Anna remained in Montreal for her entire adult life, eventually dying of a lung tumour.
8Lac St-Pierre.
9Or The Band of Hope Review and Sunday Scholar’s Friend, which was a temperance periodical for children begun in 1851.
10William Bell Dawson (1854-1944), Dawson’s younger brother, also became a well-known scientist though overshadowed for many years by George and their father. William graduated from McGill in 1874 with his Bachelor of Arts, obtained a bachelor’s degree in applied science the year after, then went to Paris to the prestigious Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees. Following his studies there William went into private engineering practice then joined the Dominion Bridge Company as an engineer in 1882, staying until 1884 when he accepted a position as assistant engineer for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Finally, in 1884, he began what he considered his main professional undertaking: director of the Dominion Survey of Tides and Currents. Until his retirement in 1924 he recorded and mapped tides and currents in the harbours and on major steamship routes of the Canadian coasts. William married Florence Jane Mary Elliott (1864?-1945) and the couple had three sons and a daughter.
11Margaret Ann Young (Mercer) Dawson (1830-1913) was the youngest of four daughters born to a prominent Edinburgh family. Over the objections of her parents, Margaret married J.W. Dawson on 19 March 1847, and left for life in British North America. Although retiring by nature, Margaret Dawson fulfilled admirably the difficult tasks of a university principal’s wife and mother to five children. Deeply religious, Margaret enthusiastically encouraged Christian values and a Christian faith in all her children.
12James 3:5.
13Proverbs 22:6.
14Possibly William James Anderson (1812-1873) a Scottish born and educated physician and journalist came to Canada in the 1830s and worked first in Nova Scotia then Quebec.
CHILDHOOD ESSAYS
This collection of some eleven essays written by George at the ages of ten and eleven, when originally discovered, was a neat little bundle tied up with pink linen ribbon. Each essay was folded in three, with a cover of original hand drawn designs in black and white appropriate to the subject. The essays proved to be most interesting, and rather remarkable for a child of George’s age. Some of the better essays are included below.
Vegetation.
Vegetation is that part of life which does not [fell] or move the nearest approach to animal life is made in the sensitive and and pitcher plant whenever you touch the sensitive plant it all curls up and the pitcher plant <it> has at its extremity a pitcher like cavity which is filled with water every morning and there is a little lid which shuts every night. Trees are the largest <a> form of vegetable life the highest trees are the palms and the most spreading the banyan the smallest form <of> is <the> mould there are many intermediate between the largest and the smallest. The food of all animals is originally derived from vegetable sources.
Vegetables {also} form a principal part of the food of man.
They also form the principal part in his manufactures.
May 17th 1860
Rivers <and how>
Rivers are those large <masses> bodies of water which flow from the land to the sea. The cause of rivers is the drainage of the water of the land, which water is caused from rain which is evaporated from the sea up into the clouds and which again fals to fertilize the ground.
The names of some of the principal rivers are these the Amazon the largest which was so named from companies of armed women on its banks the Mississippi one of the principal tributaries {of it} is the Missouri, the St. Lawrence with its tributary the Otawa, {the} Dneiper, Drvina, Don, Volga, Danube, Indes, Ganges, Lena, Obi, Nile {and the} Niger the beginning of the Nile has not been yet explored.15 Fish and many other water animals inhabit rivers though not of the same kind that live in salt water: in many tropical rivers Crocadiles and Aligaters shelfish also inhabit rivers but not of <so> {such} beautiful colours as those which live in the sea though some especially in tropical rivers are very pretty. Salt water fish such as the Salmon and Herring come up rivers to spawn. There are many waterfals and rapids and some rivers are so obstructed with them that they are not navigable but most rivers of sufficient depth are navigable The kind of steamboats which sail on large rivers are not suited for the boistrus navigation of the sea: many rivers are obstructed with shifting sandbanks which make their navigation very difficult.
27 Feb 1861
The Indian antiquities (of Montreal)
There have been lately discovered by accident in montreal remains of a extinct species of indians the {indians} were first discovered by Cartier 3 hundred years ago and the present antiquities are suppposed to be of about that date. Some of the principle things found I will now mention There were five or six skeletons found the bowl of a pipe two stones for gringing their corn with some very pretty pieces of pottery of very preety patern several boan implements, such as knives, piercers, and things to mark their potery the remains of a broken stone ax a bone needle, worn smothe by use.
The principle animals we find remains of are the Deer, Dog, Beaver, Martin, several kinds of fish, Bear, & Muskwash.16
April 10th. 1861
Europe
Europe is divided into 16 kingdoms, namely Great Britain, Portugal, Spain, France, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Prussia, Germany, Norway and Sweden, Russia, Austria, Turkey, Grease {Greece}, Italy, Switserland. Great Britain is the chief naval power in the world and is a great manufacturing country Portugal is a great wine making country Spain <a> the same France makes a good deal of wine also and is the next naval power to England and has a larger army Holland is a very flat country and is diked to keep out the sea and is next to Great Britain in commerce Belgium is famed for lace which is manufactured at Brussels Denmark is a very much cut up country Prussias soldiars are very good Germany is famed for <its good> {excellent system of} education Norway and Sweden for its timber Russia is the largest country in Europe Austria has a great many mineral products Turkey is the only Mohamedan {Mahomedan} country in Europe and the only one governed by a sultain Greece is famed for its early civilization Italy is the great seat of the Roman Catholic religion and, Switzerland for the Alps and its generally mountainous character.
Europe is the great and most ancient seat of civilasation and also is the the seat of the most powerful nations in the world.
May 8 1860
The Lion
The lion is called the king of beasts from its superior strength and cunning.
The {African} lion is by some naturalists divided into two species the brown and the black the black lion is by far the fiercest another very dangerous kind is those who have tasted human blood, as they take a liking for it which induces <it> {them not} to seek for any other kind of food.
The lion <is of> {has} a very fierce look with <its> {his} dark <main a> {mane} its {his} glaring eyes and his majestic step.
Lions gain their
