664 G. K. GILBERT 



skill that was afterward of service in physiographic and exploratory 

 work. On his return he became assistant professor of geology 

 in the School of Mines, where he remained two years. In 1878 he 

 accompanied Professor J. J. Stevenson in geologic exploration in 

 New Mexico under the auspices of the Wheeler Survey; and the 

 following year was spent in European travel. 



My own association with him began in 1880, when he became a 

 member of the United States Geological Survey and was assigned 

 to my corps — the Division of the Great Basin — then engaged in the 

 study of the Quaternary lake Bonneville. After a year of sub- 

 sidiary duty he was given independent work, investigating the Qua- 

 ternary histories of a series of desert basins in northern Nevada 

 and adjacent parts of CaHfornia and Oregon. To these and cognate 

 studies he gave four years, his results being embodied in an impor- 

 tant series of reports, which gave him assured status both in this 

 country and abroad. The duties next assigned him were much less 

 congenial, and I think he always regarded the three years given to 

 them as nearly wasted. They comprised the detailed study and 

 mapping of Paleozoic formations in the southern part of the Appa- 

 lachian area, and, later, a general investigation of the Jura-Trias 

 formations of the United States. The scope of the latter work was 

 afterward reduced, and he finally reported only on the Newark for- 

 mation. 



The field of research most attractive to him, and the one to which 

 his whole life would doubtless have been devoted, had circumstances 

 favored, was geographic exploration. It was also a field for which 

 he was pecuHarly fitted. In 1889 he sought and obtained permission 

 to accompany, as representative of the Geological Survey, an expe- 

 dition sent by the Coast and Geodetic Survey to establish a portion 

 of the eastern boundary of northern Alaska. He ascended the 

 Yukon River to the neighborhood of the boundary, and then in 

 early winter crossed the mountains southward to the head of Lynn 

 Canal, whence he returned by sea. With continued assistance of 

 the Coast Survey, and under the joint auspices of the Geological 

 Survey and the National Geographic Society, he spent the two 

 succeeding summers in exploring the slopes of Mount St. Elias 

 and the region about Yakutat Bay. 



