ACADEMY OF SCIENCES] GILBERT'S WORK 293 



Truly the years of a man are a blessing when, utilized nobly in faithful and constant 

 labors, they are crowned in his old age with the heartfelt admiration and affection of all his 

 friends. 



SCIENTIFIC HONORS 



When Gilbert was asked in 1904 to prepare a list of the honorary memberships to which 

 Powell had been elected by various scientific societies, he refused to do so "because in the United 

 States the enumeration of such matters is not good form." It is natural therefore that he left 

 no list of his own distinctions of this kind, and it might be argued that, in view of his feeling as to 

 good form, no list of such distinctions should be here presented. But to follow such a course 

 would be to deny a very genuine pleasure to at least some readers of these pages, who will rejoice 

 that their personal admiration of this great American was reflected in the official admiration 

 expressed by various learned societies and universities; and it may be added that to omit mention 

 here of these distinctions would be small courtesy to the societies and universities that conferred 

 them. It is true that, in spite of the habitual indication of membership in the Royal Society of 

 London by the letters F. R. S. commonly seen after the names of learned British scientists, and of 

 the equally prevalent indication of association with one or another of the academies in Paris by 

 the words "Membre de lTnstitut" after the names of eminent Frenchmen, membership in the 

 National Academy of Sciences in this country is not similarly indicated by the letters M. N. A. S., 

 the Academy itself having voted against such display. But, on the other hand, it may be recalled 

 that in the brief account of F. V. Hayden which Gilbert contributed to Johnson's Universal 

 Cyclopedia, it is stated that Hayden "was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and 

 of nearly all the other scientific societies of America, and an honorary member of many scientific 

 societies in foreign countries"; and it must also be noted that in the brief paragraph he contrib- 

 uted to the same work on his own life, he submitted to the editorial addition of the four letters, 

 M. N. A. S., after his name; hence it seems permissible that his honors, as far as they are known, 

 should be listed in this memoir; but it may occasion surprise that, in view of his unquestioned 

 eminence as a physiographic geologist, the list is not longer. 



Various scientific societies of which Gilbert was a member and in the meetings of which he 

 took part have already been named in connection with his scientific activities in three successive 

 decades. The societies which elected him to office may be here named again. He was president 

 of the American Society of Naturalists for two years, 1885 and 1886. In the American Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science, he was secretary of section E, geology, in 1885; chairman of 

 that section in 1887; and president of the Association in 1900. He served the Philosophical 

 Society of Washington as vice president from 1888 to 1892, and as president in 1893. He was one 

 of the board of managers of the National Geographic Society from 1891 to 1900, except while he 

 served as vice president in 1896 and 1897. He was vice president of the Geological Society of Amer- 

 ica in 1892 and president in 1893; he held the same offices in the Cosmos Club of Washington in 

 1893 and 1894; and in the Geological Society of Washington in 1894 and 1895. The Washington 

 Academy of Science had his services as secretary in 1898, and as vice president from 1899 to 

 1904. Then after a period of freedom from office holding, he was elected to the presidency of 

 the Association of American Geographers for 1908, and of the Geological Society of America for 

 the second time in 1909. He was an excellent presiding officer and understood very well the 

 importance of holding scientific meetings to the performance of their business, whether it con- 

 cerned elections and accounts or the reading and discussion of papers. In spite of the large 

 number of offices that he held, it may be truly said of him that in every instance the office sought 

 the man. 



Gilbert was elected to corresponding or honorary membership in various societies in this 

 country and abroad. The first of these was the New York Lyceum of Natural History — later 

 renamed the New York Academy of Sciences — which in 1870 elected him a corresponding mem- 

 ber, probably after his winter at Columbia with Newberry; the second society to give him such 

 recognition was the Kirtland Society of Natural History, in Cleveland, Ohio, by which he was 

 made a correspondent in 1871, after his three-year service on the Ohio Geological Survey. 

 Twenty years passed before similar action was taken elsewhere in this country; then he was 



