He was the co-founder of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, and was awarded the gold medal at the Paris Exposition, in 1898, by the Soeiete d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale de France, as founder and editor of The Mineral Industry.

He studied in early life at Trinity College, Toronto, the Rensselaer Institute at Troy, New York, and the École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris.

[1] His professional practice in France and England, and his subsequent career as civil, mechanical and mining engineer in Pennsylvania, from the year 1866 to 1873, prepared him for his later work as editor, writer and manager of statistical and scientific publications.

While he possessed in an eminent degree the power of broad generalization, few men could analyze a compilation of figures so quickly or give to statistical results so clear and compact a form.

He laid the lines on which The Mineral Industry had been carried forward, and it was primarily due to his good judgment and management that the book from the first possessed a value, which was generally acknowledged as scarcely without parallel in statistical and technical literature.