GEOLOGICAL METHODS IN EARLIER DAYS 25 



GEOLOGICAL METHODS IN EAELIER DAYS 



By Professor JOHN J. STEVENSON 



NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 



WHILE reading discussions of modern field and office methods, 

 published in Economic Geology, I became impressed with the 

 feeling that some notes, historical and reminiscent, respecting condi- 

 tions and methods of forty and more years ago, should be placed on 

 record for the benefit of the younger geologists. The reminiscences are 

 confined to my own experience, which, however, did not differ from that 

 of contemporary workers. 



Popular interest in natural history was quickened, early in the nine- 

 teenth century, by the formation of societies and the founding of mu- 

 seums. Efforts to secure cooperation by the central government were 

 so far successful that surgeons accompanying exploring expeditions, in 

 charge of army officers, were chosen as much because of willingness to 

 act as collectors as because of medical skill. Very soon, natural history 

 came to be regarded as, at least, lending dignity to an expedition's 

 work, so that an army-explorer looked upon his equipment as defective 

 unless it included a naturalist ; a report without an appendix or a series 

 of appendices, discussing collections secured by the party, seemed to be 

 painfully incomplete. After the first third of the century had passed, 

 geology acquired some degree of popular respect as a practical science 

 and it received recognition from the War Department. The making of 

 geological observations became part of the duty assigned to the natu- 

 ralist-surgeon. In almost every case, however, the work of the natural- 

 ist or geologist was merely incidental and his opportunity to obtain 

 detailed information was limited. 



In the later sixties, after the close of the Civil War, the War 

 Department, through the corps of engineers, began exploration anew. 

 Clarence King's organization was under this Bureau, but he was not 

 subject to military control in the field; his only hindrance was the 

 pressure for results to prove speedy productiveness and to satisfy in- 

 quiring legislators that the field-work had not been merely a prolonged 

 picnic. Somewhat later, an organization of the earlier or reconnaissance 

 type was effected and was placed in charge of Lieutenant George M. 

 Wheeler, who was endowed with extraordinary energy and with such 

 physical endurance as to be a source of pain to all members of his party. 

 In 1872, Wlieeler became convinced that, without geological and other 

 scientific contributions, his work would be incomplete, for Hayden had 

 already loomed large on the horizon. The scope of the organization was 



