MEIklOKIAL OF G. K. GILBERT 85 



acteristics of caeli set forth, the fault-l)lock theory of the origin of tlie 

 first enunciated, none too definitely, perhaps, and Lake Bonneville was 

 named and its general features were described. Tluis the opening chap- 

 ters were written on two of Gilbert's principal contributions to the 

 development of geologic science. 



The association with the Wheeler Survey had a significance in Gilbert's 

 life, however, other than the direct opportunity that it gave him to 

 become acquainted with the inspiring problems awaiting solution in the 

 West. It brouglit liini into contact with a group of brilliant men 

 deeply engrossed in geologic and geographic exploration, and into an 

 environment that to a young geologist and geographer must have been 

 one of the most stimulating of any in the world at that time. 



Xear the end of January, 1872, at the end of his first field season with 

 the Wheeler Expedition, Gilbert went to Washington, if not for the first 

 time, at least for his first protracted stay. Lieutenant Wheeler's head- 

 quarters were there, and there Gilbert established himself for the winter. 

 He and his close friends and cogeologists on the Wheeler Survey, Archi- 

 bald K. ^larvine and Edwin E. Howell, clearly found the opportunities 

 and associations in Washington at that period much to their liking. 



Professor Baird w^as then Secretary of the Smithsonian. Major 

 Powell, with the prestige of his Grand Canyon trip still fresh upon him, 

 was in the city for the winter; the Philosophical Society, organized on 

 March 13, 18T1, was the common meeting place for scientific discussion, 

 the informal adjourned sittings holding in the minds of the members 

 quite as valuable a place as the more dignified, formal gatherings, where 

 the prepared papers were delivered. 



Gilbert was assiduous in his attendance at the formal and presumably 

 also at the adjourned meetings. He was soon on terms of intimacy with 

 Baird, Xewcomb, Hilgard, Harkness, Abbey, and others. Tt is highly 

 probable, too, that he first met Major Powell and Lieutenant Button at 

 one of these meetings. We know at least that by April he was calling 

 at the Powell home. 



It was inevitable that these two should have much in common. Both 

 were geological explorers; they had seen contiguous and in part identical 

 fields; they were both inspired by the magnificeiue of the phenomena 

 there displayed and by an intellectual enthusiasm for the solution of the 

 new problems encountered. Powell, with his originality and remarkal)lo 

 fertility in ideas, must have recognized a splendid foil in Gilbert's steadi- 

 ness of thouf?ht and accuracv of observation, and Gilbert in turn must 



