan worked in London, and though he was a serious minded young man, and very fond of reading, there does not seem to be evidence that he took any interest in geology. In 1828, however, his uncle became a partner in a firm that proposed to extract copper from metallurgical slags in South Wales, and William Logan went to Swansea as local representative of the firm. From the nature of his work he began to study anew chemistry and mineralogy and he collected shells, fossils and minerals. The business enterprise was not very successful and Logan soon found himself involved in many practical difficulties which increased his interest in mineralogy and metallurgy. After a time his firm undertook coal mining and Logan acquired some geological instruments and started to take notes and make surveys. He seems to have been most1y self-taught, though no doubt he learned much from the practical mining engineers with whom he came in daily contact. From the first his observations were very carefully made and recorded, and his measurements and descriptions were models of exactness, possibly as the result of his thorough business training. He obtained the Ordnance Survey Sheets and laid down on them the outcrops of the coal seams and the other geological information which he collected, and in addition to this he made vertical sections of the strata, and horizontal sections across the Coal Measures, with considerable accuracy and skill. He read all the geological books and papers on which he could lay his hands and became an enthusiastic geologist. In 1837 he joined the Geological Society and in the same year he exhibited a geological map of part of South Wales at the meeting of the British Association. By this time he had made the acquaintance of De la Beche, who was much impressed by Logan’s maps, and recognized that for accuracy and detail they were ahead of anything that had been produced in England up to that time. When the Geological Survey entered South Wales, Logan very generously placed at their service all the results of his observations and De la Beche welcomed them with enthusiasm. In some of the Sheets that were published in 1845 Logan’s name appears as joint author and he gave very active assistance to De la Beche for several years. Apparently he was never a regular member of the Survey staff but continued to be an enthusiastic amateur who rendered gratuitous assistance.
Logan was the first to understand the meaning of the underclays or root-clays that lie beneath coal seams, and he read a paper on this subject to the Geological Society of London in 1840. His views have been fully confirmed by subsequent workers. In 1840 Logan visited Canada and published several geological papers containing the results of his geological observations during his travels. In 1842 the Canadian Parliament decided to institute a Geological Survey and Logan was appointed geologist. De la Beche wrote a letter supporting Logan’s application and expressing in the highest terms his appreciation of the accuracy and thoroughness of Logan’s work in South Wales. This opinion was subsequently justified, for Logan became one of the most famous men in Canada and one of the most distinguished geologists of the Western Hemisphere. He was the founder of the Geological Survey of Canada, a national institution of great renown and distinction which has contributed enormously to our knowledge of the geology of that country. Logan’s name is held in great reverence, and one of the highest mountains in Canada has been called Mount Logan in his memory. He was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1856 and died in 1875 at the age of 77. For a man who was of middle age before he began the study of geology he attained great distinction in his chosen field of scientific work. Logan was essentially a field geologist and a surveyor, and till advanced age he thought little of hardships and of dangers in travelling through pathless woods and along turbulent rivers. The confidence reposed in him by De la Beche was thoroughly justified and his work in South Wales laid a safe foundation for future researches in that difficult field.