36 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOSTON MEETING 



have been greatly stimulated by the Major's brilliancy in conception and 

 in generalization. So in the new circle of valued and valuable friends 

 formed in the winter and spring of 1872 none grew into a closer inti- 

 macy than that with Powell and none was destined to have more influ- 

 ence upon Gilbert's future. 



During the succeeding winter seasons of 1872-1873 and 1873-1874, 

 each following a summer of field-work for the Wheeler organization, the 

 intimacy between Powell and Gilbert grew. Gilbert did not go West 

 during the summer of 1874, but remained in the East, completing his 

 Wheeler reports. That autumn, November 10, he married Miss Fannie 

 Porter, a sister-in-law of Archibald Marvine, and on December 2 he 

 entered into a contract with Powell and began work for his organization. 

 The official association thus initiated was maintained until the Major's 

 resignation from the Directorship of the Geological Survey, in 1894. 



Gilbert's work was now to be done under more favorable auspices. 

 The conditions for geologic observation could not be of the best when 

 the geologist was attached to a party whose movements were necessarily 

 controlled by other considerations than his needs. Gilbert sets forth 

 the disadvantages under which he labored on the Wheeler expeditions 

 in a prefatory note to a limited edition of his Wheeler Survey papers 

 issued in 1876. He says : 



"The observations that form the basis of these reports were hurried in the 

 extreme. The writer, for the most part, accompanied field parties which were 

 especially equipped for rapidity of movement and were crowded to the utmost. 

 Moreover, in a country almost unmapped the demand for geographical infor- 

 mation was more urgent than that for geological, and all plans and routes 

 were accordingly and with propriety shaped to give the topographer the best 

 opportunities consistent with rapidity of movement, while the geologist gleaned 

 what he could by the way. To study the structure of a region under such cir- 

 cumstances was to read a book while its pages were turned quickly by another, 

 and the result was a larger collection of impressions than of facts." 



The conditions of military control, too, were less favorable to technical 

 publication and to informal presentation of results than civilian control, 

 particularly if that civilian control is itself scientific, and therefore sym- 

 pathetic. These conditions, together with the now established friendship 

 between Gilbert and Powell, make it very easy to understand why Gilbert 

 late in 1874 transferred his services from Wheeler to Powell. 



Under the auspices of the Powell Survey, Gilbert returned in 1875 to 

 Utah. That summer was spent in the region of the Aquarius Plateau, 

 the Water Pocket fold, and the Henrv Mountains, while the succeeding 

 summer was devoted entirely to the Henry Mouutains study. 



