William Edmond Logan

Sir William Edmond Logan, FRSE FRS FGS (20 April 1798 – 22 June 1875), was a Canadian-born geologist and the founder and first director of the Geological Survey of Canada.

William Edmond Logan was born into a well-to-do Montreal family in 1798, the third son of William Logan, a baker and owner of real estate, and Janet Edmond, both originally from Scotland.

Logan was sent to Edinburgh to receive an education. As was common at the time for young men of means, he learned several languages (French, Spanish, some Gaelic and German), music (flute), and became an accomplished artist. In the 1830s, Logan became fascinated with geology while managing a copper-smelting works near Swansea, Wales, on behalf of his uncle, Hart Logan. His self-taught talent for the subject soon brought his geological maps and interpretations to the attention of the most eminent geologists of Great Britain, and it was their later recommendations that clinched Logan's appointment as the founding director of the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC).

The need for an organization that could chart the mineral resources of the newly established Province of Canada (following the merger of Upper and Lower Canada) had been under discussion for over a decade. Government funds were allocated in 1841 and Logan took up his duties in 1842.

By the spring of 1843, Logan had established the Survey's headquarters in what he described as a "small and dark room" in Montreal. He had also hired Scottish-born Alexander Murray, a former naval officer, as his assistant. The rapid industrial advances in England since the late 18th century had shown how essential coal was to economic expansion. With the accepted belief that North America's destiny lay in applying industrial technology to rich natural resources, the search for coal became the Survey's first priority.

The 1843 field season saw Logan working between Pictou, Nova Scotia, and the Gaspé, as well as Murray between Lake Erie and Lake Huron. The following year, Logan mapped the north shore of the Gaspé Peninsula and then explored inland to the mountains along the Cap Chat River. Logan's assistants named the highest peak in his honour (this Mount Logan is not to be confused with Canada's highest mountain, which is located in Yukon and also named for him).

Based on information gathered during the first two field seasons, Logan was able to report that no coal deposits were to be found in the Province of Canada. Logan's conclusion undoubtedly made the idea of amalgamating with the coal-rich Maritime Provinces attractive, and was one of the factors leading to Confederation in 1867.

Logan also made many important discoveries in the early days of the Survey. For example, he identified several broad geological divisions: folded rocks covering Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula and Eastern Townships; the nearly flat-lying limestones that extend west from Montreal to Lake Huron; and much older crystalline rocks extending north an unknown distance from Kingston, Ottawa, and Montreal. The latter soon proved to be the southernmost exposed section of Canada's mineral-rich Precambrian Shield.