38 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SAINT LOUIS MEETING 



himself for his geological career. In fact, it was not nntil seven years 

 after his return to this country that microscopical petrography began to 

 attract general attention. 



In December, 1866, Hague returned to his home, which was now in 

 Boston, Massachusetts. He was just twenty-six years old and had had a 

 liberal education in chemistry, mineralogy, petrography, and geology, as 

 they were taught in those days. A few weeks after his return he met 

 Clarence King in New York and had a chance to learn from him his 

 plans for a geological survey across the Avestern Cordilleras along the line 

 of the proposed transcontinental railroad. One who knew King in later 

 life can imagine the enthusiasm with which at the age of twenty-five he 

 must have developed the prospectus of the enterprise and the romance 

 with which he must have enveloped it. He offered Hague a position as 

 assistant geologist if the proposed plan of the survey should be author- 

 ized by Congress. It was naturally accepted on the spot, and Hague re- 

 turned to Boston to find his friend Emmons and acquaint him with his 

 good luck. Shortly afterward he introduced Emmons to King, and this 

 led to the engagement of Emmons as another assistant, and was the com- 

 mencement of that geological triumvirate which accomplislied so much 

 for American geology through what was kno\\m as the Geological Ex- 

 ploration of the Fortieth Parallel. 



On May 1, 1867, Hague and Emmons, with several other members of 

 the scientific party, sailed from New York for San Francisco by way of 

 Panama — a three weeks' trip, but much less difficult than the journey 

 across the continent at that time, before the railroad was completed, when 

 through travel was by Wells, Fargo and Company's stage-coach. After 

 a few days in San Francisco the first camp was established in the out- 

 skirts of Sacramento, where final equipment for the field-work of the 

 survey was completed. The field force consisted of geologists, topogra- 

 phers, an ornithologist, a botanist, and a skilled photographer, besides 

 packers and cooks, for field-work was conducted by three parties — one 

 under Hague, another under Emmons, exploring separate areas, while 

 the third party was under King, who kept in touch with the work of the 

 two assistants, besides undertaking special researches himself. Since 

 geological and topographical work was carried on simultaneously in the 

 same district, the geologist did not have the map on which to plot his 

 results until a year after the field-work of a particular district had been 

 done. Moreover, the scale of the maps was four miles to the inch and 

 the character of the geological work was reconnaissance. 



The. country to be explored was a wilderness, inhabited sparsely by 

 Indians, and to a large extent desert. It was thought advisable by the 



