Obituary. 387 



MAJOR C. E. DITTTOK 



Clarence Edward Dutton was born on May 15, 1841, in 

 Wallingford, Connecticut, and died on January 4, 1912, at Engle- 

 wood, New Jersey. He was graduated at Yale College in 1860 

 at the early age of 19 and entered the army in September, 1862 

 as 1st lieutenant and adjutant of the 21st Connecticut regiment. 

 Six months later he was promoted captain. In 1864 he was 

 transferred to the Ordnance Corps, reached the rank of Major 

 May 1, 1890, and was retired at his own request with the same 

 rank, Feb. 1, 1901. 



Although he was in the military service from his majority to 

 his death, the best years of his life were spent in geological work 

 and it is for this that he will be remembered. As he informed 

 Mr. J. S. Diller,* his interest was first attracted to paleontology, 

 which he studied under the guidance of Hall and Whitfield, 

 while he was stationed at the Watervliet arsenal. Later when at 

 Washington he became acquainted with Henry, Baird and Powell 

 and by the first was induced to consent to a detail for duty with 

 the U. S. Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky 

 Mountain Region, beginning May 15, 1875. In this position he 

 devoted himself to the study of the Plateau regions of the far 

 West and especially of the physical problems there presented. 

 His results are recorded in three monographs of which the second 

 forms Monograph II of the present U. S. Geological Survey and 

 contains Mr. W. H. Holmes's marvellous illustrations of the 

 Grand Canon. The material for this volume and for his 

 Geology of the High Plateaus of Utah had been gathered under 

 the Powell Survey and thus belong to a period when " explora- 

 tion " or " reconnaissance " represented more accurately than 

 " survey " the standard aimed at. This was in the circumstances 

 inevitable. At the close of the war of secession almost nothing 

 was known of the geology of the far West and it was impossible 

 even to plan a thorough survey until the general nature of the 

 country had been ascertained. In addition to his own work he 

 contributed lithological discussions to Mr. Gilbert's famous 

 memoir on the Henry Mountains. 



These early works of Dutton as well as his later publications 

 are marked by clearness and simplicity of presentation. Very 

 few American men of science have possessed to so marked a 

 degree that sympathy with the reader which is the secret of 

 arranging ideas in the order in which they will be most easily 

 grasped, and that lucidity of statement unattainable without a 

 copious vocabulary. Ease of expression, however, may be a 

 dangerous gift and Dutton did not always reason soundly. 



A writer thus gifted is not merely widely read and quoted but 

 is given merit to which he makes no claim. Dutton frankly 

 acknowledged the fact that Babbage and John Herschel before 

 1840 were independently led to the theory of isostasy. Dutton 



* See Mr. Dilier's excellent paper on Dutton, Bull. Seism. Soc. Amer., vol. i, 

 No. 4, Dec. 1911. 



