122 GROVER KARL GILBERT— DAVIS [MEMOIRS [ vo A L n xxt 



if because of the withdrawal of the lake water, a problem that would to-day be called isostatic. 

 Curiously enough, the basin-range problem is not here specified. Over a year later, after the 

 geology of the Appalachians had become his chief concern, he again referred to the problem of 

 his preference and his regret on abandoning it, when discussing the post-Bonneville deformation 

 of the Great Salt Lake Desert in an address, analyzed below, before the Society of American 

 Naturalists. The real lesson of this part of Gilbert's life is that of loyal sacrifice: Powell needed 

 his counsel in the conduct of a great undertaking, and he therefore gave up the work that he 

 most enjoyed and stood faithfully by his chief. 



Although this recital necessarily has a melancholy tinge, it should not be understood that 

 Gilbert was unhappy in his return to Washington. He was devotedly attached to Powell, 

 personally as well as scientifically, and was always ready to serve and to aid him. The satis- 

 faction of renewing with "the Major" the close relations that had been previously established 

 during five years of membership on the Powell survey must have been some compensation for 

 giving up Bonneville, and the satisfaction must have been increased by his recognition of the 

 many ways in which his chief's nature could be complemented by his own. Powell, although a 

 thoughtful observer, enjoyed and excelled in administration; after his first brilliant work in 

 western exploration, he gave most of his attention for the rest of his life to problems of organiza- 

 tion; the establishment of the Bureau of American Ethnology and of the national Geological 

 Survey were his great accomplishments in this direction. On the other hand, Gilbert, while fully 

 competent to administer the responsibilities laid upon him as chief of a survey division, excelled 

 his senior as a philosophical geologist, and must have been of immense service to the senior 

 in the discussion and settlement of the numerous technical and scientific problems that arose 

 as the survey expanded. He not only had a logical mind that led him to just conclusions, but 

 also the happy faculty of presenting his conclusions in a manner that greatly promoted their 

 acceptance; and for both reasons his opinions were greatly respected among his associates. 

 All things considered, he must have found much in Washington to make up for his abandonment 

 of the great investigational field of the West. In any case, when the director called him to the 

 East, he dutifully put aside a cherished plan of further work in the Great Basin, and with self- 

 denying devotion took up the tasks that were assigned to him. 



THE GREAT BASIN MESS 



Life includes small events among the greater ones; great organizations have smaller ones 

 included within them. Hence it must be recorded that shortly after Gilbert's return from Salt 

 Lake City to Washington in 1881, a notable little institution had its beginning within the 

 survey under his leadership. It should be recalled in this connection that the survey included 

 at its outset two very unlike groups of geologists ; a smaller group which preferred and was rich 

 enough to afford the metropolitan luxuries of a conventional civilization; and a larger group, 

 the members of which were of limited means and were perhaps for that reason more at home in 

 the cosmic freedom of simple surroundings. It need hardly be explained that Gilbert and his 

 western associates, Johnson, Russell, and McGee, were members of the latter group; but it 

 needs to be told that this quartette gave daily expression to their preference for simple living 

 by eating a frugal noon meal together in one of the survey rooms, their gathering naturally 

 being baptized after the scene of their previous explorations, the "Great Basin mess." This 

 institution endured for a generation, and like other enduring things it had an evolutionary 

 development. Its career included an early hon^rule period and a later caterer-controlled 

 period. In the first, each cenobite used to take his turn, week by week, at bringing in a basket 

 carried on his arm a home-prepared lunch for the favored four. Wooden plates and paper 

 napkins sufficed at first, as they«could be burned when the meal was over; but a coffee pot with 

 china cups and saucers was an early innovation. The success of the mess was such that new 

 members were added from time to time, the formalities of election or rejection being brief but 

 emphatic and effective. In time the numbers became so large that the caterer-controlled period 

 set in, and lunch was eventually served by a professional expert in a room hired for the purpose 

 across the street from the survey building. 



