During the 1850s, Logan and officers of the Survey put together the first major collection of Canadian mineral samples the world had ever seen as Canada's very popular contribution to the "Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations", the famous 1851 world fair in London, England. A second similar opportunity to make the world aware of Canada's great mineral wealth came in 1855 with the Universal Exposition in Paris. The GSC collections were very well-received and, in 1856, Logan was authorized to "establish a Geological Museum at some convenient place which shall be open at all seasonable hours to the public" -- which he did at the Survey's headquarters in Montreal.

Canada's national museums trace their roots to the Geological Survey. The museum started in the mid-1840s by the Survey's pioneering geologists has since evolved into three distinct and highly acclaimed institutions -- the Canadian museums of Nature, Civilization, and Science and Technology. Shown here the museum at Survey headquarters in Ottawa at the turn of the century.