MEMORIAL OF G. K. GILBERT 39 



in mi ml to relinquish the directorship of the Geological Survey long 

 before he actually did so. 



Of that situation and Gilbert's attitude Mr. Henshaw writes : 



"I tliink it was early in the SO's (I have no means of recalling the exact 

 year) when he came to me (we were on our way to a meeting of the Philo- 

 sophical Society) witli a request for advice; for, as he said, probably none of 

 his associates knew him better than I. I'owell, he stated, wished to resign the 

 position of I>irectt)r of the Geological Survey in his favor, so that he himself 

 might be free to devote all of his time and effort to building up the Bureau of 

 Ethnology, of which at the time I had subordinate charge. . . . The occa- 

 sion was a difficult one for me, but I knew Gilbert too well to doubt for a 

 moment that what he wanted was that perfect frankness which concealeth 

 nothing and is possible only between tried friends. I told him in substance 

 that wliile no one who knew^ him could doubt for a moment that the future of 

 the Geological Survey would be safe in his hands, nevertheless I felt sure that 

 administration was not his strong forte; that, aside from the thousand and 

 one vexatious details of daily administrative life, which in time I felt sure he 

 would come to abhor, the necessity of a certain amount of political work would 

 prove a heavy strain upon him, and I urged that if no feeling of duty was 

 involved, and if he felt free to make his own choice, I should advise him to 

 hesitate long before giving up his own selected field, so full of promise and in 

 which he had already gained so enviable a place. He assented to what I said, 

 and added that he had come to much the same conclusion." 



In 1<S88 Gilbert made his only trip to Europe. In September of that 

 year he attended the International Geologic Congress at London and 

 visited Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Wight, and Paris. 



In 1892, with the sweeping reduction in Survey appropriations and 

 the reorganization consequent thereto, Gilbert, doubtless with great relief, 

 relinquished his position as Chief Geologist, and with it the greater part 

 of his administrative responsibilities. 



Another, and the final, phase of his career, marked by the gradual re- 

 sumption of personal research, begins with this date. The period from 

 !I892 to 1918, a period of lessening administrative duties and, for the last 

 nine years, one of precarious health and reduced physical energy, is a 

 productive period of varied scientific activities, with a proportion of new 

 researches, but with also a tendency to recur to earlier problems, in oi-der 

 to develop them more fully than was possible when first they were 

 realized. 



Southeastern Colorado was a field of investigation to which about three 

 years were devoted. The problems were structural, stratigraphic, and 

 economic, and the results appear as folios, which contain some original 

 features, and some papers on water-supply and on fire-clay. 



As by-products of this areal work we have the papers on "Sodinientary 



