academy of science CHIEF GEOLOGIST, NATIONAL SURVEY 179 



If C. should take me and give me a chance to develop a strong department I suppose I might attract some 

 one who would otherwise get to you, but I imagine the chief result would be an increase of the output of geologists. 

 Of late years there has been a fair demand for them and it ought to increase, but there is unquestionably danger 

 of overstocking — especially if Chamberlin goes to Chicago and opens the big training school he talks about. 

 Perhaps if I go to C. I would better limit my ambition to liberalize the education of future preachers, doctors, 

 and engineers. 



Thus Gilbert, almost 50 years old, remained on the survey as plain "geologist." His 

 later relations were seldom more than those of an individual member, for he was not even 

 placed in charge of a large division. Nearly all his studies of the following years were directed 

 to the solution of special problems on which he worked by himself without assistants, as if 

 in a state of semiretirement. In the earlier period of the survey's organization, his opinion 

 and his voice as well as his personal example had been of great influence. His example continued 

 to be an inspiration to many younger men, but the organization of the survey being well 

 advanced, his opinion was less frequently consulted and his voice less often heard than before. 

 Had it not been for the formation of the Geological Society of America shortly before the year 

 of the survey's disaster, Gilbert's withdrawal from larger to smaller relations might have almost 

 concealed him from a great number of young geologists who, then first coming forth, now stand 

 in the front rank. Happily the meetings of that society made him even more widely known 

 than before, inasmuch as while continuing his personal acquaintance with members of the 

 national survey, he was brought into touch with many members of State surveys and many 

 teachers in colleges who would otherwise have had no occasion of seeing him. Although he 

 never assumed the authority that was his by right of scientific worth, he was one of the com- 

 manding figures at the society's meetings until, nearly 20 years later, loss of health forced him 

 to withdraw from all active scientific associations. Fortunate indeed was it for the survey 

 and for the society, and hence for American science, that they gave high position to a man of 

 his personal character, in which the greatest scientific ability was combined, as it is not always, 

 with sincere unselfishness and unimpeachable integrity. 



Gilbert was in his prime at this turn in his life. His mind was never more alert and keen. 

 His body was in good health, although his strength was naturally less than it had been 10 years 

 before. His carriage was easy and erect; his bearing was so genial that his height of a little 

 over 6 feet did not seem overpowering to men of shorter stature. His presence had the simple 

 dignity well expressed in the portrait at the beginning of this memoir. 3 He wrote in 1892 to a 

 Rochester classmate: "In the ten years of Western mountain work and camp life I built up 

 my constitution so as to be a very vigorous man. Eight years of diminishing outdoor life and 

 increasing desk work have lowered my tone somewhat and a sickness still more, but I am still 

 insurable and fairly active;" and fairly active he continued to be for many years after. His 

 great Bonneville monograph, published but a few years before, had confirmed all that was 

 expected from his unusual geological ability. His relation to the geologists of the country was 

 a most enviable one, for he had inspired their respect and admiration and had won their confi- 

 dence and their affection to an exceptional degree. He was a welcome speaker at every meeting 

 he attended, and what he said always carried weight; every hearer felt that his statement of 

 facts was critically accurate, that his inferences were logical and trustworthy, and that his 

 judgments were well founded and impartial. He held at one time or another offices of responsi- 

 bility in nearly all the scientific societies of which he was a member; his associates seemed to 

 delight in honoring him. Now, freed from the distractions of administrative work, he devoted 

 25 years to a succession of tasks, several of which were truly of great import; yet in reviewing 

 them all one must regret that his rare ability was not concentrated on a few large problems 

 instead of being distributed over many smaller ones. 



That the decade from 1891 to 1900 should have witnessed Gilbert's withdrawal from office 

 work was proper enough, for when a man of eminence reaches the age of 50 years he has earned 

 the right to lay aside tasks that he dislikes in order to devote himself to what he can best accom- 

 plish. But that that same decade should have witnessed also a reduction in the continuity 

 of his scientific investigations is regrettable. The summers of 1893, 1894, and 1895, spent on 

 the plains of Colorado, seem in the light of later events to have involved chiefly a dissipation 

 of energy that might have been conserved to advantage, had he then been assigned to a larger 



1 Another portrait, of about 10 years later date, is given in the Bulletin, Oeol. Soc. America, isii, 1919, pi. 2. 



