B 4 It fl 17D 
 
REESE LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 Class 
 
 
JOSIAH 
 
 DWIGHT 
 
 WHITNEY 
 
LIFE AND LETTERS OF 
 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
LIFK AND LKTTIRS 
 
 TOSJAH -vVH,,.i r WHITN 
 
 (Citf <%?*.>rt<*i . {>}?* - r . *>*<: 
 y. Z). Whitney. ' Aetat. about 7( 
 
LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWIN TENNEY BREWSTER 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 WHITNEY'S OWL'' 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 (OTbc fttoerjubc press 
 1909 
 
HEESJS 
 
 . 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY EDWIN TENNEY BREWSTER 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published November IQOQ 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE original idea of this biography is, in part, 
 Professor Whitney's own. Some time before 
 his death, he arranged with Professor William 
 H. Brewer of Yale University, who had been 
 his chief assistant on the California Geologi- 
 cal Survey, that Professor Brewer should at 
 some future time write the history of their 
 work on the Pacific coast. Of this task Pro- 
 fessor Brewer had made a considerable be- 
 ginning, and his ample notes are the basis of 
 so much of the present work as deals with 
 the period between 1860 and 1874. On this 
 portion of my work I have, besides, been 
 greatly aided by Mr. Charles F. Hoffmann, 
 Chief Topographer of the California Survey, 
 and by the late Robert E. C. Stearns of Los 
 Angeles. Dr. Stearns had been, since the 
 early days of the state, among the most emi- 
 nent men of science in California; to him I 
 owe the advantage of a competent opinion of 
 surveyors and survey from the outside. 
 
 The book in its present form is the project 
 of Professor Whitney's immediate family, and 
 especially of his only surviving sister. She in 
 particular has collected most of the materials, 
 
 206391 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 culled out the significant portions of a volu- 
 minous correspondence, and supplied from her 
 own recollection a large part of the personal 
 detail, especially of the earlier chapters. Other 
 members of the family have contributed in 
 various ways; and Mr. James L. Whitney has, 
 in addition, read the entire proof. 
 
 My hearty thanks are due also to Professors 
 Davis and Wolff of Harvard University; to 
 Miss Mary H. Rollins, who prepared the ac- 
 companying bibliography; and most of all, 
 and for more services than I can well enu- 
 merate, to my friend Mr. Lindsay Swift. 
 
 Professor Whitney himself merits abun- 
 dantly this memorial. He served on the first 
 geological survey of New Hampshire, and be- 
 gan his professional work when New York 
 State was geologically an unknown land. He 
 took part in the scientific exploration of the 
 nearer West, and did more than any other 
 man to make known the mineral resources of 
 this portion of North America. In addition, 
 he added to the geological map of the United 
 States the whole of California and much of 
 Washington, Oregon, and Nevada. He helped 
 to advance geology from small beginnings into 
 the modern science, and he was besides one 
 of the small group of German-trained instruc- 
 tors who made the American university. He is, 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 therefore, both in science and in the higher 
 education, a forerunner of the present era and 
 a representative of a great day which is no 
 more. 
 
 E. T. B. 
 
 ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS, 
 September i, 1909. 
 

CONTENTS 
 
 I. BOYHOOD. 1819-1839 . i 
 
 II. DR. JACKSON AND THE NEW HAMPSHIRE 
 
 SURVEY. 1839-1842 28, 
 
 III. IN EUROPE. 1842-1847 61 
 
 IV. THE LAKE SUPERIOR SURVEY. 1847-1850 . 88 
 V. THE METALLIC WEALTH OF THE UNITED 
 
 STATES. 1850-1854 113 
 
 VI. UNION COLLEGE AND THE STATE SURVEYS. 
 
 1855-1860 150 
 
 VII. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA SUR- 
 VEY. 1860 AND 1861 182 
 
 VIII. THE SEARCH AFTER A HIGH MOUNTAIN. 
 
 1862-1864 208 
 
 IX. THE MIDDLE YEARS OF THE CALIFORNIA 
 
 SURVEY. 1865-1869 241 
 
 X. THE LAST YEARS OF THE CALIFORNIA SUR- 
 VEY. 1869-1874 268 
 
 XI. THE RESULTS OF THE CALIFORNIA SURVEY 291 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 XII. THE STURGIS-HOOPER PROFESSORSHIP. 1874- 
 
 1879 313 
 
 XIII. THE LAST OF THE CALIFORNIA REPORTS. 
 
 1879-1882 340 
 
 XIV. THE CENTURY DICTIONARY 357 
 
 TITLES, APPOINTMENTS, AND MEMBERSHIPS IN 
 
 LEARNED SOCIETIES 385 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY . 387 
 
 INDEX 403 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY (photogravure) Frontispiece 
 From a photograph by Marshall in 1889. 
 
 WHITNEY'S OWL (Athene Whitneyi Cooper) 
 
 Vignette on Title-page 
 
 Colorado Valley, California. The smallest owl yet 
 (1870) discovered within the United States. An 
 unique specimen, named for J. D. Whitney. 
 
 ANCESTORS OF J. D. WHITNEY {photogravure) . . 4 
 
 Thomas Dwight, Abel Whitney, J. D. Whitney, Sr. 
 From old family portraits. 
 
 THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN 42 
 
 After a drawing by J. D. Whitney. From Report of 
 the Geological Survey of New Hampshire in 184.0 
 under Dr. Charles T. Jackson. 
 
