From field to fact: William E. Logan and the geological survey of Canada

This dissertation reexamines William E. Logan's pioneering geological survey of the colonial province of Canada, 1842-1869, inspired by new historical perspectives on science, geography, exploration, cartography, gender, the body, and state formation. I begin with the rapid development of geological surveying and mapping in 1830s Britain, and locate Logan in two key worlds: the gentlemanly scientific circles of metropolitan London and the coal fields of industrial South Wales.The last chapters turn to the transformation of field experience into facts, through the mediums of industrial exhibitions, museum displays, printed reports, and geological maps. This shift of frame, linked to the previous theme by the central role of Logan himself, addresses the question of how knowledge circulates from the small, locally-specific spaces in which it is produced to the broader realm of public discourse. Thus, visitors to London and Paris exhibitions, or to the geological museum in Montreal, could examine carefully-labelled fossil and mineral specimens while viewing a detailed, colour-coded map laying out the subterranean potential of Canadian territory.So deployed, these geological facts also had economic and political implications: Logan's industrially-arranged mineral collections reinforced imperial ideas about colonial development, while his testimony on the economic potential of northern regions helped to support agricultural settlement plans, contributing to the expansion of the state into Native-populated areas. Finally and most generally, Logan's geology led to a new conception of Canadian geography in terms of "Laurentian" rocks, later known as the Canadian Shield.The second section addresses the problem of fieldwork in an unfamiliar environment, examining Logan's importation and adaptation of British scientific practices to his explorations of the Gaspe peninsula in the early 1840s. Here I analyze the physical and sensory experiences of the surveyor and his white and Native assistants as they struggled to measure and classify colonial territory. I interpret Logan's exploration narratives---his personal field diaries---to show how his British-Canadian field experience shaped his masculine approach to geological surveying. Equally importantly, Logan's personal example created a distinct and enduring field geologist identity in the culture of Canadian science.