MARCUS BAKER. 
283 
in the service of the commission would alone form a strik¬ 
ing and worthy monument to any geographer. This service 
lasted from December 24, 1898, until the conclusion of the 
arbitration, the following year, and involved a journey to 
Paris and residence there during the hearing of the case. 
May 25, 1899, he married Marian Una Strong, of Kala¬ 
mazoo, Michigan. 
His work with the Survey was resumed, and much of his 
time was given to the completion and publication of his 
valuable and comprehensive Dictionary of Alaskan Geo¬ 
graphic Names, which was issued in 1902, and on a discus¬ 
sion of the Northwest Boundary Surveys of the United States, 
1857-1861, which appeared in 1900, both as bulletins of the 
Survey. 
With the organization of the Carnegie Institution, in 1902, 
it became necessary to have an executive officer who should 
receive and handle the immense volume of correspondence 
which began to pour in, should systematize the office work, 
act as editor and proof-reader of the publications, and assist¬ 
ant secretary of the governing board. The choice fell upon 
Mr. Baker as the best qualified man available, and he was 
appointed to the post February 8, 1902. 
The amount of labor involved was very great, exclusive 
of the preliminary organization, as is shown by the fact that, 
after losing Mr. Baker, it was found necessary to divide the 
work and appoint two officers to do that which had been 
required of him single handed. His friends saw evidences 
of failing strength and remonstrated with him on his habit 
of overworking, but this habit and the high spirit which had 
always sustained him were too strong to be controlled. The 
labor of preparing for publication the first annual report of 
the institution was very great, and was added to the current 
routine, of itself too heavy a burden. A sudden illness 
seized him, and he died very unexpectedly Saturday morn¬ 
ing, December 12, 1903, leaving two young children with 
his wife to mourn his loss, beside a host of devoted friends? 
many of whom had not even known that he was ill. 
