WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 109 



Another side of his character should not be overlooked, his grati- 

 tude and loyalty, which raises his character as high as his scientific 

 attainments. I was informed of the following incident only after his 

 death. The names will be omitted unless made known by my in- 

 formant, who conveyed to Doctor McGee the offer of a very distin- 

 guished position. His reply was "Oh, how I should like to accept it. 

 I should prefer it to any other in the country, but I can not take it, 

 for the old man (Major Powell) needs me. Yet I should like to have 

 it, but I can not leave the Major." By way of explanation it should 

 be added that Major Powell's health was failing, and he would have 

 been compelled to retire, if McGee had abandoned the sinking ship, 

 although it meant his own future and life. Louis Agassiz was once 

 asked what his greatest work had been, and replied that it had been 

 the making of five observers, although four had become his enemies. 

 McGee would not have been in that list. 



Here may also be stated what is not generally known. It was 

 McGee who suggested to Major Powell the name of the one whom he 

 nominated as his successor in the Directorate of the United States 

 Geological Survey, and who was thereupon appointed. 



From Dr. J. J. Stevenson, of New York: 



During a visit to the Survey building in Washington, about thirty 

 years ago, it was suggested that I might be interested in the outcome 

 of an attempt to piece together the recently published county maps 

 of the Pennsylvania Geological Survey. That outcome was not 

 comforting to me, as a former member of that organization, but I was 

 greatly interested in the sturdy young man who had patched together 

 the, as my guide termed it, "crazy quilt." This young man was 

 W J McGee, who had just completed at his own expense a Pleistocene 

 survey of northeastern Iowa. He had little to say and his conver- 

 sation gave no hint of that fluency of speech and abundance of knowl- 

 edge, which in later years were so painful to his opponents in dis- 

 cussion. What he did say was pithy, direct; he recognized the 

 bearing of every question and gave the answer without waste of 

 words. 



During frequent visits to Washington in immediately succeeding 

 years, I met McGee in such a way as to bring about a certain degree 



