CLARENCE KING. 



broader problems of geology, and thus he was often able to sug- 

 gest to others profitable lines of investigation which he himself 

 did not have time to follow out. Thus, during his study of the 

 glaciers of Mt. Shasta, he made the observations that are credited 

 with first suggesting the true origin of the kettle-holes and 

 kames of New England, and his later discovery in the summer 

 of 1874, that the line of islands extending along the southern 

 coast of New England from the heel of Cape Cod to Staten 

 Island contains remnants of the terminal moraine of the great 

 glacier that once covered the northeastern States, had much 

 influence in. inducing the later systematic studies of the Conti- 

 nental glacier which have brought about the most important 

 advance in the science of glaciology since the days of the elder 

 Agassiz. 



It had been the hope and ambition of King and his associates 

 on the 40th Parallel that* the quality and demonstrated useful- 

 ness of their work would be such that it would ultimately lead 

 to the establishment of a general geological survey of the United 

 States, whose permanence would be assured by being made a 

 bureau of one of the executive departments of the government. 

 This result came about much earlier than either of them had 

 anticipated, and its accomplishment, singularly enough, was 

 hastened by the zeal of rival leaders of different government 

 surveys which it entirely superseded. 



After two seasons of field work with the 40th Parallel Survey 

 had demonstrated the practicability of geological map-making 

 in the West, a second survey was inaugurated under the Engi- 

 neer Department by Lieut. George M. Wheeler, which was desig- 

 nated "United States Geographical Surveys West of the 100th 

 Meridian." In 1894 the already existing "Hayden Survey" 

 adopted King's system of making topographic maps as a basis 

 for its geology, employing for this purpose the topographers on 

 the 40th Parallel after their work in the latter survey had been 

 completed, and its title was changed to the "United States Geo- 

 logical and Geographical Surveys of the Territories." The fields 

 of work of these organizations were not limited by any definite 

 bounds, as had been that of the 40th Parallel, and with increas- 

 ing popularity each became desirous of surveying the regions 

 which contained the most remarkable and striking phenomena. 



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