 THE FLUME 58 
 
 After a drawing byj. D. Whitney. From Report of 
 the Geological Survey of New Hampshire in 1840 
 under Dr. Charles T. Jackson. 
 
 J. D. WHITNEY (photogravure) 68 
 
 From a crayon made about 1845, possibly by Cheney 
 or Alpheus Morse. 
 
 SAIL ROCK, LAKE SUPERIOR 90 
 
 After a drawing by J. D. Whitney. From a Report 
 of the Survey of Lake Superior, 1847-30. 
 
xii ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 ARCHED ROCK, MACKINAW, LAKE SUPERIOR. . .108 
 
 After a drawing by J. D. Whitney. From a Report 
 of the Survey of Lake Superior, 1847-50. 
 
 J. D. WHITNEY (photogravure) 130 
 
 From a daguerreotype made by Whipple of Boston 
 about 1830. 
 
 GEOLOGICAL GROUP 190 
 
 William M. Gabb, J. D. Whitney, Clarence King, 
 Chester Averill, William Ashburner, C. F. Hoff- 
 mann, William H. Brewer. 
 
 From a photograph made in December, 1863. 
 
 MT. SHASTA, CALIFORNIA (14,380 ft.) 224 
 
 MT. RAINIER, WASHINGTON, SOMETIMES CALLED 
 TACOMA (14,363 ft.) 258 
 
 MT. HOOD, OREGON (11,932 ft), AS SEEN FROM 
 PORTLAND, DISTANT 50 MILES 266 
 
 MT. ST. HELENS, OREGON (10,000 ft), AS SEEN FROM 
 
 PORTLAND, DISTANT 68 MILES 280 
 
 Mt. Rainier at the left, 1 10 miles north. 
 
 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY (photogravure) .... 330 
 From a photograph by Alman in 1877. 
 
 FAMILY GROUP OF J. D. WHITNEY, SR.'S, CHILDREN 
 
 AND GRANDCHILDREN UNDER THE JONATHAN ED- 
 WARDS ELM IN NORTHAMPTON, 1878 .... 336 
 
 THE Two BROTHERS (photogravure) 368 
 
 Josiah Dwight and William Dwight Whitney. 
 From a photograph by Marian B. Whitney in 1887. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS xiii 
 
 THE BOULDER 382 
 
 The dome-shaped boulder marking Professor Whit- 
 ney's grave is a block of Cambrian quartzite brought 
 by glacial action from its distant bed into the sub- 
 urbs of Northampton, where it was unearthed in the 
 grading of a road. Here it was discovered by one 
 of the Whitney family in 1875, an d moved to the 
 home-lawn. Professor Whitney often spoke admir- 
 ingly of it. Hence its fitness for its present use. 
 
 THE BOOK-PLATE on the inside of the front cover repre- 
 sents Mt. Whitney (14,502 ft), the highest moun- 
 tain in the United States outside of Alaska. It was 
 discovered and named for Mr. Whitney during his 
 absence, by his associates, Prof. W. H. Brewer and 
 Clarence King, in 1864. It was not ascended till 
 1873, when W. A. Goodyear, another of Mr. Whit- 
 ney's associates, ascended and measured the height. 
 The motto " Altiora Petimus " and the figures of 
 the mining surveyors are taken from the Reports 
 of the California Survey. 
 
f UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF 
 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 BOYHOOD. 1819-1839 
 
 To the Brahmin caste of Dr. Holmes, along 
 with Adamses and Peabodys and Eliots, be- 
 long the Dwights. The common ancestor of 
 them all was John Dwight of Dedham, who 
 came over from the English Dedham, in 1634 
 or 1635, and their habitat was central and 
 western Massachusetts and the lower valley 
 of the Connecticut, together with those parts 
 of New York State that were settled from New 
 England. They took to themselves wives of the 
 Woolseys, Edwardses, Lymans, Hookers, 
 Strongs, Hawleys, Sedgwicks. Their sons 
 graduated at Yale, and became clergymen, 
 merchants, members of Congress, soldiers, 
 missionaries, editors, lawyers, authors, or phy- 
 sicians. In times of peace, they were captains 
 and majors in the state militia; at the taking 
 of Louisburg, in the Revolution, in the War 
 of 1812, and in the Rebellion, a Dwight com- 
 
2 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 manded at the least a regiment. Their type 
 appears in the three presidents whom they 
 gave to Yale College, and in the heads of their 
 great mercantile house scholars, who were 
 also men of affairs; business men, who served 
 faithfully the state. It is a thoroughly sound 
 and able stock, and although none of its mem- 
 bers have been endowed with the highest gifts, 
 few have fallen to mediocrity. Few families 
 have maintained more consistently their level 
 of capacity and achievement. 
 
 Clarissa Dwight, daughter of Colonel Josiah 
 Dwight of Springfield, heiress also and belle, 
 -married Abel Whitney, whose father, Rev. 
 Aaron Whitney of Petersham, had been a 
 noted Tory in the days before the Revolution. 
 The Whitneys, like the Dwights, were of the 
 migration of 1635, in the person of John Whit- 
 ney of Watertown. He was from London ; but 
 the family is a thirteenth-century stock, of the 
 region about Whitney Town, in Herefordshire, 
 close to the border of Wales. Abel Whitney, 
 graduated from Harvard in 1773, took to the 
 law, helped as major of militia to put xlown 
 Shays's Rebellion, lost his property in the un- 
 settled times which followed the war, and dy- 
 ing at fifty-one, left to his twenty-year-old son, 
 the first Josiah Dwight Whitney, the care of 
 Clarissa Dwight and her six younger children. 
 
