32 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOSTON MEETING 



end of Lake Erie and gave first published recognition to the old south- 

 western outlet of the lake through the Maumee and Wabash valleys; 

 although, with the same fairness and care that always distinguished 

 him, he gave full credit to local observers for prior recognition of the 

 phenomenon. Of the maps accompanying the final report in which this 

 outlet and the beaches with which it connects are shown Dr. Fairchild 



"These fine maps are the first ever made in delineation of ancient lake 

 beaches and correlation with the controlling outlet." 



He also explained for the first time the peculiar drainage relations of 

 the Maumee and its tributaries, the Saint Joseph and Saint Marys rivers, 

 attributing them to control by lobate moraines left by the glacial tongue 

 that occupied the valley of the Maumee at one stage of its retreat. This 

 conception, at that time new and perhaps radical and startling, seem- 

 ingly came to Gilbert clearly and definitely while engaged upon his 

 field-work out of Toledo, for his journal, under date of ^N'ovember 10, 

 1870, contains this interesting entry: "Invented the moraine hypothesis 

 for Saint Jo and Saint Marys rivers.^' Gregory,^ referring to the paper 

 in which this concept is discussed, credits Gilbert with the first clear and 

 unequivocal recognition of either terminal or recessional moraines in the 

 United States. 



Gilbert left Eochester in April, 1871, for San Francivsco, on his first 

 assignment to the Wheeler Survey. He was then 28 years old, his career 

 was definitely chosen, and his period of preparation may be regarded as 

 completed. There is no hint that in his college days he had looked for- 

 ward to a scientific career. His father was an artist; his grandfather a 

 mechanic, who in 182-1 invented a rotary steam-engine. His grand- 

 mother, Eunice Barnes Gilbert, was the daughter of a wooden-clock 

 maker who connected a clock in his shop with a dial in the living room 

 below and was considered very ingenious. His great-grandfather was 

 an officer in the Revolutionary War and others of the family served hon- 

 orably in the Colonial wars as well. There is no definite scientific trend 

 discernible in the family, but there is artistic and mechanical skill, honor, 

 patriotism, and high ideals. 



I think we must look primarily to the influence exerted by the two 

 magnetic and enthusiastic personalities with whom young Gilbert was 



'' H. L. Fairchild : Grove Karl Gilbert, Proceedings of the Rochester Academy of 

 Sciences, vol. 5, 1919. 



« H. E. Gregory : A century of geology. Steps of progress in the interpretation of 

 land forms, American Journal of Science, vol, 46, July, 1918, pp, 104-132. 



