198 GROVE KARL GILBERT— DAVIS [ME5Ioms [ vo L T . I xxi L , 



This encyclopedia work appears to have been done "between times," as his diaries do not 

 show that he took time off from the survey for it; but in 1S97 he had leave of absence without 

 pay for November and December when he was engaged on the preparation, jointly with A. P. 

 Brigham, of a school textbook on physical geography, the junior author preparing the first copy 

 and the senior revising it. The first two months of 1S98 and 1899 were similarly withdrawn 

 from survey work to prepare definitions of geological and geographical words for a supplement 

 to Webster's Dictionary. In 1906 he wrote the article on Niagara for the Encyclopedia 

 Brittanica. 



Reference has already been made to the lucidity of Gilbert's style. It may be here recalled 

 that in his early years in Washington he found difficulty in writing his reports, a difficulty that 

 was largely overcome a few years later; but it may be added that even to the end of his life 

 he did not succeed in writing final "copy" in a first attempt; he habitually revised his manu- 

 scripts, making many corrections and additions, and their printed form was sometimes a second 

 or third revision of their first. His style was not only lucid, it was genial and gracious also, 

 especially in articles written to express his dissent from the views or conclusions of some one 

 else. The rarity of exceptions to this rule make it the truer. One early exception in 1883 

 has been noted; another occurred about 15 years later, when he wrote in a short review: 



The paper is emphatic, not to say eloquent, in its characterization of the fatuity of opinions it contradicts, 

 but the dangers which lurk in rhetoric are minimized by the suppression of names. 



Those who knew Gilbert personally will feel sure that he laughed rather than scowled in 

 phrasing that statement. 



Unlike Powell, he had no noticeable mannerisms, and a careful reading of nearly all his 

 reports and essays discovers very few words to which a purist might object. He made consistent 

 use of "whose" as a possessive for nonpersonal nouns, a use that is provoked by the lack of a 

 word for "which's"; he occasionally employed "transpire" not in its original sense of "come 

 to be known" but in the sense of "take place," a sense that is widely warranted by American 

 usage; and it may be believed that he liked American usage well enough to adopt it inten- 

 tionally, for he was quick to recognize it; he once called attention to " sheepherders " as "occi- 

 dental for shepherds." He was as a rule critically careful in his choice and use of words, his 

 lively interest in their correct use being indicated by a brief article on "Interesting and 

 important facts," 2 in which he elaborated Powell's dictum that "a property is an essential 

 characteristic considered in itself; a quality is a characteristic considered in relation to man." 

 In his early Wheeler report he at least once used the phrase " the feet of a dozen ranges," although 

 good argument may be advanced in favor of using mountain "foot" unchanged in the plural. 



In that early report (1875) he did not use the shorter "-ic" instead of the longer "-ical" 

 termination for certain adjectives, but wrote "geological" exploration, atlas, history, and 

 information; "geographical" definition; " topographical " relief. His essay on the Colorado 

 plateaus described them as a field for "geological" study (1876), and told of "geological" 

 exploration, students, progress, map, and section. In the Henry Mountains report he wrote 

 "geographic," but "geological." Whether it was Powell or McGee who led the national 

 survey to adopt "geologic" instead of "geological" — except for the name of the survey itself, 

 which is spelled according to congressional enactment — Gilbert followed suit, and thus con- 

 tributed to obliterating in our scientific literature the shades of meaning suggested by such a 

 phrase as " The geologic record is mapped in geological folios," although such shades of meaning 

 are still advantageously expressed in separating historic events from historical publications, 

 microscopic objects from microscopical societies, and economic geologists from economical geol- 

 ogists. While his essay on Bonneville in the second annual report of the national survey 

 includes the phrase "geological" party, it includes also "geologic material," science, evidence, 

 time, and period. 



A few years later he wrote on the " Capitalization of names of formations," 3 apparently 

 favoring the third of three diverse usages; the first capitalized Potsdam and Carboniferous 



1 Science, oi, 1905, 68. 

 > Science, iii, 1884, 59-60. 