BOYHOOD 
 
 The frugality and the business acumen which 
 Abel Whitney lacked, fell in double measure 
 upon his son. The boy took service with his 
 uncles, the Dwights, and becoming in time 
 their purchasing agent, lived two years in 
 England, whence in 1815 he brought home the 
 first news of Waterloo. After that, he set up 
 for himself in Northampton in partnership 
 with a younger brother, established a private 
 banking-house in 1829, and in 1833 founded 
 the institution which later became the North- 
 ampton National Bank, and of which he was 
 for more than thirty years cashier and president. 
 By these various means, he so far retrieved 
 the fortunes of the family, that he became one 
 of the half-dozen most prosperous citizens of 
 Northampton. He built him a house on the 
 main street of the town, on the site of Jonathan 
 Edwards's old dwelling, designing the building 
 himself, and utilizing the old door-step of the 
 great divine. It was this circumstance, proba- 
 bly, together with the fact that one of his uncles 
 married Rhoda Edwards, that got him the 
 name of being himself a descendant of Edwards ; 
 though indeed he was both able enough and 
 righteous enough to justify the reputation of 
 Edwards's blood. 
 
 Josiah Whitney, senior, had become a con- 
 firmed bachelor of thirty-two before, having 
 
4 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 done his full duty by his father's children, he 
 was free to establish a family of his own. In 
 1818 he married Sarah Williston, whom he 
 took, a girl of nineteen, from behind the pre- 
 ceptress's desk of Hopkins Academy at Hadley. 
 She was a beautiful and gracious woman, of 
 rare loveliness of character, whom her friends 
 admired and her family adored. She was, 
 however, morbidly conscientious. The daugh- 
 ter of a country clergyman, brought up in a 
 time of theological stress, she lived under the 
 fear of an angry God, and gave to the concerns 
 of her soul efforts which a wholesome-minded 
 woman would have spent more wisely. Eight 
 children she bore in fifteen years, and died 
 when the youngest was a few weeks old. 
 
 A year of the confusion of widowers' houses, 
 the elder children sent away to school, the 
 younger given over to the care of relatives 
 whom they did not love, and Josiah Whitney, 
 senior, drove to Goshen and brought home 
 his second wife Clarissa, the daughter of Capt. 
 Malachi James. The new Mrs. Whitney was 
 about the age of the first and cousin to her 
 brother's wife ; a farmer's daughter, rich in all 
 kindly virtues, and rich soon in the sponta- 
 neous love of her step-children. She too was 
 a religious woman, who undertook solemnly 
 her obligations. " I hope," she writes a few 
 
Thomas Diulght Abel Whitney 
 
 J. D. Whitney, Sr. 
 
 Ancestors of J. D. Whitney 
 

 
 
BOYHOOD 
 
 weeks after her marriage, " that it was not 
 without some feeble desire of doing something 
 for the honor and glory of God that I entered 
 into this responsible place." Responsible in- 
 deed it was ; and somewhat arduous withal, 
 when, to the eight children of her husband, 
 Clarissa Whitney added five of her own. 
 
 The eldest of the thirteen is the subject of 
 this biography, Josiah Dwight Whitney, Jr., 
 who was born in Northampton, November 23, 
 1819, and was therefore fourteen years old 
 when his mother died. The education of 
 parents usually proceeds at the expense of the 
 first child, and Josiah in his early years under- 
 went a discipline which the younger members 
 of the family were fortunately spared. Under 
 the influence of older and sterner members of 
 her family, his mother often did violence to 
 her gentle heart, and in the effort to break her 
 little son's will, punished him unreasonably. 
 The harsh regimen seems in no wise to have 
 diminished Josiah's love for his parents; it may 
 well, nevertheless, have been the cause of a 
 certain cloudiness of temper which he never 
 completely outgrew. 
 
 The younger Josiah Whitney made his first 
 acquaintance with the world beyond North- 
 ampton during the summer after he was 
 eight. There were only district schools in his 
 
6 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 native town, but twenty miles away among the 
 hills at Plainfield, Rev. Moses Hallock took 
 boys into his family to be educated. Visiting 
 has always been a means of culture in New 
 England, and in the old days it was the custom 
 to exchange children among relatives, or to 
 send them away for a winter, that they might 
 attend school and learn something of the ways 
 of other households. " Parson " Hallock had 
 somewhat systematized the general practice. 
 He took four or five little boys into his house, 
 taught them the common branches, trained 
 them to do his chores, and presented each with 
 a lamb to bring up the animal, however, re- 
 verting on the boy's departure. The Hallocks 
 were no ordinary people, and their home 
 school, during the thirty-five years and more 
 of its existence, helped to educate some three 
 hundred pupils, among them the poet Bryant 
 and John Brown of Ossawatomie. 
 
