Obituary. 163 



Obituary. 



Clarence King, the distinguished geologist, explorer and 

 author, died at Phoenix, Arizona on December 24, in the sixtieth 

 year of his age. A notice is deferred till the following number. 



The following tribute to Mr. King was unanimously adopted 

 at a meeting of the members of the U. S. Geological Survey 

 held at Washington on December 28th. 



" It is with profound sorrow that Ave learn of the death of 

 Clarence King, the first Director and, in a sense, the founder of 

 the Geological Survey. In him we have lost not only a great 

 scientific leader but a genial and accomplished gentleman whose 

 personal qualities endeared him to all who knew him, and whose 

 many acts of loving kindness have left a wide circle of friends 

 in all walks of life to mourn his untimely death. 



As organizer and, during ten years, Chief of the United States 

 Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, he set higher 

 standards for geological work in the United States and laid the 

 foundations of a systematic survey of the country. He gave 

 practical recognition to the fact that a good topographical map 

 is the essential basis for accurate geological work. 



As first Director of the present Geological Survey, he laid 

 down the broad general lines upon which its work should be con- 

 ducted and which, as followed by his able successors, have led to 

 its present development. He established the principle that a 

 Geological Survey of the United States should be distinguished 

 among similar organizations by the prominence given to the 

 direct application of scientific results to the development of its 

 mineral wealth. 



In that essential quality of an investigator — scientific imagina- 

 tion — no one surpassed King, and his colleagues have all profited 

 by his suggestiveness. He was never content with the study of 

 science as he found it, but always sought to raise the standard of 

 geology as well as to apply known principles to the survey of the 

 country- 

 King first introduced microscopical petrography into Ameri- 

 can geology and, as early as his Fortieth Parallel work, he fore- 

 shadowed the application of exact physics to questions of 

 geological dynamics. Early in the history of the present Sur- 

 vey he established a physical laboratory. One result of this step 

 was a paper on the Age of the Earth, which takes very high rank 

 among modern scientific memoirs. Although in his last years 

 circumstances rendered it necessary for him to devote most of 

 his time to other occupations, he had by no means abandoned 

 plans for geological investigation on a scale worthy of his reputa- 

 tion. 



In Clarence King geological science in America will miss a 

 pioneer and a leader ; the Geological Survey loses its broad- 

 minded founder and adviser, and its older members a beloved 

 friend." 



