By:
C.
Gordon
Winder
University
of
Western
Ontario,
London
Canada,
N6A
5B7
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 Gaspé, Québec, and Mount Logan (elev.5959 m) in the south 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 island; a bay; a lake; an inlet; a township in Québec and a government park in Gaspé. 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 Québec 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 late September or 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 degress 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 Montréal presented him with a Silver Fountain [present location unknown], and the citizens of Toronto organized a gala dinner, and commissioned his portrait.
Logan's background
William Logan was born in Montréal, 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 measures only horizontal angles. [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 of 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 Philosphical 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 innate! 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. He had rather 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!]
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 terrains 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 talked 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 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 Scotch 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 was 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.]