EWAN: SAN FRANCISCO AS A MECCA FOR NINETEENTH CENTURY NATURALISTS 19 



Copper Mine on Lake Superior, in Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zool- 

 ogy, which his father had founded. "The Bismarck of American Science," 

 "fearless, resolute, quick to anger, definitely purposeful and full of resource," 

 Alexander proved a "colossal leader of great enterprises, fully as much as he 

 was a man of science." 



The California State Legislature created the office of State Geologist and 

 authorized a geological survey of the State on April 21, 1860. Josiah Whitney 

 was selected as State Geologist and William Henry Brewer, Botanist. Rather 

 later, J. G. Cooper was prominent as a zoologist. William More Gabb joined the 

 Survey in 1862 as paleontologist, and was described in Brewer's words as "young, 

 grassy green, but decidedly smart and well posted in his department." Thus 

 just seven years to the month came the second organized institution for the pro- 

 motion of natural sciences on the Pacific Coast. It was fortunate, too, that 

 Whitney and Brewer were destined to work together on this survey for they 

 proved a well matched team. 



Whitney was forty-one when he took over the leadership of California's geo- 

 logical survey. Schooled at the Round Hill School, founded at Northampton, 

 Massachusetts, by George Bancroft and J. G. Cogswell, and subsequently at 

 Yale under Benjamin Silliman, whose chemistry lectures excited him, AVhitney 

 managed the Iowa Geological Survey before taking over the California job. The 

 State Survey proceeded well enough at first, but met with little sympathy from 

 the legislature after it failed to lead a waning mining industry to a new bonanza 

 at home and halt the loss of men to the Pikes Peak gold rush. But Whitney was 

 thorough in his prosecution of the Survey and by the end of the first year of his 

 work he had already visited iovty of the then forty-six counties of the State. 

 Brewer, his first assistant, had traveled 2,600 miles on muleback, a thousand more 

 on foot. The age of the auriferous gravels had been determined as Jurassic; the 

 coal of the Coast Ranges, Cretaceous; about two hundred species of fossils had 

 been discovered and a "great many new animals and plants." In the personal 

 sense Whitney was less the State Geologist to his scientific associates "than the 

 gay Apothecarius of Clover Den. He was kindly, just, unsparing of himself; 

 and his associates gave him not merely esteem but affection." Dr. Trask turned 

 over his geology notes and fossil collection for the use of the Survey but Brewer 

 found Blake "distinctly less friendly." Whitney was influential in the life of the 

 Academy and in matters of publications was ever a driver for accuracy and thor- 

 oughness. In a letter to his brother, William Dwight Whitney, he reported : 



... of late I have been much engaged with the the affairs of the California Acad- 

 emy, as we have had to move into and fit up new rooms [this was January, 1867], and 

 have tried to resuscitate in general. We seem now to be in a fair way to live; but 

 when I came back last year, it seemed as if it was as dead as a doornail. We have 

 now a pleasant reading room with a goodly number of scientific periodicals; and we 

 are fitting up our meeting room and collections in a respectable manner. The last 

 sheets of the Proceedings . . . will tell you what we have been doing, and you will 

 notice my account of the [Calaveras] skull, etc. 



But the State Survey issued only three of its final reports, the other volumes being 

 published through outside resources, including Whitney's personal funds. Brewer 

 brought out the botany volume by means of a $5,000 private subscription, "engi- 

 neered by Judge S. C. Hastings of San Francisco and helped on by Gilman, 



