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{{Short description|Canadian geologist (1859–1942)}}
{{other people||Francis Adams (disambiguation)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2015}}

{{Infobox person
|name        = Frank Dawson Adams
|honorific_suffix  = {{post-nominals|country=CAN|size=100%|FRS|FRSC}}
|image       = Frank Dawson Adams.png
|caption     = Adams, c. 1930
|birth_date  = {{Birth date|1859|09|17}}
|birth_place = [[Montreal]], [[Canada East]]
|death_date  = {{Death date and age|1942|12|26|1859|09|17}}
|death_place = Montreal, Quebec, Canada
|other_names = 
|known_for   = 
|awards      = [[Lyell Medal]] {{small|(1906)}}<br />[[Flavelle Medal]]  {{small|(1937)}}<br />[[Wollaston Medal]] {{small|(1939)}}
|occupation  = 
|nationality = [[Canadians|Canadian]]
}}
'''Frank Dawson Adams''' {{Post-nominals|country=CAN|FRS|FRSC}} (September 17, 1859 – December 26, 1942) was a Canadian [[geologist]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|author=Peter R. Eakins|url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/frank-dawson-adams|title=Frank Dawson Adams|encyclopedia=[[The Canadian Encyclopedia]]|access-date=August 25, 2019}}</ref>

==Early life and education==

Frank Dawson Adams was born into a prosperous, middle-class family in [[Montreal]], [[Canada East]].

Adams attended the [[High School of Montreal]]  (a private school founded in 1843 and closely associated with [[McGill University]] after 1852).<ref>Cartwright, G.F., 2006. The High School of Montreal. {{cite web |url=http://www.education.mcgill.ca/profs/cartwright/hsm/hsm.htm |title=The High School of Montreal |access-date=2011-04-19 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110807041513/http://www.education.mcgill.ca/profs/cartwright/hsm/hsm.htm |archive-date=August 7, 2011 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> As a pupil there, Adams received a classical education, and his knowledge of Latin was valuable later in life in his historical studies.

At the age of sixteen he entered the Applied Science Program at McGill University, where he studied [[geology]] with [[John William Dawson]] (Principal of McGill since 1852) and Bernard Harrington (who had set up the Applied Science program). In unpublished notes <ref>McGill archives</ref> he described Harrington as "the professor who influenced me chiefly."<ref name="frs">{{cite journal | title = Frank Dawson Adams, 1859-1942 | author-link = John Flett (geologist) | journal = Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society | date = November 1943 | first = J.S. | last = Flett | volume = 4 | issue = 12 | pages = 381–393 | doi = 10.1098/rsbm.1943.0010| bibcode = 1943JG.....51..212C | s2cid = 154649431 }}</ref>

He graduated with first class honors in Applied Science in 1878, then spent a year at the [[Sheffield Scientific School|Yale Scientific School]], where he studied German, French, and [[mineralogy]]. It was there that he met George Wessel Hawes (1848-1882) a pioneer American [[Petrology|petrologist]], who had worked with [[Harry Rosenbusch]] in Germany. He also met a fellow-student, [[Andrew Cowper Lawson]], and in 1888 they published a joint paper on their investigation of the mineral [[scapolite]]. Returning to Montreal, he was appointed Assistant Chemist at the [[Geological Survey of Canada]] (GSC), and the following year (when the GSC moved to Ottawa), Assistant Chemist and Petrographer.<ref>Zaslow, M., 1975. Reading the Rocks: The Story of the Geological Survey of Canada 1842-1872. Toronto, Macmillan.</ref> He received a leave of absence to spend at least part of two years in [[Heidelberg]], studying with [[Harry Rosenbusch]], who by that time was the acknowledged master of [[optical mineralogy|microscopic petrography]] of [[igneous rock]]s.<ref>Young, D.A., 2003. Mind Over Magma: The Story of Igneous Petrology.  Princeton University Press, p.154-165</ref> Rosenbusch attracted students from many different countries. While Adams was in Heidelberg he met G.H. Williams and J.S. Diller, both of whom later became leading American petrologists, as well as [[Victor Goldschmidt]] and (Carl) Alfred Osann (1859–1923), who became famous [[Geochemistry|geochemists]] in Europe.<ref>Mahler, J.P. and H.W. Pfefferkorn, 1988. The influence of the University of Heidelberg on the development of geology in North America between 1860 and 1913.  Earth Sciences History, 7:33-43.</ref>

In 1883, Adams published the first work in Canada that made full use of the [[petrographic microscope]], as well as a paper indicating that he had already begun the field work north of Montreal, that later became the basis of his doctorate at Heidelberg. He received a master's degree from McGill in 1884, and his Ph.D. from [[Heidelberg University]] in 1892.  His doctoral studies on the Morin [[anorthosite]] showed that these rocks were not [[metamorphic rock|metamorphosed]] [[sedimentary rock|sediments]], as thought previously, but were igneous rocks that had been [[intrusion|intruded]] into Grenville sediments and later metamorphosed in the [[Grenville orogeny]].

==Career==

In 1889 Adams was appointed Lecturer in Geology at McGill University. He was appointed Logan Professor of Geology after the retirement of John William Dawson in 1892 and held this position until his own retirement in 1924. Though he was working full-time at McGill, he continued to spend summers in the field, financed by the GSC. In 1891 he began working on the Grenville of eastern Ontario, and by the following year had started to work on the [[Haliburton County|Haliburton, Ontario]] area.  His work there, carried out after 1896 with Alfred Barlow of the GSC, was published as a GSC Memoir in 1908, and became a classic of Canadian geology. The rocks, which included unusual [[alkalinity|alkaline]] rocks, were not merely mapped, but studied in detail using petrographic and chemical methods, and firm conclusions were drawn about their [[petrogenesis]], all of which was unusual for a GSC Memoir at that time.

