Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 23.djvu/713

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SKETCH OF SIR WILLIAM E. LOGAN, LL. D., F. G. S.
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breakfast, he would buckle on his instruments, grasp his hammer, and, with map in hand, march off to the field, in which be would toil on without cessation, without thinking for a moment of food or rest, until the shades of evening gave warning that it was time to retrace his steps toward home, or to seek some temporary dwelling." Such a day Logan would supplement, in Canada, by writing up the day's notes and his journal in a wigwam, often working past midnight.

The winters, which interrupted field-work, by no means brought idleness to him. There were the geological specimens to sort, label, and arrange in cabinets, reports to write up, expense accounts to prepare, and maps to construct, work on which the smallness of the appropriations allowed only scanty assistance.

In 1850 the Provincial Government decided to send a collection of Canadian economic minerals to the London World's Fair of the next year, and Logan was sent in charge of the exhibit. During this visit to England, Logan was present at a meeting of the British Association, and read a paper entitled "On the Age of the Copper-bearing Rocks of Lakes Superior and Huron, and Various Facts relating to the Physical Structure of Canada." He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society at this time, being "the first native Canadian elected for work done in Canada." He also served as one of the eight jurors in the Mineralogical and Metallurgical Department of the Exhibition. Logan was also one of the two Special Commissioners in charge of the Canadian exhibit at the French Exhibition of 1855, and here as before he worked almost incessantly for many weeks arranging his section. He was not suffered to go unrewarded, for he received the Grand Gold Medal of Honor for his map and minerals, and was presented by the Emperor with the cross of the Legion of Honor. Other honors were now bestowed upon him in rapid succession. On the 29th of the following January he was knighted by the Queen at Windsor, for services rendered at the two exhibitions, and about the same time he was informed that the Palladium or Wollaston medal—"the greatest honor the Geological Society has to bestow"—would be publicly presented to him at the annual meeting of the society. Other honors and testimonials were tendered to him on his return to Canada.

Sir William at once resumed his former labors and continued them until he was interrupted by another exhibition—that of 1862 in London. He was sent as Chief Commissioner from Canada, and was again made a juror; but the hurry in which his work had to be done, and the invitations that were showered upon him, were not to his taste, and he sought an early opportunity to return to Canada. In the next year his "Geology of Canada" was published, of which work Professor Harrington writes: "It was more than eight years since its preparation had been ordered by Government, and many thought that its publication ought not to have been so long deferred. But neither the