242 George Ferdinand Becker. 



GEORGE FERDINAND BECKER. 



On April 20th, 1919, Dr. George Ferdinand Becker died 

 at his home in Washington at the age of seventy-two 

 years. With his death we offer a final tribute of respect 

 and honor to one of the last of that splendid group of 

 pioneer geologists which was brought together by the 

 famous Survey of the Fortieth Parallel, the founders of 

 the U. S. Geological Survey. Clarence King, the central 

 figure of the group, has long since gone from among us, 

 but his three distinguished collaborators, Emmons, Hague 

 and Becker, have but lately finished their tasks and left to 

 other hands, hands which they themselves had carefully 

 trained, the great problems which they so courageously 

 mapped out. 



With but a single interruption of two years (1892-1894) 

 Dr. Becker was a "Geologist in Charge" or chief of 

 division in the U. S. Geological Survey from its estab- 

 lishment in 1879 to the time of his death, a period of 

 almost forty years. In this position, which he preferred 

 to any other which the Survey offered, he found oppor- 

 tunity to initiate the many new directions of research 

 with which his name stands inseparably associated, and 

 he was spared much of the dull administrative routine 

 of Washington departmental life which he particularly 

 abhorred. Indeed it may be said of Dr. Becker that the 

 advancement of these various lines of geophysical re- 

 search was the dominating purpose of his life. Many 

 times during the last twenty years I have heard him say, 

 with that intensity of expression and of speech so char- 

 acteristic of him when in conversation upon the subject he 

 loved, that the study of the interior of the earth was the 

 only thing really worth while. 



Though born in New York City (January 5, 1847) 

 Dr. Becker's early life was spent in Cambridge, Mass., 

 where his preference for natural science rather than 

 sports brought him early into contact with such men as 

 Benjamin A. Gould, Jeffries Wyman, Benjamin Pierce, 

 the elder Agassiz and other distinguished contempo- 

 raries, and gave directive impulse to his earlier studies. 

 He was graduated from Harvard in 1868 and went abroad 

 at once, taking advanced degrees at Heidelberg in 1869 

 and at Berlin (Royal School of Mines) in 1871. Neither 

 did he neglect the practical side while abroad, for he was 



