Sir William Edmond Logan

Sir William Edmond Logan 1798-1875, Canadian geologist. Educated in England, he managed (1831-38) coal mines and a copper smelter in Wales. In addition to making studies of clays underlying coal seams, he made extensive geological maps and sections. These were used for the first geological map of Britain by H. T. De la Beche. As head of the Canadian Geological Survey (1842-70), Logan became known as the father of Precambrian geology. He was the first to recognize altered Paleozoic rock in S Canada and first to discover reptile remains from the Carboniferous period . He wrote, with T. S. Hunt, The Geology of Canada (1863).

Bibliography: See biography by B. J. Harrington (1883).

Burke de Burgh.(de Burgh Burke) The founder of this family in Ireland was William de Burgh (d. 1205), a brother to Hubert de Burgh, earl of Kent, who received lands in southern Tipperary from Prince John, perhaps as early as the prince's first visit to Ireland in 1185. About 1192–3 William allied with Donal O'Brien (Domnall Mór Ua Briain), king of Thomond, against the MacCarthys, and married O'Brien's daughter, by whom he had a son and heir, Richard de Burgh (d. 1243). Richard obtained confirmation of a speculative grant of the kingdom of Connacht originally made to his father and in 1235, after a prolonged war of conquest, became lord of 25 cantreds of the province of Connacht, the five remaining cantreds near Athlone being reserved to the English king, who immediately leased them for an annual rent to King Felim O'Connor ( Fedlimid Ó Conchobair) (d. 1265). Richard's eldest son Richard II having died in 1248, his second son Walter (d. 1271) became lord of Connacht and was further appointed earl of Ulster in 1263, while a third son, William Óg (d. 1270), was to become ancestor of the MacWilliam Burkes, lords of Mayo. Earl Walter's son Richard de Burgh III (d. 1326), known as the ‘Red Earl’ of Ulster, ruled almost half Ireland. He forced John fitz Thomas, successor to the FitzGerald lords of Sligo and later to become Ist earl of Kildare, to exchange his holdings in north‐east Connacht for lands else‐where in Ireland. He also repeatedly dethroned the defiant Donal O'Neill ( Domnall Ó Néill) and replaced him with his own candidates for kingship of Cenél nEógain, drawn from the Clandeboye O'Neills. He played a prominent part in Edward I's war against Scotland, although his sister was married to James Stewart and his daughter Elizabeth to Robert Bruce. In 1315 his earldom of Ulster was invaded by Robert's brother Edward Bruce, and the earl himself was defeated at the battle of Connor, where his cousin Sir William Liath (d. 1324), son of William Óg, was captured by the Scots. By 1317, however, the earl was imprisoned in Dublin, suspected of complicity with the invading Scots.

The defeat and death of Edward Bruce at Faughart (1318) did not lead to a complete reinstatement of the earl's former power as his lands had been badly ravaged, and he was now growing too old to mount an effective military reconquest against the rebel Donal O'Neill. The ‘Red Earl's’ eldest son John had predeceased him, leaving a minor, William de Burgh, ‘the Brown Earl’, to succeed on his grandfather's death in 1326. In 1328 Earl William entered Ireland to take over his inheritance and found that both Sir Walter de Burgh (d. 1332), son of William Liath and head of the Mayo Burkes, and Sir Henry de Mandeville (d. 1337), seneschal of Ulster, were accused of conspiring with his arch‐enemy, Maurice fitz Thomas FitzGerald, the rebellious Ist earl of Desmond. By driving de Mandeville out of Ulster and starving Walter Burke to death, Earl William set in train his own assassination (6 June 1333) which was followed by a rising of the de Mandevilles and their neighbours, the de Logans, in alliance with the Irish of Ulster. The earl left only a baby daughter Elizabeth as heiress. She later married Prince Lionel of Clarence, and through their daughter Philippa the legal ownership of the earldom of Ulster and lordship of Connacht was transmitted to the Mortimer family and ultimately to the English crown. However, while English officials retained a weak presence in the Ulster colony during a series of long minorities, the province of Connacht was beyond their control. At first it was torn by a feud between the Clanwilliam Burkes of Mayo, led by Edmond ‘the Scot’ (Éamonn Albanach, d. 1375), a younger brother of Walter MacWilliam, and their opponents, the Clanricard Burkes, the younger sons of Richard III, whose lands lay in the Galway area and who were led by the ‘Red Earl's’ second son Edmond the Bearded (Éamonn na Féasóige, d. 1338). Edmund the Scot won this war by drowning his opponent in 1338, and went on to dominate the whole province as MacWilliam ochtar, or ‘the northern MacWilliam’, while the defeated Clanricard Burkes of Galway were governed by his brother William, or Ulick ‘an Fhíona’ (‘of the Wine’, d. 1353), whose son Richard (Riocard Óg) founded an independent lordship over the Galway Burkes, using the title MacWilliam Uachtar, or ‘the southern MacWilliam’, otherwise ‘MacWilliam of Clanricard’. Under the policy of surrender and regrant, the Upper Macwilliams became earls of Clanricard from 1543. Meanwhile the descendants of Edmond the Bearded had become the Burkes of Clanwilliam, with a lordship on the boundaries of Cos. Limerick and Tipperary.

