CHAPTER II 

 TWO YEARS ON THE OHIO SURVEY 



FIRST EXPERIENCE IN FIELD GEOLOGY 



While Gilbert was still working under Ward in the spring of 1869, he learned that a second 

 geological survey of Ohio was about to be organized; whereupon, as if intuitively knowing the 

 value of application in person, he went to the capital of that State and asked, as he himself said 

 "with a lot of cheek," the then governor, Rutherford B. Hayes, later President of the United 

 States, for an appointment as assistant geologist. On being told that appointments would be 

 given only to Ohioans, he went undiscouraged to call on J. S. Newberry, the successful one of 

 several candidates for the office of State geologist, from whom the same refusal was met; but it 

 was happily accompanied by advice to join the survey as a volunteer assistant, with promise of 

 $50 a month for expenses, but no salary. Gilbert at once accepted this opportunity and went 

 to work in July of that year; thus at the age of 26 he became a field geologist. The next year 

 a small salary and a larger responsibihty were allowed him. 



Not the least advantage of this position was the association that it gave the young volunteer 

 with other geologists ; for the survey staff included besides Newberry several men who then and 

 later made their mark on geological science. Edward Orton, afterwards professor of geology 

 at the State university, successor of Newberry as director of the State survey, and president 

 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at the time of his death, when 

 Gilbert succeeded him in that office; R. D. Irving, who became professor of geology in the 

 University of Wisconsin and while there wrote a notable contribution to the history of pre- 

 Cambrian time, before bis death in middle life; E. B. Andrews, whose contributions to the Ohio 

 survey reports constitute some of their best chapters ; Henry Newton, who later studied the Black 

 Hills of Dakota for the Powell survey, his posthumous report being edited and in part largely 

 written by Gilbert ; and N. H. Winchell, later professor of geology at the University of Minnesota, 

 director of the survey of that State, and for many years editor of the American Geologist. 



As a part of his office duties, Gilbert made drawings of fossil plants and fish, which won 

 praise from his chief as being of " a style that has not, been surpassed in this country." Portions 

 of two winters were spent in New York City, there also in association with Newberry, who, be- 

 sides directing the survey of Ohio, then and for many years following occupied the chair of geology 

 and paleontology in the School of Mines at Columbia University, and who found his summer 

 assistant helpful in the preparation of winter lectures. The assistant himself presumably 

 utilized part of the indoor season in writing his reports for the Ohio survey; but records of other 

 subjects than geology are found in the diaries of these winters. The young man was attracted 

 by theaters, sermons, and lectures; of the latter he once heard two on the same day, January 9, 

 1870; one by the eminent Congregationalist, Henry Ward Beecher, on the "Request of the 

 disciples for more faith," and the other, perhaps as an antidote for the first, by that ill-balanced 

 iconoclast, George Francis Train, on "Old fogies of the Bible." Moreover, through Newberry, 

 Gilbert met several noted men at New Haven: Silliman, Marsh, Norton, and Blake among 

 others; but Dana is not mentioned. In February and April, 1871, the young geologist presented 

 papers at meetings of the New York Lyceum of Natural History, first on the " Surface geology 

 of the Maumee Valley," a subject that is further described below; second on the remains of a 

 mastodon found in Ohio; these appear to be his first communications to a scientific society. 

 Altogether the months in New York must have been enlivening. The intimate association with 

 Newberry, winter and summer for two years, led Gilbert to feel a warm regard for his chief, which 

 was afterwards manifested by frequent visits to him in the course of eastward or westward 

 journeys. 



SURFACE GEOLOGY OF THE MAUMEE VALLEY 



Gilbert's field work in Ohio appears to have been limited to the northwestern part of the 

 State, where a slightly diversified sheet of glacial deposits permits few exposures of bedrock 

 20154°— 26 8 11 