 Here went Josiah Whitney, in the summer 
 of 1828, when the parson was nearly seventy 
 and much of the teaching had fallen to his 
 daughter, Miss "Patty" Hallock. With him 
 were three other Northampton lads, one of 
 them a grandson of Caleb Strong, Governor 
 of Massachusetts. The boys reserved their 
 opinion on the quality of their instruction, but 
 were unanimous concerning the plainness of 
 
BOYHOOD 
 
 Plainfield living. One of the four ran away 
 and went home, complaining that, since his 
 education had been in progress, he had had 
 nothing to eat but potatoes and milk. Those, 
 however, were the days when parental author- 
 ity was wont to assert itself, and the little lad 
 went back to his potatoes in short order; while, 
 by way of making him remember his lesson, 
 he went on foot, twenty-odd miles over New 
 England hills. 
 
 Josiah remained with the Hallocks until fall ; 
 then returned home, the proud bearer of the 
 following document: 
 
 This certifies that Master Josiah D. Whit- 
 ney has, while my pupil, conducted with much 
 propriety and beauty. 
 
 Three months have passed fleetly and de- 
 lightfully along, enlivened by his vivacity, and 
 cheered by his intellectual improvement and 
 grateful affection. 
 
 Ever attentive to instruction, O ! may he 
 listen to the precepts of "Eternal Wisdom," 
 and so bloom above the skies ! 
 
 His affectionate instructor, 
 
 MARTHA HALLOCK. 
 
 One incident only has survived from these 
 early days. Josiah was a lad of eight and an 
 
8 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 aunt was teasing him, saying that when he grew 
 up he would probably have to content himself 
 with being a boot-black. "Well," replies the 
 boy, " if I am nothing but a boot-black, I '11 be 
 the best boot-black there is ! " 
 
 After the summer at Plainfield, private 
 schools and the Southampton Academy took 
 care of Josiah's education until he was twelve ; 
 then he entered the Round Hill School at 
 Northampton. This was an unusual institution, 
 a copy of the French and German schools for 
 boys, and " the first in the new continent to 
 connect gymnastics with a purely literary es- 
 tablishment." It had been founded by Joseph 
 Green Cogswell and 'George Bancroft; the 
 former was still its head. Its students came 
 largely from Massachusetts and New York, but 
 there were many also from the South and 
 West, and a few even from Mexico, the West 
 Indies, Brazil, and Europe ; while among the 
 three hundred pupils of its short ten years 
 of existence, a remarkable number afterwards 
 became famous. Amidst these uncommon ad- 
 vantages, Josiah remained two years. Then 
 in the autumn of 1834, Round Hill proving, 
 it would seem, a little too cosmopolitan and 
 worldly, he followed one of the masters, Stiles 
 French, to the school which he established at 
 New Haven. 
 
BOYHOOD 
 
 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY, SENIOR, TO 
 STILES FRENCH, ESQ. 
 
 NORTHAMPTON, October 4, 1834. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, With this I send you my 
 son Josiah, whom I commit to your care, with 
 a full confidence that you will do all that can 
 be done to promote his education and prepare 
 him for usefulness in whatever sphere Provi- 
 dence may design for him. Such is my general 
 wish, and when I say "education," you will un- 
 derstand me as meaning not merely cultivation 
 of the intellect, but also of the heart and manners 
 everything, in short, that prepares a man for 
 usefulness here and happiness hereafter. 
 
 I am not aware that Josiah is " immoral," or 
 has any vicious habits. You may well suppose 
 that he has suffered from the loss of a devoted 
 mother one who was eminently qualified to 
 superintend the education of her children. 
 This loss he has severely felt nor do I think 
 he has escaped imbibing some, perhaps many, 
 wrong notions and feelings from associating 
 with the boys on Round Hill. I trust they are 
 not so deeply rooted but that you may easily 
 counteract them. 
 
 I have not consented to his going to New 
 Haven and incurring such an expense which 
 I cannot afford for my other children with- 
 
io JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 out a full understanding with him, that he is 
 to make the most of his time, apply himself 
 closely to his studies, and strive to fit himself 
 for business. On his part there seems to be a 
 cordial acceptance of these terms and a deter- 
 mination faithfully to fulfill the conditions. It is 
 of the utmost importance to him for altho' I 
 shall, if no misfortune befalls me, have some- 
 thing to give my children that will aid them; 
 when divided among them it will do but little 
 toward making them independent, and they 
 must depend upon their own exertions. I wish 
 to do all I can to fit them for taking care of 
 themselves and being useful, rather than lay 
 up the money for them. 
 
 It was the earnest desire of his mother, and 
 is mine, that Josiah may become a devoted 
 minister of Christ. At present he is inclined 
 to go into mercantile business, and I wish 
 therefore the two objects to be kept in view. 
 From what you have known of his education, 
 and what you will learn from him, you will be 
 better able to judge of the studies he had best 
 pursue than I am. I wish he should retain all 
 he has learned, that would prepare him to enter 
 college (in case he should hereafter alter his 
 mind), and to make such advances in these 
 studies, that he might enter at an advanced 
 standing. You will oblige me by reporting to 
 
BOYHOOD ii 
 
 me his progress and conduct, and your views 
 of the best course for him, as often as con- 
 venient. I beg at any rate that he may not 
 suffer for want si full employment. 
 
 Josiah is very desirous of continuing his at- 
 tention to drawing. I have not denied him the 
 privilege, but have referred him to you. I have 
 not much money to spare for mere accomplish- 
 ments^ but I think it important that every 
 young man should have some occupation for 
 his hours of relaxation, to prevent his falling 
 into bad habits or bad company. He is, I 
 think, naturally shy, especially of the best so- 
 ciety, and therefore perhaps the more needs 
 such occupation. I would not however think it 
 proper to waste much time or money in that 
 way. If you can draw him to be interested in 
 such society, I think it would be of essential 
 service to him. 
 