Katharine Simms

geologicazl surveys A knowledge of the areal distribution of rocks and minerals occurring within a region has long been recognized as having economic significance. Several ancient civilizations recorded carefully the whereabouts of deposits of ore minerals, useful or decorative stones, and the like. During the Renaissance, maps with geological data were produced in Italy and central Europe. Relatively modern maps, firmly linked to topography, date from the seventeenth century, and within the hundred years following their introduction maps specifically showing outcrop geology were produced in increasing numbers and complexity in Europe. With the Industrial Revolution came a greatly increased demand for raw materials, especially coal and iron ore. Geological prospecting for entirely commercial ends was accompanied by great intellectual progress. Access to geological information was seen to be necessary for the good of all. For some years after 1794, the Board of Agriculture in Britain had published a series of county maps of soils and exposed rocks. With the new discipline of stratigraphy to hand, geological maps of both practical and academic value could be, and were, produced by surveyors and scholars towards the end of the eighteenth century.

The British Geological Survey came into being in 1835 as the Geological Ordnance Survey, and is generally regarded as the oldest national geological survey in the world. Its establishment came after T. H. De la Beche (1796–1855), Secretary of the Geological Society of London, had been appointed to add colouring to Ordnance Survey maps of south-west England, in order to portray the geology. His work was greatly admired, and in 1835 he received a commission to continue, with the aid of two geologically minded members of the Ordnance Survey, to carry out a geological survey of Cornwall. From then on the work continued in earnest: the first memoir was published in 1839 and the surveying extended into South Wales. A prime objective was to produce a map on the scale of one inch to the mile for the entire British Isles. Mining, quarrying, and agriculture were also dealt with in some detail.

Hereafter the importance of the British Geological Survey was not in question and it has evolved into a modern survey and research institution upon which many other countries have modelled their own national geological surveys. France instituted its own geological survey in the 1830s (Service de la Carte géologique de la France) and in 1842 William Edmond Logan, who had been of much assistance to De la Beche, left for Canada to found the Geological Survey of Canada. By the beginning of the twentieth century the Geological Survey of Canada was sending ships north into Hudson Bay and the Canadian Arctic Islands. Also in North America, several of the United States set up their own state surveys of geology and natural resources, and in 1889 the US Geological Survey (USGS) was established. Its budget for its first year was US$100 000. Similar government bodies were created in various countries of Europe and in other British possessions overseas during the nineteenth century. The Geological Survey of India, for example, was set up in 1851 and achieved much within its first few decades. British colonial possessions in various parts of the world were surveyed by the Colonial Geological Survey, the services being administered later by the Overseas Geological Survey (OGS). In 1966 the OGS was combined with the Geological Survey of Great Britain as the Institute of Geological Sciences. In 1984 the title was once again changed, this time to the British Geological Survey.

