256 GROVE KARL GILBERT— DAVIS [MEMO,RS [vouxxt 



but they represent also the skill in observation and the delicacy of discussion in which Gilbert 

 was preeminent. The last article cited may be taken as an excellent example of the orderly 

 sequence in which facts and inferences march by when marshaled by their master; and it has a 

 further value in including an element, the absence of which from nearly all of Gilbert's writings 

 is to be lamented, namely, a personal reminiscence. It touches the skating adventure in his 

 boyhood, to which reference has already been made in the first chapter of this memoir. 



The cracking of lake ice from cold is a familiar occurrence wherever winters are severe. As a hoy, in western 

 New York, I skated on a landlocked bay several miles long, and each winter its ice sheet was divided by cracks that 

 ran from side to side. On a still cold night I have heard them form, the ice bursting with a booming sound that 

 slowly died away. I thought then that a crack which started near me required a minute or more to span the 

 bay, but suspect now that its propagation was much swifter than that of the sound waves on which my im- 

 pression depended. Sometimes the cracks opened so widely that the skaters found pleasant excitement in crossing 

 them by flying leaps; and a crack into which I once fell must have been three or four feet broad. Being then 

 quite innocent of theories, I did not compare its width with the temperature, but the air that day must have been 

 bitterly cold, for my clothes were frozen before I could reach the nearest house. 



How unfortunate it is that every worth-while Johnson does not more often serve as his own 

 Boswell. 



Gilbert published no comprehensive statement of his views on the origin of the larger forms 

 of the Sierra Nevada, or on the action of glacial erosion in modifying them, but as to the latter 

 subject, he wrote in a personal letter: "To one who is on the ground the evidence of great 

 glacial erosion in the Sierra is quite as clear as the evidence of old river scour in the Onondaga- 

 Syracuse region" of New York; this old-river evidence being that which he had discovered in 

 the channels cut across the plateau-margin spurs by ice streams, as already told in an earlier 

 section. As to the former subject, the brief view of physiographic development in the next-to- 

 last paper above cited shows clearly how rich a fuller statement would have been. The area 

 there treated lay in the higher part of the range between Kern and Tuolumne Rivers, a distance 

 of over 100 mdes, where the leading features are — 



(1) summit plateaus, characterizing interstream areas and recording a long period, or periods, of degradation 

 Boon after the commencement of the Sierra uplift. Many of the peaks overlooking the summit plateaus, 

 especially in the neighborhood of the crest line, have (2) remnant surfaces of moderate slope strongly contrasted 

 with the surrounding cliffs, produced for the most part by glacial erosion. And many of the valleys are bordered 

 by (3) high terraces, in some cases expanded so as to constitute important plateaus. It is believed that the 

 remnants of old topography at high altitudes were in the main once continuous with the summit plateaus, but 

 the correlation is difficult, because the connecting slopes have been destroyed by the excessive development of 

 glacial cirques. 



It is "anticipated that the plateaus and terraces of the higher parts of the range will 

 eventually be correlated with similar features near the western base of the range; but the latter 

 have not been studied." 



A HOUSE PAKTT IN THE SIERRA, 1907 



The Sierra excursions of 1903 and 1904 proved so enjoyable that three years later Gilbert 

 resolved upon what he called his "one great extravagance," nothing less than a pleasure party 

 in the mountains with a few chosen friends, who in the spring of 1907 received the following 

 delightful message from him: 



You are cordially invited to join my house party in August; my cellar is the Yosemite valley, my drawing 

 room the Tuolumne meadows, my attic Mono pass, and my stairway the Tioga road. 



It is not to be wondered at that no refusals came from the fortunate guests; they were 

 Gilbert's sister, Mrs. Loomis, of Jackson, Mich., then in her seventieth year; Prof, and Mrs. 

 J. H. Comstock, nature lovers of Cornell University, whom Gilbert had so often visited during 

 his summer field trips in New York; and Miss Alice Eastwood, botanist of the California Academy 

 of Sciences, with whom acquaintance had begun "before the earthquake" of the preceding 

 year — an intimate group, within which the tall leader bore the name of " Charlemagne." The 

 party gathered at " Crocker's," a hotel in the highlands, where their host was waiting with a 

 carefully selected outfit, including 2 packers, a cook, 16 horses, and plentiful supplies. Every- 

 thing was carefully arranged with due regard to the comfort of the visitors, none of whom were 