At the same time, Adams was also studying the peculiar petrological characteristics of a group of alkaline intrusions of much later geological age (now known to be [[Early Cretaceous]]), called by him the "[[Monteregian Hills]]." This work would be continued by his students, notably [[Joseph Austin Bancroft]] (1882-1957),<ref>{{cite news|title=Dr Joseph Bancroft|date=December 12, 1957|newspaper=The Glasgow Herald|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19571212&id=5n1AAAAAIBAJ&pg=5151,5008847}}</ref> who succeeded Adams as Logan Professor at McGill.<ref name="McGill_history">{{cite web|title=History|url=https://www.mcgill.ca/eps/department/history|work=Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences|publisher=McGill University|access-date=January 24, 2013}}</ref> Inspired by his observations on the flow of metamorphosed [[limestone]]s in the Grenville, Adams began a series of pioneer experimental studies of the physical properties of rocks at high pressures and temperatures, carried out in collaboration with [[John Thomas Nicholson]], Professor of Engineering at McGill.<ref>Easkins, P.R., 1972.  Frank Dawson Adams -- Founder of modern structural geology.  Proceedings of the Geological Association of Canada, 24: 13-16.</ref> This was well before comparable work was carried out in Germany or the United States.  Though the experimental apparatus was primitive compared with that later developed at [[Harvard University]] and the Geophysical Laboratory in Washington, D.C., Adams' work was highly regarded by the newly founded [[Carnegie Institution for Science]], which supported him financially, and attempted to persuade him to move to the Institution.<ref name="frs" /><ref>Geschwind, C.-H., 1995.  Becoming interested in experiments: American igneous petrologists and the Geophysical Laboratory, 1905-1965. Earth Sciences History, 14:47-61</ref><ref>Yochelson, E.L. and H.S. Yoder, Jr., 1994.  Founding of the Geophysical Laboratory, 1901-1905: A scientific bonanza from perception of persistence.  Geological Society of America Bulletin, 106:338-350</ref>

Adams remained at McGill, where he served as the Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science and then as Vice-Principal to the University. He served as President of the International Geological Congress held in Toronto in 1913,<ref>Middleton, G.V., 2007. The 12th International Geological Congress, Toronto, 1913.  Episodes, 30:1-12.</ref> and was President of the [[Geological Society of America]] in 1917.<ref>Fairchild, Herman LeRoy, 1932, The Geological Society of America 1888-1930, a Chapter in Earth Science History: New York, The Geological Society of America, 232 p.</ref><ref>Eckel, Edwin, 1982, GSA Memoir 155, The Geological Society of America — Life History of a Learned Society: Boulder, Colorado, Geological Society of America Memoir 155, 168 p., {{ISBN|0-8137-1155-X}}.</ref> He received many honors during his career, first becoming a Fellow of the [[Royal Society of Canada]] in 1896, a Fellow of the [[Royal Society]] (of Great Britain) in 1907,<ref name="frs"/> an International member of the [[American Philosophical Society]] in 1916,<ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Frank+D.+Adams&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2023-10-24 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref> a Foreign Honorary Member of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1917,<ref name=AAAS>{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter A|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterA.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|access-date=April 1, 2011}}</ref> an International Member of the United States [[National Academy of Sciences]] in 1920,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Frank D. Adams |url=https://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/deceased-members/20001271.html |access-date=2023-10-24 |website=www.nasonline.org}}</ref> and awarded the [[Flavelle Medal]], which is given for outstanding contributions to biological science, in 1937. The Frank Dawson Adams Building at [[McGill University]] is named in his honor. A plaque in his honor was erected on the [[Redpath Museum]] on the McGill campus in 1950.

He retired from McGill in 1924, and began to travel widely, collecting books on the history of geology, as well as rocks and minerals for McGill.  He published several papers on the geology of [[Sri Lanka|Ceylon]] and also on the history of geology, culminating in his book ''Birth and Development of the Geological Sciences'' (1938). It became a classic and was reprinted by [[Dover Publications]] in 1954. He left his rare book collection (1581 monographs) to McGill university.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite encyclopedia
  | last = Clark
  | first = Thomas
  | title = Adams, Frank Dawson
  | encyclopedia = [[Dictionary of Scientific Biography]]
  | volume = 1
  | pages = 50–53 
  | publisher = Charles Scribner's Sons
  | location = New York
  | year = 1970
  | isbn = 0-684-10114-9
 }}

==External links==
{{wikisource|works=or}}
* [https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/frank-dawson-adams Frank Dawson Adams] at The Canadian Encyclopedia
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070220201245/http://www.library.dal.ca/archives/MS2/MS-2-1.htm The Archives of Frank Dawson Adams]

{{s-start}}
{{s-npo|pro}}
{{s-bef|before=[[William Dawson LeSueur]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[President of the Royal Society of Canada]]|years=1913–1914}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Adolphe-Basile Routhier]]}}
{{s-end}}
{{Presidents of the Geological Society of America}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Frank Dawson}}
[[Category:1859 births]]
[[Category:1942 deaths]]
[[Category:Canadian geologists]]
[[Category:Geological Survey of Canada personnel]]
[[Category:Canadian university and college faculty deans]]
[[Category:Canadian fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada]]
[[Category:Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:High School of Montreal alumni]]
[[Category:McGill University Faculty of Science alumni]]
[[Category:Academic staff of McGill University]]
[[Category:Anglophone Quebec people]]
[[Category:Wollaston Medal winners]]
[[Category:Lyell Medal winners]]
[[Category:Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)]]
[[Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences]]
[[Category:Scientists from Montreal]]
[[Category:Presidents of the Geological Society of America]]
[[Category:International members of the American Philosophical Society]]