The enormous territories of Imperial Russia, the later the Soviet Union, received the attention of various official government survey organizations. The Ministry of Mining was at first responsible for official mapping. The Ministry was a direct descendant of the ‘Stone Department’ set up in 1584, which under Peter the Great became the Department of Mining in 1700 and was renamed in 1729 as the Ministry of Mining. It was not until 1833 that a survey organization as such, the ‘Geological Committee’, was set up. Under the auspices of the Committee large areas of the country were mapped. A reorganization in 1929 resulted in the breaking-up of the Geological Committee and the formation of an Institute for Geological Maps. This arrangement was found to be inefficient, and a new organization, the Central Scientific Research Geological Prospecting Institute (ZNIGRI) was created. The ZNIGRI was in turn reorganized in 1938 as the All-Union Scientific Research Geological Institute (ZNIGRI-VSEGEI).

In China, systematic geological mapping is the responsibility of the Institute of Geology, one of several institutes under the control of the Ministry of Geology. The Institute, which was created in 1954, has its headquarters near Peking. The Chinese Academy of Sciences, which is concerned with basic research, has also undertaken regional surveys.

Even the distant continent of Antarctica has received great attention from the national governments that administer territories there. Although international agreement prohibits industrial development in Antarctica, a natural interest in discovering what resources exist is keen. The British Antarctic Survey, for example, maintains a vigorous geological survey programme and the USGS is similarly active.

New techniques have increasingly been adopted for improving and extending geological surveying everywhere. In particular, geophysical exploration methods and aerial photography (later to become remote sensing) have been utilized. The eventual use of satellites, and a number of remote sensing techniques deployed from them, has enabled more widespread and even global data to be gathered. Even the business of drawing maps has been vastly improved and speeded up by the use of computers and geographical information systems.

These information systems and advancing high-speed digital data transmission are already revolutionizing the operations of geological surveys; the exploration of ever-deeper parts of the crust is a good example. New mineral deposits are an obvious target, but the need for safe storage of hazardous wastes becomes increasingly urgent. A Deep Geology Unit was established in the Institute of Geological Sciences in 1977, and continues its exploration of British territory. Earthquakes, which are persisting hazards in many densely populated parts of the world, originate at depth within the crust. Some might be predicted from seismic observatories, but improving knowledge of the state of local or regional crustal stress increases our ability to foretell these shocks, as does surveying visible expressions of earthquakes, such as fault scarps. Most geological survey organizations include units concerned with this aspect of monitoring.

In addition to producing maps of both outcrop and subsurface geology, geophysical characteristics, and mineralogical and geochemical maps, geological surveying has, since the 1950s, been extended to the continental shelves adjacent to land masses. This activity has been driven by the discovery of petroleum and gas in these marine regions. Today there is close cooperation between petroleum companies and national geological surveys.

Immediate and future activities for many geological surveys are concerned with environmental planning, linked closely with civic authorities and industry. Disposal of radioactive waste poses geological problems. Other natural hazard predictions and assessments appear to be increasingly necessary in heavily populated and urbanized areas. In 1993 the USGS had a budget of US$35 000 000 for this field of activity, but this has since been significantly decreased, an unwise development according to many commentators.

Geological survey organizations throughout the world account for a large portion of published Earth science data, ranging from geochemical maps to mineral statistics and to micropalaeontological taxonomy. Most surveys have close links with national industries and also provide data and advice to the public on request, as did the first geological survey in 1835. The costs of such services have risen greatly, especially with the use of new technologies, but they remain a very small part of gross national expenditures. Nevertheless, in recent years, governments have directed their surveys to seek private contract work with industry or for other government departments or organizations. This imposes restrictions upon the ability to pursue research of a purely scientific nature, and even to continue with a basic mapping programme. Undertaking work for private concerns is far from the original purpose of a geological survey such as that of Britain; in so doing, its ability to provide a public service must to some degree be impaired. Yet that original aim must be preserved in a modern technological society. No national geological survey foresees the end of its mission, and its demise would be a matter for regret.

D. L. Dineley

Bibliography

Bailey, Sir E. B. (1952) Geological Survey of Great Britain. George Allen and Unwin, London.
Wilson, H. E. (1985) Down to Earth. One hundred and fifty years of the British Geological Survey. Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh.
Winch, K. L. (ed.) (1976) International maps and atlases in print (2nd edn). Bowker, London.
Wood, D. N., Hardy, J. E., and Harvey, A. P. (eds) (1989) Information sources in the Earth sciences (2nd edn). Bowker-Saur, London.