 Thus the father to the pedagogue ; and thus, 
 from time to time, to the boy himself : 
 
 MY DEARLY BELOVED SON, . . . I cannot 
 express to you how much I was gratified by 
 your visit and chiefly because I saw an im- 
 provement in your character and feelings, 
 which assured me that you were in the way of 
 preparation for happiness and usefulness. . . . 
 
12 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 I hope you will write again very soon, and 
 tell me all about yourself and your own feel- 
 ings and wishes; these are what I am most 
 interested in. During the present term you 
 will have time to think much of the subject of 
 your future course of life. I shall be glad to 
 consult your taste in the matter, but I trust 
 you will see the absolute necessity of having 
 some occupation by which to obtain a living, 
 when you cease to lean upon me and as 
 that day must surely come before long, it would 
 be the height of folly not to anticipate and 
 prepare for it. ... 
 
 I want you to bear in mind constantly that 
 the happiness of your whole life depends very 
 much upon the improvement you make and 
 the habits you form during the time that you 
 are with Mr. French. Habits of self-denial and 
 habits of application to whatever you under- 
 take, can alone fit you for usefulness or happi- 
 ness. ... I do not wish you to be mean in 
 anything, but careful and to waste nothing. 
 Nor do I wish you to practice so much self- 
 denial as I was obliged to the first 40 years of 
 my life. But you must avoid contracting waste- 
 ful or extravagant habits of any kind, of which 
 self-indulgence is one of the most dangerous. 
 Only look forward to the time not far distant 
 when you must provide for your own wants, 
 
BOYHOOD 13 
 
 and you will see the important bearing of the 
 subject. You cannot then feel an honorable 
 independence, unless you are able to provide for 
 yourself, without asking favors of friends. . . . 
 
 Avoid all places of vice or doubtful amuse- 
 ment. Never let me hear of your being once 
 seen in an oyster shop, or eating or drinking 
 house, or even Confectioners' Shops, unless it 
 be for the purpose of getting sugar plums for 
 the children. Such places are m the certain 
 road to ruin. . . . 
 
 Within the last week the dead body of 
 your late schoolmate, David Adams, has been 
 brought home from Pittsfield. It is a severe 
 blow to his widowed mother but she has 
 the consolation of believing that he was pre- 
 pared to depart to a better world. I hope it 
 will lead his companions, especially my dear 
 Son, to consider the uncertainty of life, and 
 the importance of being prepared for an ex- 
 change of worlds. I hope you will not forget 
 the good counsel your own dear mother has 
 so often given you how painful would be 
 the thought that any one of us should be miss- 
 ing at the great day. 
 
 I shall be disappointed if you do not write 
 us this week. . . . 
 
 Yours truly and affectionately, J. D. W. 
 
 If you have a Virgil that you do not need, 
 
14 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 either at home or with you, it may save me 
 the expense of a new one if at home, tell us 
 where it is ; if at New Haven send it by the 
 first opportunity. . . . 
 
 Don't let your next letter stop till you get 
 to the bottom of the third page. 
 
 Meanwhile, in the household at Northamp- 
 ton, there had been much anxious thought and 
 much anxious prayer over Josiah's future. The 
 immediate call of the Dwight blood was toward 
 a business career; Whitneys, Willistons, and 
 Birdseyes had followed the professions. Both 
 parents would have rejoiced had their eldest- 
 born felt called to the ministry. 
 
 Either choice would have satisfied the father, 
 whose own health threatened to break down 
 under his unremitting toil, so that he was impa- 
 tient to see a son on the way toward filling his 
 place. As for the boy, he showed no special 
 talent for business; and on the other hand, here 
 he was, fifteen, and not even converted. He 
 had a decided gift for music, like most of his 
 family ; he sang well, and played several mu- 
 sical instruments, self-taught. He drew not un- 
 skillfully, and he loved pictures and all beautiful 
 things. At New Haven, moreover, he had come 
 under the influence of the elder Silliman, whose 
 popular lectures on chemistry had founded in 
 
,SE L! 
 
 OF THE 
 
 f UNIVERSITY 
 
 ''BOYHOOD 
 
 him an interest in natural science. The trouble 
 was that the world called him with too many 
 voices ; and no one of them sounding louder 
 than the rest, he put off the decision and 
 headed for college. 
 
 With Harvard in the hands of the Unita- 
 rians, Yale was somewhat inevitable for either 
 a Dwight or a Whitney. Josiah, however, went 
 first to Phillips Academy at Andover, a school 
 even then famous and sixty years old. There, 
 in a year, he completed his preparation for col- 
 lege, anticipated the studies of the freshman 
 class, and was ready to enter as a sophomore 
 in the fall of 1836. It was, nevertheless, doubt- 
 ful how far Josiah would be able to carry out 
 his project. His father's health still continued 
 to be uncertain ; and Josiah, the idea all his 
 own, offered, if that did not mend, to give up 
 all plan of a college education, return home, 
 and enter his father's bank. 
 
 One letter only survives from the Andover 
 days ; to his sister Elizabeth, who, two years 
 younger than himself, was of all his brothers 
 and sisters his special friend and confidant. 
 
 ANDOVER, February 22, 1836. 
 
