CHAPTER XI 

 DIVERS DUTIES ON THE POWELL SURVEY: 1877-1879 



LAND CLASSIFICATION 



Gilbert's report on the Henry Mountains is one of the smallest volumes issued by any of 

 the governmental surveys of its period, but its contents sufficed to give him a leading position 

 among his associates. His future career as a geologist was assured. Yet for two years after 

 the Henry Mountains report was issued, while he was still a member of the Powell survey, 

 Gilbert's attention was largely turned from the analysis of geological problems, in which his 

 native capacity delighted as much as it excelled, and directed to matters of an altogether dif- 

 ferent nature. The season of 1877, from July to October, inclusive, was spent in northern 

 Utah with an outfit of two men, four horses, and a wagon studying the classification of lands 

 and the possibilities of irrigation. His estimates were based, as Powell very properly wrote, 

 "on the experience of the [chiefly Mormon] farmers of the district, who have practised irriga- 

 tion for 30 years, and have given it a greater development than can be found elsewhere in the 

 United States." 



At the beginning of the season's field work on this new subject Gilbert wrote to his chief: 

 I will make the circle of the Jordan valley and in it develop the alphabet of my inquiry. 



Various topics are reported upon in other letters; thus, shortly after reaching Salt Lake 

 City in July, mention is made of a personal call, which was presumably suggested by Powell as 

 an aid to work in the Mormon settlements: 



I have just seen Brigham Young who has not been in. the city until today. It was just after his dinner 

 and he felt happy. We had a nice talk of half or three-quarters of an hour and Cannon was instructed to write 

 me the letter I want — to be signed by Young. There were a dozen present, half of whom were Church Digni- 

 taries, and I found in a few minutes that I was talking only nominally to Brigham, but really to his advisers. 

 They talked to the point and appreciated what I was at, but he strayed as badly as Dr. Hayden. He told me 

 to "tell Major Powell that if he thinks I have done anything which should prevent his calling on me, he must 

 come and see me and I will prove to him that I have not." He has had a great desire to see you ever since he 

 learned that a piece of bacon which Fremont threw awav and which the wolves failed to find has been recently 

 discovered in a petrified condition. 



Young died later in the summer and Gilbert attended his funeral. 

 Other letters bore more directly upon irrigation : 



There is a new agricultural development which may modify the classification of land. Lucerne, if once 

 rooted, will grow, it is claimed, without irrigation and give each year one crop of one or two tons to the acre. 

 If that is the case then a small stream carried in successive years to different tracts may establish meadows over 

 a much larger area than it can permanently irrigate, and it will be proper to count as agricultural land all the 

 arable land with suitable climate to which water may be carried with little reference to the quantity of water 

 available. I will look into it. 



Later experience did not support this hopeful expectation. A letter dated July 18 in 

 Tooele Valley, southwest of Salt Lake City, tells of good progress and adds a personal item: 



The gauging of streams, the study of beaches, and the study of recent faults go well together and make 

 the greater part of my field work. I have finished Jordan, Cedar, Rush, and Tooele valleys, and for these 

 valleys came at about the right time for the measurement of the w-ater. The greatest demand for water is now 

 or last week, when small grains want their last watering and corn its first or second. ... I have a good outfit 

 and everything goes well. Have read King's Catastrophism address ' and planned half a dozen controversial 

 papers while I was reading. Perhaps Uniformitarianism is overdone in geology, but King is certainly "out" 

 in the opposite direction at several points. I wonder if "massive eruptions" are not laccoliths distorted by 

 pre-existent faults. 



i Clarence King. Catastrophism and Evolution (an address at the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University), Amer. Nat , xi, 1877, 449-470. 



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