110 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 



of intimacy. It must be conceded that the interviews were not always 

 as comforting as I had hoped, but confession must be made that they 

 were always profitable. He seemed to have read almost everything 

 within his reach. His memory was unusually retentive, and his power 

 of assimilating knowledge was surprising. Some men have a great 

 stock of information, but the items appear, for them, to have no 

 inter-relations they hang around the walls of their memory like 

 hams in a meat-shop, all complete but wholly disconnected. 



Not so with McGee. His knowledge was arranged, it was his own, 

 and had received his impress. He made his debut as an authority 

 on questions in geology at a meeting of the American Committee on 

 the Geological Congress in 1888, which he attended as representing 

 Major Powell. At that meeting, the reports of the several subcom- 

 mittees were read, beginning with that on the oldest rocks. Each 

 member present had come with a document which he regarded as 

 typically good. McGee discussed most of the reports earnestly, 

 courteously, and with such evident accurate knowledge as to be 

 discomforting to some of the authors. One, who had suffered most 

 severely, besought me to build a levee to close the crevasse and to 

 save us from drowning. All were convinced that McGee would be a 

 power to be reckoned with. 



Somewhat later, after organization of the Geological Society, I 

 was thrown for a time into somewhat closer relations, and saw the man 

 from a different standpoint. He showed peculiar efficiency as an 

 organizer; he knew not only what he wished to do or to have done by 

 others, but also how it should be done. He was not satisfied with 

 planning, he set himself to the accomplishment of the plan. One 

 instance out of many suffices. He was dissatisfied with methods of 

 publication prevailing in scientific societies. At an early meeting of 

 our Society a committee was appointed on his motion to consider the 

 matter. He prepared an elaborate report, accompanied by a printed 

 example. The form was approved, and he was chosen Editor with 

 authority to enforce the rules and he enforced them. It is quite 

 possible that at times he used less of suamter in modo and morefortiter 

 in re than was agreeable to authors, who felt that their importance 

 deserved more of consideration ; but he certainly succeeded in bringing 

 about a reformation. Prior to his installation, authors too frequently 



