294 GROVE KARL GILBERT— DAVIS [MEM0I Voi!xxi; 



elected an associate fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston in 1893, a 

 corresponding member of the Brooklyn Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1895, a member of the 

 American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia in 1902, and an honorary member of the Sierra 

 Club of San Francisco in 1908. The first European society to discern his exceptional ability was 

 the Geographical Society of Leipzig, which in 1886 elected him to corresponding membership; 

 he was elected a foreign member of the Geological Society of London in 1895, and of the Royal 

 Geographical Society of London in 1896; he was made an honorary member of the Geographical 

 Society of Berlin in 1898, and a corresponding member of the Royal Scottish Geographical 

 Society of Edinburgh in 1901, and of the Geographical Society of Geneva in 1904. It is sig- 

 nificant that with the single exception of the Geological Society of London, noted above, these 

 six foreign elections were all to geographical societies; the inaction of foreign geological societies 

 suggests that they were less interested, because less informed, in physiographic geology than in 

 other and older branches of geological science; and the inaction of other geographical societies 

 similarly suggests that they were unconscious of the immense importance of physiography in 

 geographical science. However, Gilbert was made a foreign member of the Royal Academy of 

 the "Lincei" of Rome in 1904, and a corresponding member of the International Commission on 

 Glaciers in 1905 and of the Bavarian Academy of Munich in 1907. But that a man of Gilbert's 

 eminence should have been elected only to these three foreign memberships in addition to one in a 

 geological society and five in geographical societies must make those Americans who have re- 

 ceived a larger recognition in Europe ask themselves on what grounds their election and his non- 

 election were based. 



The University of Rochester naturally and properly conferred the honorary degree of 

 doctor of laws on Gilbert in 1896, as he was one of its most famous alumni. The University 

 ef Wisconsin gave him the same honorary degree at its jubilee in June, 1904; and a geologist 

 being president of that university at the time, Gilbert's masterly formulation of the principle 

 of erosion was mentioned as the especial reason for thus distinguishing him. He was discrimi- 

 nately described as "preeminent in the development of physiography; geologist of the first rank; 

 scientist of balanced judgment ; deep interpreter of nature." The same degree was also bestowed 

 upon Gilbert by the University of Pennsylvania in 1908, when he was greeted with the state- 

 ment: 



You have enriched geology by a series of studies and contributions of striking originality and importance, 

 which have led to new conceptions of the earth's history and opened new fields of investigation. As a pioneer 

 in what may almost be called the American science of physiography, your work is recognized and valued the 

 world over as being of the highest significance. 



In 1900 the famous Wollaston gold medal of the Geological Society of London was awarded 

 to Gilbert "in recognition of the value of his researches concerning the mineral structure of the 

 earth and, more particularly, of his important contributions to physical geology, and specially 

 to the geological history of the American continent." The words, "mineral structure of the 

 earth," here used appear to be repeated from the conditions of the endowment for the medal, 

 as they recur from year to year when it is voted; surely they were not literally interpreted in 

 this case, for of all geological subjects, the mineral structure of the earth received very little 

 attention in Gilbert's work. Even the more special subject, "the geological history of the 

 American continent," was seldom the main theme of Gilbert's studies, although the touch that 

 he gave to the early chapter of continental submergence instead of emergence, and the many 

 touches that he gave to the latest or physiographic chapter were of the highest significance. 

 However, on the announcement of the award at the annual meeting of the society the president, 

 William Whitaker, appropriately declared the recipient of the medal to be "a worthy successor 

 of his countrymen, James Hall and J. D. Dana, as our Wollaston medallists, for his work is 

 not only American but appeals to the world at large." It is singular that Gilbert 's physiographic 

 work was not specified, for Whitaker had many years before led British geologists to an under- 

 standing of the subaerial denudation of the Weald in southeastern England where the chalk 

 scarps had been previously interpreted as sea cliffs. It is singular also that neither on this 

 occasion nor on any other similar occasion was the quantitative element of Gilbert 's geological 



