John Jeremiah Bigsby, MD: British Army Physician and Pioneer North American Geologist (2013)
In the years from 1817 to 1825 when Dr John Bigsby was stationed in Canada with the British Army, he studied the geology from the lower St Lawrence Valley to the centre of the continent. In sedimentary strata of the Great Lakes, he collected a wealth of fossils, many of unusual size. He described the mineralogy of the Canadian Shield, recognizing the igneous origin of the basalt precipices of the north shore of Lake Superior. In 1819 when the International Boundary Commission was surveying the western end of Lake Erie, the whole staff fell ill with malarial fevers and some died. Bigsby was appointed in 1820 as medical officer to the Commission. He accompanied the British survey team from 1820 to 1823 to provide medical care. In his leisure time he collected fossils from the shores of the Great Lakes. In 1823 Bigsby travelled by canoe with the surveyors completing the survey from Lake Superior to Lake of the Woods. During the journey he observed the great volcanic formations of that region. Bigsby returned to England in 1825, resigning from the British Army in 1830. He entered private medical practice but maintained a life-long interest in geology, particularly fossils.
...MoreBook C. J. Duffin; R. T. J. Moody; C. Gardner-Thorpe (2013) A History of Geology and Medicine.
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