CHAPTER XIII 



LAKE BONNEVILLE 

 gilbert's first assignment on the national survey 



It has already been noted that, when the consolidated national survey was organized 

 in 1879 under the direction of Clarence King, Gilbert was assigned the study of Lake Bonne- 

 ville, with headquarters in Salt Lake City. For reasons that are not explicitly stated, but which 

 were probably connected with the completion of certain tasks that had been begun under 

 Powell's survey, he remained in the East through the summer of 1879, spending part of the 

 time with his family at Winchendon, Mass., and did not reach his western field until October. 

 Then, as if to make up for a late start, he continued field work until stopped by stress of weather 

 in the middle of January, 1880. Willard D. Johnson, a young topographer of exceptionally 

 fine spirit, who thought much about the origin of the land forms that he surveyed, was Gil- 

 bert's first assistant, and was charged with making maps of critical localities. The intimacy 

 thus begun between the two men was continued through many years of close relations. Gilbert 

 went back to Washington in February, gave up his house in Le Droit Park in June, and then 

 returned to Salt Lake City with his family, establishing his residence there and renting office 

 rooms for his staff. I. C. Russell was chief assistant during the field season of 1880, and was 

 later assigned under Gilbert's direction to the study of certain other extinct lakes, especially 

 Lahontan, farther west in the Great Basin. McGee and others were members of the field 

 parties from time to time. 



Thus it appeared that Gilbert was to remain indefinitely in the West, and he began to 

 establish personal relations with the Salt Lake community; for in January, 1881, he lectured 

 on Lake Bonneville in "Independence Hall." But his own view of the situation was other- 

 wise; he had written to King regarding his Bonneville studies on November 16, 1880: 



... I have no occasion to take the field again in person, but begin the preparation of my report upon the 

 subject. For the present I can work to best advantage here, but when the field notes of the season, both my 

 own and my assistants, have been elaborated and when the map drawing is well in hand so that it can be com- 

 pleted without my supervision, it appears to me desirable that I go to New York and Washington, so that I 

 can have better library facilities and so that I can initiate the preparation of engravings for illustration. 



It must therefore have been a satisfaction to him, in some respects at least, that, when 

 King relinquished the directorship of the survey and Powell was appointed to it in March, 

 1881, his presence was needed at the central office "on duty supposed to be temporary," 

 but which proved to be long lasting; so he returned to Washington in April and his family 

 followed in June ; and there, after the long delays referred to above, the Bonneville report was 

 eventually completed. 



EARLIER WORK ON LAKE BONNEVILLE 



It is interesting to trace Gilbert's progress in detecting the essential elements of the Bonne- 

 ville problem. The abandoned shore lines of the ancient lake had been known in a general 

 way for many years before he reached the Great Basin in 1871. His first season there with 

 the Wheeler survey was mostly spent to the west and south of the Bonneville area; but during 

 the second season he saw much of the shore lines, and on August 10, 1872, when the extinct 

 lake was still unnamed, the following exceptionally dehberate entry was made in one of his note- 

 books : " Theory, that the great lake whose bed we are travelling is a phase of the glacial epoch "; 

 the leading word, "Theory," being inclosed in a penciled rectangle, as if to guard against 

 mistaking the inference it introduces for a record of fact. Two days later, when some large 

 piedmont gravel fans must have been in sight with the beach lines engraved upon them, the 

 following significant notes were added : 



On the Mt. ["Goshoot" or Gosiute"] NW I can count 11 terraces. The gravel slopes made since the lake 



are a small item compared with those made before. The lake episode is in the history of these valleys a very 



recent one. 



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