120 GROVER KARL GILBERT— DAVIS CM " M0KB [ ^^; 



It was soon found, however, that although the districts were exceedingly large, each of them was too small 

 for the satisfactory conduct of the most important investigations instituted within it. The demands of the work 

 led to a practical abandonment of the lines of demarcation. It was also found that the attention of the geologist 

 in charge of each division was so distracted by the variety of work he was called upon to supervise that his 

 personal studies were greatly hampered. The junior assistants, exempt from the cares of administration, were 

 able to push their special investigations far in advance of the complementary work undertaken by their chiefs 

 and senior colleagues. The talents and acquirements that rendered the work of an individual most desirable, 

 led, by qualifying him to direct the work of others, to a great diminution of personal accomplishment. The 

 original subdivision of the work by geographic areas has therefore been in large part abandoned, and for it there 

 has gradually been substituted a system in which the primary basis of subdivision is the nature of the work to 

 be performed, and in which the body of the work placed under the direction of one assistant is not so large that 

 his administrative duties make serious encroachments upon his time. 



FROM SALT LAKE CITY TO WASHINGTON 



It was probably with this happy idea of agreeably combining a moderate amount of 

 administrative responsibility with a larger amount of individual scientific work that early in 

 1881, Powell called Gilbert from Salt Lake City to Washington, nominally "to complete his 

 report on Lake Bonneville," and on that date therefore Gilbert's service began as Powell's 

 closest adviser in a great and worthy task ; but unhappily his share in that task, as well as in its 

 extensions on which Powell from time to time embarked, soon required him to withdraw from 

 work in the Cordilleran region; for although at about that date the work of the survey was 

 carried beyond the "public domain" to which it was at first limited and extended into the older 

 States, there was no corresponding increase in the appropriations. Western work already 

 entered upon was sacrificed to a greater or less degree to new work in the East. The investigation 

 of all the Pleistocene lakes of the Great Basin, as at first planned under King, had gone pretty 

 far, for Gilbert reported soon after his return to Washington that, besides the three larger 

 Plsistocene lakes, 25 of the smaller ones had been explored, although "it is probable that a still 

 larger number remain to be examined;" l but no special account of the 25 smaller ones has been 

 published. Under Powell the investigation of only the three larger lakes, Bonneville, Lahontan, 

 and Mono, on which study was either begun or well advanced, was continued, and " the examina- 

 tion of the more southerly valleys . . . the study of the brines and saline deposits, and the 

 elaborate measurement of post-Pleiocene displacements" were indefinitely postponed. The 

 survey as a whole was doubtless stronger under the new director than it had been before, but 

 Gilbert's opportunity for personal research along lines that he wished to continue was greatly 

 curtailed. In his case at least, administrative duties soon made very serious encroachments 

 upon his time. Who can say whether the net result for the science of geology was a profit or a 

 loss? From the date of Gilbert's return to Washington in 1881, he was continually in close 

 relations with Powell, who consulted him on matters of every kind, and he continually exerted a 

 wise influence on the conduct of affairs during the formative period of the survey's history. 

 From that time on, his own work suffered greatly from interruptions and distractions, and an 

 important share of his thought was represented in the plans and assignments announced in 

 administrative reports over the director's name instead of over his own. Like other loyal 

 members of the survey, ho recognized that the work of subordinates in a great governmental 

 institution must go frequently, necessarily, and properly to the credit of those "higher up," 

 and he uttered no word of complaint at the personal sacrifices thus called for. 



DISTRACTIONS OF OFFICE WORK 



An illustration of this subordination of personal credit to institutional advantage appears in 

 the first annual report of the new director, the second of the series, for the year, 1880-81, which 

 contains an elaborate discussion of the use of colors on geological maps; the general choice of 

 colors there presented may well be credited to Powell, but the careful elaboration of the details 

 was probably the work of Gilbert. He showed himself indeed so competent in many tasks that 

 he was more and more called upon to guide tilings aright; and his own work suffered in conse- 



» U. S Geol. Survey, Bull. 11, 1884, 9. 



