George Ferdinand Becker. . 243 



accustomed to speak with some pride of having " begun 

 life" as a "puddler" while still in Germany. 



Upon the completion of his education he went to Cali- 

 fornia, partly in pursuit of health, which in early life 

 appears not to have been rugged, and partly from in- 

 terest in mining and metallurgy, which was his major 

 subject of study while abroad, and became instructor in 

 those subjects at the State University at Berkeley. There 

 he came in contact with Mr. Clarence King, who was 

 then engaged upon the Survey of the Fortieth Parallel. 



Mr. King's inspiring personality aided perhaps by the 

 influence of his two younger associates, Messrs. Emmons 

 and Hague, evidently attracted Dr. Becker strongly, for 

 he became deeply interested in the geological problems 

 developed during that Survey and one of them, the Corn- 

 stock Lode, later became the subject of what is perhaps 

 Dr. Becker's best-known geological memoir. (Geology of 

 the Comstock Lode and Washoe District, published in 

 1882.) 



In 1879 when Mr. King was invited by Congress to 

 organize the U. S. Survey and to become its first director, 

 Dr. Becker was among the first called to Mr. King's 

 side, and here we encounter almost immediately the pio- 

 neer quality of Dr. Becker's mind. Notwithstanding the 

 utilitarian demands of the times and the purposes (then 

 utilitarian also) of the Survey, namely to discover and 

 record the mineral resources along the line of the newly- 

 opened trans-continental railroad (Union Pacific) and 

 adjacent territory, we find Dr. Becker seeking out two 

 physicists (Dr. Carl Barns and Dr. William Hallock) to 

 be his assistants and initiating the first of the geophysical 

 studies which thereafter became his chief interest. The 

 details of his plan as conceived at that time are nowhere 

 formulated, but he evidently had as an immediate pur- 

 pose a study of the origin and growth of ore bodies, and 

 I think, even at the outset, he had already in his mind 

 a systematic physical and chemical study of the forma- 

 tion of igneous rocks. At all events the first publications 

 to issue from the Laboratory soon after established in 

 one of the towers of the Smithsonian Institution, had to 

 do with the physical instruments, if they may be thus 

 collectively described, necessary to such a task. I refer 

 to the development of apparatus for the measurement of 

 the high temperatures involved and of a trustworthy 



