CHAPTER XXII 

 FIELD WORK IN COLORADO: 1893-1895 



A TEMPORARY RESUMPTION OF WORK IN THE WEST 



After the relinquishment of his office as chief geologist, in which he had to direct the field 

 work of others, Gilbert was freed for field work of his own and spent the seasons of 1893, 1894, 

 and 1895 in Colorado. It may be presumed that he was glad to be again " astride the occidental 

 mule" anywhere in the open country, and his correspondence expresses a certain measure of 

 satisfaction with the work he undertook; but on the whole it seems to have been performed in 

 a perfunctory manner, more so indeed than any other field study that he ever conducted, with the 

 possible exception of the irrigation studies that he made for the Powell survey in 1878. From 

 the present point of view it is greatly to be regretted that he was assigned to the Great Plains 

 instead of to the Great Basin, where the complicated structure of one of the basin ranges would 

 have been a more fitting subject for his investigational skill than the areal geology of a quad- 

 rangle of nearly horizontal structure. The field of his work appears to have been determined 

 by the fact that certain topographic maps were waiting to be geologically colored, if one may 

 judge by a phrase in one of his letters to a friend, written in March, 1893: 



We are not investigated after all. It is rumored that the instigators of the investigation found they were 

 unpopular with their constituents, but I have no notion whether truly or falsely. We do not yet — at least I do 

 not yet — know just how the appropriations were finally arranged but we probably have 30 or 40,000 dollars 

 more than for the current year — and that means for me that I shall get some field work. It is not likely to be in 

 N. Y. but more likely in Kansas, where we have maps waiting for geological colors. 



In spite of his apparent relinquishment of administrative duties and actual assignment to 

 western field work, it was difficult for Gilbert to leave Washington early in the field season. 

 Many office problems were still referred to him for solution. When he finally set out, his field 

 proved to be a district of the Colorado plains around and south of Pueblo, instead of farther east 

 in Kansas, as he had expected. The assignment caused him some apprehension, briefly expressed 

 the following autumn : 



There is no probability that I shall ever complete the Pleistocene studies I began in the Erie and Ontario 

 basins. 



That must have been a disappointing thought; for having, as it were, acclimated Himself 

 by several years' work to Great Lake studies in the East in replacement of his earlier Great 

 Basin studies in the West, it was hard to be turned away from the eastern field before he had 

 finished his problems there; but as he was a true philosopher, he may have reconciled himself 

 to his fate by reflecting that a Government geologist can not always pick and choose his problems 

 for his own satisfaction, but must sometimes take up such subjects as are held to be most in 

 need of solution for the advancement of the national welfare. Fortunately his apprehension 

 that the Great Lake studies would have to be abandoned was not justified; he did much work 

 upon them in subsequent years. 



In the meantime quadrangles of the Colorado plains were Gilbert's field of study for three 

 summers. During the long journeys over familiar routes thus occasioned he habitually busied 

 himself with reading or writing. On taking his place in a Pullman car, he would call for a table 

 and settle down promptly to work of some sort. This economy of his time was equaled by his 

 economy of Government funds; for it is related that on a field season when one of his sons 

 accompanied him in camp and tried to help provision the party by shooting rabbits with a pistol, 

 the father charged the survey only with the cost of cartridges used for the few successful shots, 

 and paid for the many more unsuccessful ones himself. 



An unsatisfactory result of the first season in Colorado was the discovery that the area 

 assigned for study was so poorly represented on the topographic maps which were to be geologi- 

 cally colored that it was found necessary to have at least one of them resurveyed : and this is the 



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