ACADEMY OF SCIENCES] SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES 193 



categories before placing the subject of the memoir in the group to which he belonged, but 

 also in the wholly unconventional Powellian style employed in the definitions. Gilbert first 

 points out that besides pure and applied science there is also practical science, namely, 

 "research which is prosecuted for the sake of, and with constant reference to, definite utilita- 

 rian ends, so that the discovery and the application of natural laws are parts of one process"; 

 then the three kinds of science are further defined by analogy: 



The love of pure science is the blind instinct of civilization. It loves to lay eggs — the more, the better — 

 but gives no thought nor care to their hatching. Applied science is a working bee who builds cells of utility, 

 and in them rears to maturity the larva? hatched from her sister's eggs. Practical science may rather be com- 

 pared to intelligent parentage, which not only conceives and bears, but nourishes and rears its progeny, fore- 

 seeing the end from the beginning. 



Having thus made his categories clear, he places Cook in the third; for he "devoted his 

 life to practical science. A study of his works shows that every research was for a practical 

 end, and that end was steadily kept in view." 



Curiously enough, at a meeting held in memory of Powell by the Washington Academy of 

 Sciences in 1904, Gilbert followed even more rigidly the same categorical method of treatment 

 in paying tribute to his chief: "Those who labor for science do three things: They observe the 

 facts of nature, taking pains to observe them accurately; they arrange the observed facts in 

 groups, or classify them; and they discover the relations of cause and effect, or explain them;" 

 and a fourth thing is done by others who apply science. "Powell's work in geology included 

 observation, classification, explanation, and application to welfare." This is as if, with the 

 memory of the man, came an imitation of his style of expression. The rest of the tribute has 

 more of feeling, less of logic. 



OTHER SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES 



With the organization of the Geological Society of Washington in 1893 Gilbert was placed 

 on the council for the first year and elected vice president for the second year, when he spoke 

 on "Le Conte's physical theory" and on " Pig-backs of Dry Creek [Colorado]," the latter uncon- 

 ventional title probably serving as a diminutive of hogbacks or monoclinical ridges. He was 

 elected president for 1895 and in that year spoke on "New light on isostacy," and gave his 

 remarkable address on " The origin of hypotheses," a discussion of the origin of Coon Butte, 

 analyzed on another page. He described some "Laccolites in southeastern Colorado" in 1896, 

 a subject already referred to in the chapter on the Henry Mountains; and gave accounts of 

 "Niagara gorge" and " Niagara whirlpool," in 1897; these topics will be here touched upon again 

 in a later chapter on Niagara and the Great Lakes. In 1898 he described "An American boulder 

 pavement," "An anticlinal ridge in an alluvial terrace," and "Ripplemarks and crossbedding." 

 In 1899 he discussed the " Origin of gravels." The range of interest thus indicated is broad, but 

 the topics treated were relatively restricted. It may be presumed that the younger members 

 of the national survey, who constitute a majority in this society, not infrequently found the 

 manner of Gilbert's treatment of greater value than the subject treated. It must surely have 

 been of great profit to them to see that a geologist of the highest rank still found facts of rela- 

 tively small dimensions worthy of his careful consideration; and yet a greater profit to perceive 

 the purely intellectual quality of the consideration that he gave them. He was always so sane, 

 so calm and dispassionate, so free from controversy and personal bias. His observations of facts 

 were accurately reported, his explanatory analyses were carefully thought out, his presentation 

 was delightfully clear, and withal his judgment of conclusions was cautiously restrained. 



When the Washington Academy of Sciences was founded in 1898 Gilbert was elected its 

 first secretary, and at the close of his year's service he put on record a history of the origin of 

 the academy, a matter in which he might well be imitated by the secretaries of all other acade- 

 mies. In the following year, when he served as vice president, he spoke on the "Glaciers of 

 Alaska," shortly after he had returned from the Harriman expedition to that wonderfully glaci- 

 ated coast; and in 1900 he discussed "Photography as an aid to physiography." Except his 

 memoir of Powell, referred to below, he presented no communications thereafter, although he 

 was a frequent attendant at the meetings of the academy until 1905; after that date the indices of 