 MY DEAR SISTER, . . . Upon rummaging 
 my trunks to find the last letter, I have found 
 that the date of my last letter from home is 
 
16 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 Jan y i, and here it is 22, Feb y . I have received 
 two bundles from home, one containing Chess- 
 men, etc., and the other a pair of pantaloons 
 and Todd's " Student's Manual." I felt in all 
 the pockets, shook the book, turned the papers 
 over and over again, and knocked over the 
 table hoping to find a letter, but no, not so 
 much as one word. Those new pens will be 
 rusty for want of use. A fortnight ago last 
 Thursday afternoon, not having felt well for 
 the last week and our class being engaged in 
 reviewing what was familiar to me, I walked 
 down to Boston [20 miles] with one of our 
 boarders. ... I engaged to meet my compan- 
 ion in Boston at io|- Saturday, but although 
 I waited until 12 he did not make his appear- 
 ance. So I started alone at \2\ and reached 
 Andover at six o'clock. . . . How does the 
 Northampton Female Seminary flourish? I 
 should like to hear all about it, how far you 
 have got in your Greek, and how far in your 
 Hebrew. There is a female school here, where 
 several of our boarders and two of Capt. West's 
 daughters attend. Broad hints are thrown out 
 that young ladies come to Andover to school 
 for the sake of finding a help-mate. I should 
 like to hear about the boys' school, which I 
 suppose William attends. The present term of 
 our school is out in about 6 weeks. We have 
 
BOYHOOD 17 
 
 some good scholars and some blockheads. All 
 the boys in my class are fine fellows. . . . Please 
 to tell Father that I should like to have him 
 send me some money. . . . 
 
 Your aff. brother, JOSIAH. 
 
 The letters which young Whitney wrote 
 home during his three years at Yale, and the 
 replies which the entire family, as fast as they 
 learned to write, joined in sending him, would 
 alone fill this volume. I select, therefore, a 
 small portion of those which he addressed to 
 the same charming correspondent whose ac- 
 quaintance the reader has already made. She 
 on her side, during her brother's course at New 
 Haven, graduated at the female seminary in 
 Northampton, went as pupil-teacher to the 
 Abbot female seminary at Andover, graduated 
 at the head of her class, and by the time Josiah 
 was through college, was settled at Ipswich, 
 teaching in still another female seminary there. 
 The two, therefore, though they wrote at length 
 and intimately, saw little of each other. Postage 
 in those days was high, twenty-five cents for 
 the customary single large sheet, folded to be 
 its own envelope and sealed with wax. Such 
 a missive, well crossed or written upside down 
 between the lines, would contain a third of one 
 of the chapters of this book. One such letter a 
 
18 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 month from each absent member was the rule 
 in the Whitney family. Those which follow, 
 written during Josiah's college days and up 
 to the reform of the postal laws in 1845, should 
 be understood to give, in general, less than 
 half the actual text. 
 
 TO HIS SISTER ELIZABETH 
 YALE COLLEGE, NEW HAVEN, March, 1837. 
 
 . . . Well, I suppose that you will like to hear 
 how matters and things go on in College. Just 
 imagine me with my feet on the top of an 
 Olmsted stove, my room-mate on one side 
 of me and a table between us covered with 
 books and papers to the height of 3 or 4 feet, 
 engaged in writing a composition which has 
 got to be read before the division the next day. 
 No enviable task! Or imagine that I have just 
 completed the formidable array of sums for 
 the next recitation, and am ready to sit down 
 and write you as long a letter as I can. Every- 
 thing goes on in College in the same regular 
 routine ; recitation succeeds recitation. We go 
 to breakfast, dinner, and supper just like so 
 many automatons. We now rise at 5^ o'clock, 
 and have evening prayers at the same hour in 
 the afternoon. Perhaps you would like to know 
 how we spend our time that we have which 
 we do not devote to study. In the first place, 
 
BOYHOOD 19 
 
 almost every student belongs to two or three 
 literary societies, for which he has to furnish 
 essays, debates, orations, etc. If a person at- 
 tends to these as he ought to, they require a 
 great deal of time. It is considered an honor 
 to be elected into the societies in the two upper 
 classes. This is one way in which time is- con- 
 sumed. There is another thing which is a sad 
 enemy to time, namely " loafering," i. e. visit- 
 ing one another's rooms without any ostensible 
 purpose, to pass away time. Every one who 
 rooms in College is liable to this, and this is 
 the greatest objection to rooming in College. 
 
 Another thing which requires time and 
 which every one must attend to if he hopes 
 to have any sort of health, is exercise. For 
 that purpose we walk about the streets and 
 alleys of New Haven, play in the Gymnasium, 
 etc. One of the great bores in college is decla- 
 mation in the chapel, which we are obliged 
 to perform twice a term before the faculty and 
 all the students. I have made a good many 
 pleasant acquaintances this term, not only in 
 our class but in other classes. College is a 
 world in miniature; there are a great many fine 
 fellows who would appear to advantage any- 
 where, and a great many who are more fit for 
 the stable or the grog-shop than for the literary 
 pursuits of a college. . . . But although en- 
 
20 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 grossed with the busy cares and pleasures at- 
 tendant on my residence here, do not think, 
 my dear sister, that my feelings seldom revert 
 to the scenes in which you are a partaker. Far 
 from it, " Home, sweet home " is ever present 
 to my mind, to comfort and to cheer. ... I 
 should suppose that all Northampton had been 
 converted to Abolitionism as they have had so 
 many lectures there. We don't hear so much 
 about the subject lately, as we used to. Mr. 
 Webster is expected to deliver an address here 
 to-morrow, as he passes through on his way 
 home. ... It is about the time now for play- 
 ing ball, and the whole green is covered with 
 students engaged in that fine game: for my 
 part, I could never make a ball player. I can't 
 see where the ball is coming soon enough to 
 put the ball-club in its way. 
 
