Alexander Murray (geologist)

Alexander Murray (born June 2, 1810 in Dollerie House, Crieff , Scotland , † December 18, 1884 ibid) was a Scottish geologist and the first director of the Geological Survey of Newfoundland .

His father was the 8th Laird von Dollerie and went to sea as a captain for the East India Company. Alexander Murray was also slated for a career at sea after he proved to be a problem student during his initial school education in Edinburgh. He attended the Royal Naval College in Portsmouth and then went to sea. In 1827 he was wounded in the Battle of Navarino. In 1830 he passed the exams to become lieutenant, but since there were no opportunities for advancement in the Navy in times of peace, he took his leave in 1835. He bought farmland in Canada and emigrated to Canada in 1837 after his marriage. However, since there was an economic depression there at the time, he returned to military service and returned to England in 1841. Through an acquaintance with William Edmond Logan , who was in the process of founding the Geological Survey of Canada, he received an offer to be employed there as an assistant if he acquired enough basic geological knowledge, which he was still doing in England. He brought surveying skills with him from his maritime training. In 1843 he began his geological fieldwork for the Survey from Toronto to Lake Couchiching, where he determined the first metamorphic rocks in Canada at the Falls of the Severn . He assisted Logan with his recordings and then worked mainly in western Canada (independently of Logan). In contrast to the financially independent Logan, he was dependent on the earnings of the survey. His fieldwork in 1847 led to the establishment of the Huronian Formation of Precambrian rocks and his exploration of a magnetic anomaly at Creighton, Ontario, led to the first indications of nickel and copper deposits in the Sudbury Basin in 1856 . He also found oil wells, which at that time had little economic value. In 1863, as a result of the explorations, the Geology of Canada was published and the survey was concluded.

1864 began his time as director of the geological survey of Newfoundland, the final report of which was published in 1881, written with the assistant Howley trained by him. Before that, geological knowledge was essentially only available from the coast and his report showed the possibility of agriculture, logging and mineral deposits that opened up income opportunities beyond fishing. As early as 1873 he published a geological map of Newfoundland at his own expense and in 1875 he led the exploration for a planned railway line in Newfoundland.

In 1877 he received the Order of St. Michael and George.

His first wife, whom he married in Scotland, died in a sled accident in 1861, and Murray was second married to Elizabeth Cummins in 1868. The second marriage had six children. For health reasons he returned to Scotland in 1883.

Fonts

• with James Patrick Howley: Geological Survey of Newfoundland, London 1881
• with Howley: Reports of Geological Survey of Newfoundland, from 1881 to 1909, St John's, 1918
• Glaciation of Newfoundland, Transactions Royal Soc. Canada, 1883

Web links

• Dictionary of Canadian Biography, article Alexander Murray by Richard David Hughes