4 GROVE KARL GILBERT— DAVIS [UEii01R \vo™xxt 



launching of the Great Eastern steamship in England was the topic of the hour; and the Wave, 

 rechristened the Great Western with that spirit of exaggeration which laughs at itself, was entered 

 in the lists in competition with canoes and other boats of professional build; but the owners of 

 these conventional models, having seen Karl practicing, withdrew their entries and he rowed 

 over the course alone. The competitors of the home-made Great Western are even remembered 

 to have made the unexpurgated remark: " The damned little thing can go." Expertness on the 

 water thus early gained served Gilbert well during western exploration in later years, and he 

 always enjoyed canoeing for exercise. It is said that when Wheeler's exploring party, of which 

 Gilbert was geologist, ascended the Colorado River in 1871, as will be told on a later page, the 

 Indian guides recognized GUbert's skill as a boatman and thought his boat the safest of the 

 fleet. 



But as in the case of his adventure on the ice of Irondequoit Bay, it was not only physical 

 expertness that came from his early excursions ; while he was boating on the Genesee his observ- 

 ant mind was stimulated to a reflective activity and even to simple experimental research, 

 which he recalled in a letter to a geological correspondent 40 years later: 



When I was a boy I noticed that by rocking a skiff I gave it a forward motion. That led to the trial of 

 other impulses, and I found that by standing near the stern and alternately bending and straightening my legs, 

 so as to make the skiff rock endwise, I could produce a forward velocity of several yards a minute. If I stood on 

 one side of the medial line, the skiff moved in a curve. The motions I caused directly were strictly reciprocal, 

 the departures from initial position being equaled by the returns. The indirect result of translation was connected 

 with reactions between the water and the oblique surfaces of the boat. 



It is characteristic of keen minds to take account of small matters that are unnoticed by 

 the mentally sluggish. 



Karl completed the course at the Rochester High School in 185S and was then, at the age 

 of 15, overtall for his years, thin chested and somewhat delicate, in spite of his prowess on the 

 river; but schoolmates as well as teachers knew him as an earnest and successful student, who 

 did well whatever he undertook. A companion in those years recalls him as "a quiet, modest 

 boy, with pleasant manners, kindly disposition, a lively sense of fun, and of very even temper." 

 Long afterward, when one of his sons asked what he did as a boy, he replied: "I studied a good 

 deal when not working"; from which it may be inferred that no small share of family duties fell 

 upon him at home. He recalled half a century later that his father, wishing to test his capacity 

 in mathematics, set him the following problem: "A loaf of bread is in the form of a hemisphere, 

 with a crust of uniform thickness, the volume of the crust being equal to that of the crumb. 

 What are the dimensions of crumb and crust?" As he solved the problem unaided his father 

 opined that he might be of use in the world, notwithstanding his lack of robustness. 



Gilbert's interest in his ancestors was not strongly developed. In his seventieth year he 

 wrote to one of his sons, regarding certain details about his great-grandfather that had been 

 gathered by a relative: "I am not much interested but perhaps you may be sometime, and so 

 I suggest you keep Mrs. M's letters." On the other hand, he always felt and showed a strong 

 affection for the living members of his family. In later years, when his residence was elsewhere, 

 visits to Rochester were frequent; he nearly always halted there on his journeys to the West and 

 back. When returning from the Henry Mountains of Utah in the autumn of 1876 he was in 

 time to attend his parents' golden wedding on November 30. His mother died on February 25, 

 1883, at the age of 77; and his father on March 23, 1885, at the age of 79. The elder brother, 

 Hiram Roy Gilbert, after whom Grove Karl's second son was named, continued to reside in 

 Rochester until his death in 1902; the elder sister, Emma Gilbert Loomis, survives at her home 

 in Jackson, Mich., where, as will shortly be told, Karl himself had, on leaving college, a short 

 experience in school-teaching, where he repeatedly stopped to see her when crossing the country 

 east or west, and where, while halting there for the last time of many on his way to California, he 

 died May 1, 1918, five days before completing his seventy-fifth year. 