 TO HIS SISTER ELIZABETH 
 
 NEW HAVEN, January 29, 1838. 
 
 Praps you will ax what I have been doing 
 this term. Well, I st , I have not injured my 
 health by hard study this will no doubt be a 
 comfort to you to hear. 2 nd , I have not injured 
 the system by an overabundance of rich food, 
 and while boarding in Commons, have carefully 
 refrained from all the rich and tempting variety 
 of pies, cakes, roast turkeys, oyster pies, etc., 
 
BOYHOOD 21 
 
 daily spread before me. 3 d , I have not blown 
 myself away by playing the flute, nor got into 
 a scrape playing the fiddle. On the contrary, I 
 have been a good boy, or as Horace says u a 
 good shoemaker." Our venerable Professor of 
 Unnatural Philosophy and Stoves [evidently 
 the physicist, Olmsted], being confined to 
 bed with the lockjaw caused by uttering some 
 of his own vile English, has given us more to 
 do this term than usual. Juniors are lazy ani- 
 mals to make the best of them, but compared 
 with Seniors they are locomotives flying at the 
 rate of 50 miles an hour, the personification 
 of industry, the acme of diligence. . . . How 
 comes on Abolition ? I want you to send me 
 on the first copy of the Northampton Aboli- 
 tion paper (if it is ever started), as soon as pos- 
 sible. I received a very ancient copy of the 
 " Emancipator " the other day. I could hardly 
 decipher the date, but should suppose from 
 various circumstances that it might have been 
 issued about the time of the Universal Deluge, 
 and that Noah had used it to teach his oldest 
 child his A, B, Cs out of. 
 
 TO HIS SISTER ELIZABETH 
 
 NEW HAVEN, June 26, 1838. 
 
 ... It was so dull here when I got back 
 that on Friday I went down to N.York to visit 
 
22 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 the exhibition of the National Academy of De- 
 sign, et cetera. We went down in the " New 
 York," the fastest steamer in the world, perform- 
 ing the distance of 86 miles in 4 hours, forty 
 minutes! ... I spent about four hours in the 
 Ex. and then went all about the city to pur- 
 chase materials for Painting in Oil, and some 
 Music. . . . The next day we returned and 
 once more took up our stations in the cider- 
 mill track of College Life. You cannot imagine 
 a pleasanter room than that which, as No. i, fell 
 to my share; a corner room with two bedrooms, 
 each in itself a* pleasant room, delightfully 
 shaded and looking out upon the Green, and 
 comfortably furnished and ornamented with 
 paintings by a " distinguished master? Here I, 
 solus, lounge or paint or fiddle or study , the 
 latter not very often however. We have enough 
 to do; Optics, Astronomy, History, German, 
 with lectures on clams and squids and lobsters 
 and shelfology and also on Botany pretty well 
 occupy our time. I have also commenced 
 Painting in Oil, for my own amusement. . . . 
 
 If the day is pleasant, I very often go out of 
 the city 3 or 4 miles, after breakfast, and spend 
 the forenoon rambling about for flowers and 
 sketches. Besides painting, which I devote as 
 much time to as I can possibly spare, I am very 
 enthusiastic in learning German. I and a class- 
 
BOYHOOD 23 
 
 mate, who is from Pennsylvania, where they 
 talk German a good deal, hardly speak to each 
 other in English. I am reading Goethe's Au- 
 tobiography. ... I have the honor to be 
 elected member of the <I> B K and X A 3> So- 
 cieties. 
 
 TO HIS SISTER ELIZABETH 
 
 NEW HAVEN, February 3, 1839. 
 
 Since I wrote last I have been home and 
 enjoyed a delightful vacation of a couple of 
 weeks. I reached home New Year's morning 
 just in time to enjoy the sight of an innumer- 
 able number of stockings stretched along from 
 one side of the fireplace to the other, all filled, 
 nay stuffed with good things, among others 
 one inscribed with my name, in which there 
 was a beautiful bible from Mother. . . . 
 
 Here I am, the same as ever, studying Philo- 
 sophy and Political Economy a little, painting 
 a little, reading a little, fencing a little, doing 
 nothing a good deal. I am dipping a little 
 into the well of English literature of olden 
 time together with my friend of the musical 
 name. We are reading together Ben Jonson's 
 plays occasionally, or Shakespeare, Jeremy 
 Taylor, Chaucer, Spenser, or perhaps Dryden. 
 Thus we spend many an evening quite com- 
 fortably, leaving Mathematics and all the 
 
24 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 ologies to be scattered to the winds. I think 
 it a great privilege to have good libraries to 
 resort to. 
 
 TO HIS SISTER ELIZABETH 
 
 NORTHAMPTON, Sep lember 4, 1839. 
 
