CHAPTER XIX 



THREE YEARS AS CHIEF GEOLOGIST OF THE NATIONAL SURVEY: 



1889-1892 



CHANGE FEOM SCIENTIFIC TO ADMINISTRATIVE DUTIES 



It is certainly desirable that the work of a national scientific organization shall be well 

 administered ; and a member of such an organization may therefore sometimes feel the necessity 

 of subordinating his preference for scientific work to the loyal execution of administrative 

 tasks that are placed upon him. When as a result of such necessity a man who combines an 

 exceptional capacity in original investigation with a large measure of wisdom in the conduct 

 of practical matters is compelled to stop his investigations in order to apply his wisdom to the 

 determination of important lines of policy and to the solution of serious problems of manage- 

 ment, his judicious-minded friends may find, in the safe conduct that he helps to givo to a great 

 institution, some compensation for the cessation of his researches; but when much of his time 

 has to be given to a multitude of petty details, the judicious minded are disposed to grieve 

 rather than to rejoice. So it was when Gilbert, a born investigator and a wise counsellor, 

 was diverted from his problems of preference and given, in 1889, the honorable but burdensome 

 appointment of chief geologist ; his friends had grounds for regret as well as for rejoicing. How- 

 ever, he accepted the appointment loyally and worked under it conscientiously for three years, 

 yet not with fuU satisfaction; and many who had enjoyed and profited from his geological 

 studies were disappointed at his distraction from them. 



Those who recall the first 10 years of Powell's administration of the national survey know 

 that period as one of extraordinary expansion. The survey was organized for the study of 

 the "public domain"; it soon grew to cover the whole of the United States. It was at first, 

 as a geological survey, charged only with the preparation of a geological map of the country; 

 but as no topographical maps were to be had on which the geology could be represented, a 

 topographic branch was organized in 1881 ; in 1883 that branch had 49 skilled members, besides 

 many untrained employees, and in 1889 it had 84 skilled members. Again, the separate de- 

 partmental surveys of earlier years had entrusted the printing of such maps as they issued to 

 outside engravers and lithographers; Powell soon had to face the necessity of organizing a bureau 

 of engraving within his survey building. Little wonder that when it was proposed in 1889 to 

 add irrigation to geology, the director found that he could not attend personally to all his many 

 responsibilities, and decided that some of the able men on his staff must take a large share of 

 them. 



His first proposal in this emergency was that irrigation should be made a division of the 

 survey in charge of Gilbert, who had already been assisting the Director in many administra- 

 tive tasks and who on February 3, 1889, wrote to a friend about the offer as follows: 



The proposition is very attractive . . . because the investigation is a great one, because the problems 

 have a direct human interest, because it offers out of door work, because it gives me a profession by which I 

 can earn a living after the U. S. discharges me, because the western fever is more or less chronic with all who 

 have stridden the occidental mule. Per contra, I am doing and fostering many scientific works with which I 

 am loath to part, and I don't know but my boys need me more at home than western work would permit. 



Two weeks later, after a decision against his taking charge of irrigation had been prac- 

 tically reached, he wrote again: 



The discussion of the matter has developed two things that are gratifying to me, and as they are highly 

 personal you must take them as confidential. One is that the administrative work I have been doing has been 

 so acceptable to those concerned that many of them have interviewed Powell to urge my retention here. The 

 other is that Powell cannot readily fill to his own satisfaction the places that would be vacated by my transfer 

 to irrigation. The outcome is likely to be that I shall be given general charge of the geological part of the 

 Survey — coordinate with the paleontological and geographical divisions. 



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