136 GROVE KARL GILBERT— DAVIS [Memoies [ vol!xxi': 



The reasons adduced in support of the important principle involved in this quotation 

 merit careful examination in the original review, which then proceeds to correct another error. 

 Whitney had explained the auriferous gravels on the western flanks of the Sierra Nevada in 

 California, where he had been for several years State geologist, as the deposits of larger rivers 

 during a former time of higher temperature and greater rainfall, and had also explained the 

 narrow canyons by which the gravel-covered uplands are now trenched as the work of the 

 diminished successors of the former larger rivers. Gilbert reversed this explanation, arguing 

 that, had the Sierran highlands remained unchanged in attitude, as Whitney assumed, the 

 change from deposition to erosion would indicate an increase, not a decrease, of river volume; 

 but he goes on to show that the attitude of the Sierran highlands has not been unchanged, and 

 explains that their present altitude has been lately acquired by slanting uplift after they had 

 been reduced to low relief in a former period of erosion; this part of the review has already 

 been referred to in connection with Gilbert's views on the basin ranges. 



The review closes with the nearest approach to severity of treatment that is to be found 

 in any of Gilbert's writings. 



If a rise of temperature is not favorable to glaciation, if a fall of temperature does not make deserts drier 

 and if river terraces are not indicative of waning precipitation, it might seem that our author's theory is badly 

 off; but the case is not hopeless. The paleontologic evidence, and the doctrine of the dissipation of solar energy 

 remain; and if he will now devote himself to the investigation cf the glaciers that are known to have recently 

 increased, to the dry countries in which civilization and wealth have supplanted barbarism and poverty, and 

 to the rivers that are engaged in filling up the valleys they once excavated, he may yet find in recent history the 

 evidence that he seeks of secular change. 



The competent handling of meteorological problems in the discussion abstracted above 

 shows not only a wide range of reading on Gilbert's part, but, what is much more important, 

 a deep penetration of thought. This quality is shown again in an attempt to calculate the 

 percentage of correctness of tornado predictions that were made a year later; but the article 3 

 when published contained so many typographical errors that Gilbert lost all interest in it. On 

 the other hand, the severity, not to say asperity, of treatment found in the last quotation from 

 the review of Whitney's volume is altogether exceptional in Gilbert's writings. His usual 

 form may be fairly characterized in the terms in which he described a volume of essays that he 

 admired : 



The style is peculiarly genial and entertaining — a merit unfortunately rare in the writings of modern geolo- 

 gists. ... In the whole collection there is nothing polemic, nor anything that could even be called contro- 

 versial. Attention is never directed to an error, except as the merest incident to pointing out that which is 

 true. No words are given to the censure of others, but many to their praise.* 



THE AMERICAN NATURALISTS AND THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 



The American Society of Naturalists made him its president for two successive years; 

 his first address before them, given in Boston in December, 1885, was a notable deliverance 

 and brought him so admiring an acquaintance of many biologists who had previously known 

 him little more than by name, that they immediately elected him president for a second term. 

 The address, the subject of which was "The inculcation of scientific method by example," 

 is reviewed in a special section below. His address the following year on "special processes 

 of research" has already been alluded to. 



In the early months of 1884, Gilbert took up the study of German, but did not carry it 

 far. He attempted French after returning from a trip abroad in 1888 but did not continue it 

 long. In the summer of 1884 he attended the Montreal meeting of the British Association 

 for the Advancement of Science, the first colonial meeting of that important body, and presented 

 a plan for a subject bibliography of North American geology. His presence 10 years earlier 

 at the Hartford meeting of the American Association of similar name, which he commonly 

 abbreviated to "A 3 S" in his notes, has already been told. No record is found of his presence 



» Amer. Meteorol. Journal, 1884, 166-172. 



< Review o( Qeikie's "Geological sketches at home and abroad." Nature, ivii, 1885, 237. 



