William Edmond Logan

Sir William Edmond Logan
Sir William Edmond Logan (1869)
Born	20 April 1798 Montreal, Lower Canada
Died	22 June 1875(1875-06-22) (aged 77) Castell Malgwyn, Wales
Citizenship	United Kingdom
Nationality	Scottish, Canadian
Fields	Geology
Institutions	Geologist, H M Geological Survey Director of the Geological Survey of Canada (1842-70)
Alma mater	University of Edinburgh
Known for	"Geology of Canada" (1863)
Notable awards	Wollaston Medal (1856) Royal Medal (1867)

Sir William Edmond Logan FRSE FRS FGS (20 April 1798 – 22 June 1875) was a Scottish-Canadian geologist.

Logan was born in Montreal, Lower Canada (now Quebec), and educated at the High School in Edinburgh and the University of Edinburgh (graduated 1817). He started teaching himself geology in 1831, when he took over the running of a copper works in Swansea. He produced a geological map of the south Wales coalfield. Based on this research, in 1840 he presented to the Geological Society of London his paper "On the character of the beds of clay lying immediately below the coal-seams of South Wales, and on the occurrence of coal-boulders in the Pennant Grit of that district." This paper suggested his opinion that the layer of clay under the coalfield was the old soil in which grew the plants from which the coal was formed.

His abilities as a geologist were noticed, and in 1842 he was asked to establish the Geological Survey of Canada. In 1855, he recruited Robert Barlow as the survey's chief draughtsman. He continued as director until 1869. During this time he described the Laurentian rocks of the Laurentian Mountains in Canada and of the Adirondacks in the state of New York. In 1864 Logan founded the Geological Survey of Newfoundland on request of the colonial government, and appointed his assistant at the Geological Survey of Canada, Alexander Murray as its inaugural director.