118 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 



to treat the region as a unit and to present its geologic history con- 

 secutively from basal Cretaceous to Recent time. Although he was 

 constructive to a high degree, the data he used were not adequate 

 for a finished product. Subsequently, additional information has been 

 acquired, and his interpretations have been greatly modified, but the 

 goal of geologic investigation, as he recognized it, his own high ideal 

 of research, and the example of his open-minded generous character 

 remain unchanged, and persist to guide his followers in the field in 

 which he labored so effectively. 



From Doctor I. C. White, State Geologist of West Virginia: 



The writer's personal acquaintance with Doctor W J McGee be- 

 gan when the latter was so intimately connected with the late Doctor 

 J. W. Powell, Director of the United States Geological Survey. It 

 was also his good fortune to be associated with Doctor McGee on an 

 important committee of the Geological Society of America, appointed 

 at the first regular meeting of that body in Ithaca, New York, Decem- 

 ber 27, 1888. To this Advisory Committee on Publications, consist- 

 ing of Joseph LeConte, W J McGee, N. H. W'inchell, I. C. White, 

 and W. M. Davis, was referred the very important subject of mapping 

 out plans and rules to govern the publications of the newly organized 

 Society. The committee elected Dr. McGee Secretary, and he made 

 such an exhaustive study of the publication methods of all other exist- 

 ing scientific societies, culling from them whatever features seemed 

 desirable and adding new ones from his own fertile brain, that when 

 the Committee met there was but little for the other members to do 

 except to approve the work of its talented Secretary. The admirable 

 publication plan reported by Doctor McGee at the Toronto meeting 

 of the Society, August 28, 1889, was adopted almost verbatim by the 

 Council, and the wisdom and forethought of its principal author is 

 sufficiently attested by the 20 odd splendid volumes already issued 

 which place the publications of the Geological Society of America 

 fully abreast of those produced by any other similar organization in 

 the world. It was during the several meetings of this Committee 

 that the writer realized the wonderful breadth of comprehension and 

 fullness of knowledge with which Doctor McGee's master mind was so 



