James Mackintosh Bell

James Abbott Mackintosh Bell , called Mack Bell , (born September 23, 1877 in St. Andrews , † March 31, 1934 in Almonte ) was a Canadian geologist .

Life

Bell grew up in Almonte and studied at Queen's University (Kingston) with a master's degree in 1899 and at Harvard University , where he received his doctorate in 1904. He was doing fieldwork in the Canadian Arctic (especially the area between Lake Athabasca and Great Bear Lake ) under his uncle Robert Bell on behalf of the Geological Survey of Canada . He also worked as a mining expert for various companies. In 1904 he became a geologist at the New Zealand Mines Department as successor to Alexander McKay , but when he took office in 1905 he became director of the Geological Survey of New Zealand , which had been neglected since 1893 . He rebuilt the Geological Survey, mapping on a relatively small scale (1 mile: 1 inch) that was adopted by his successors. In both 1901 and 1910 Robert Falcon Scott offered him the opportunity to participate in his South Pole expedition, but the New Zealand government forbade him to do so (for the second expedition on which Scott died). In 1911 he left the survey with a colleague friend (Colin Fraser) and opened a consulting firm for mining geology in London .

During the First World War he was a Canadian officer in France, was the victim of a gas attack and was finally assigned to the British military mission in Russia (he spoke several languages ​​fluently, including Russian). For his services in the First World War he was OBE . After the war he continued his career as a successful mining expert , where he came a lot in remote areas. He was a director of several Canadian mining companies. He wrote four books and around 135 articles.

In 1909 he married Vera Margaret Beauchamp in Wellington , New Zealand, who was the daughter of one of New Zealand's most famous businessmen and sister of Katherine Mansfield .

In 1924 he received an honorary doctorate from Queen's University in Kingston (LLD).

Fonts

• The wilds of Maoriland, London: Macmillan 1914
• Far places, Toronto, Macmillan 1931

literature

• MP Burton: The New Zealand Geological Survey, 1865-1965. Wellington, 1965
• AP Mason: Bell and Fraser: a partnership in geology, Geological Society of New Zealand Historical Studies Group Newsletter No 6 (March 1993), pp. 26--31
• Obit. Proceedings of the Geological Society of America 1934 (June 1935), pp. 187-192

Web links

• Biography from Alan Mason Dictionary of New Zealand Biography