 Commencement, the era in a man's life, 
 went off well, better than anybody expected : 
 in fact it was hinted in some of the papers 
 that a better commencement had not been at- 
 tended in New Haven, and that a finer class 
 never left the walls of Old Yale. However, you 
 know that we never praise ourselves, so that 
 you need not believe any more than you please. 
 As I had to appear twice, once in a Colloquy 
 besides my oration, and as I had to superin- 
 tend the whole concern as chairman of the 
 Committee, and to play the fiddle into the 
 bargain, you may imagine that I was some- 
 what busy, and that no one was more rejoiced 
 to feel that it was all over and successfully 
 over, than myself, as we assembled together 
 for the last time, as a class, to partake of a gen- 
 erous supper, at which were not wanting any 
 of the requisites for enjoyment, and when the 
 feeling of sadness that we were to sever those 
 ties that had held us together for four years, 
 was forced to yield to the general joy. . . . 
 
BOYHOOD 
 
 Well, Father was not at New Haven, nor a 
 soul of any of my relations or friends, much to 
 my disappointment. I assure you I thought of 
 you often on that same day, and while the rest 
 of my classmates were flourishing about with 
 their sisters and other female friends, I was 
 completely solus. . . . The crowd in the city 
 was enormous and the heat astonishing, so 
 that many there were who did sweat much on 
 that eventful day. Our Commencement dinner, 
 for which we were charged $2.00, was com- 
 posed principally of roast pig and succotash; 
 and them is all the particulars about Com- 
 mencement I am going to inflict upon you. 
 ... I start day after to-morrow for Niagara 
 Montreal Quebec Lake Champlain. 
 Good-bye. 
 
 J. D. W., Jr., A. B. 
 
 Three years at Yale had done for Josiah 
 Whitney very much what a college course in 
 his day was intended to do. So much of classics 
 and mathematics as the curriculum prescribed 
 he had dutifully absorbed. In addition, he had 
 learned to ride, to dance, to fence, to enjoy long 
 walks in the country. He sang in the college 
 choir, and played the fiddle, flute, and guitar. 
 He drew accurately, and painted in water colors 
 and in oils. Of modern languages, he read some- 
 
26 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 what freely French, German, Italian, and Span- 
 ish. Of sciences, though his real training came 
 later, he knew the little that the colleges of his 
 day taught of physics, chemistry, astronomy, 
 geology, paleontology, anatomy, mineralogy, 
 botany. More important than the knowledge 
 of any special science, he had been the pupil of 
 Olmsted and Silliman. He had, besides, be- 
 come so omnivorous a reader of English litera- 
 ture, that as an incident to a vacation at home 
 during the winter of his senior year, he de- 
 voured in two weeks, Wordsworth's poems, 
 " Sir Charles Grandison," " The Faerie Queen," 
 Robertson's "Charles V.," Cowper's Letters, 
 Johnson's lives of a half-dozen poets, a book of 
 travels in China, and a controversial work on 
 slavery. In addition, he had already begun to 
 collect a library, chiefly of English classics, 
 modern literature, and science. He aspired to 
 know eight languages and all the natural sci- 
 ences ; but he despised philosophy, cared little 
 for mathematics and hardly more for physics. 
 Chemistry was his chief interest, and geology 
 his avocation. His suggestions of laziness in 
 his letters are merely the undergraduate pose. 
 In reality he was a diligent student, with a 
 tenacious memory and an insatiable interest 
 in the things of the mind. His membership in 
 the <E> B K society is witness to his high aca- 
 
BOYHOOD 27 
 
 demic standing; his chairmanship of his class 
 committee, to his executive ability. 
 
 One failing, nevertheless, neither college life 
 nor his father's reiterated admonitions had 
 been able to cure his native unsociability. 
 Like many another shy man, he could be bril- 
 liant and fascinating in the company of those 
 whom he found congenial, his friends and 
 his family loved and admired him; but he would 
 not put himself out to please people whom he 
 did not like. He had unusual independence of 
 mind ; and he paid the price in a corresponding 
 deficiency of the gregarious instincts. His 
 father thought him extravagant, not because 
 he was wasteful, but because he was fastidious 
 and loved good and costly things. He could 
 do without, but his clothes and his book-bind- 
 ings and his concerts, if he had them at all, 
 must be of the best. Of these two characteris- 
 tics, the one gave him, throughout his life, a 
 cultivated appreciation of all forms of excel- 
 lence ; but the other limited his efficiency till 
 the end. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 DR. JACKSON AND THE NEW HAMPSHIRE 
 SURVEY. 1839-1842 
 
 THE community to which Josiah Whitney re- 
 turned, when after his course at Yale he came 
 back to his father's family to work in his father's 
 bank, and to which he returned many times in 
 the years which followed, was one in which he 
 might easily be happy. The village of North- 
 ampton is a charming one, beautiful for situ- 
 ation, wide and shady of streets, with the great 
 elms and the stately Georgian houses which 
 are the special charm of the older New England 
 towns. The people were all of New England 
 stock, neither poor nor rich, simple, dignified, 
 earnest. If life in such a community appears 
 somewhat straight-laced, let us not forget that 
 the Puritan tradition carried also a familiar 
 acquaintance with two or three of the world's 
 great books, and with some of the best house- 
 hold furniture that human taste has designed. 
 In such a society the Whitneyswere natural 
 leaders. They kept open house for relatives and 
 friends, and the children made long visits back 
 and forth with their cousins. The two elder 
 daughters, Elizabeth and Sarah, largely for the 
 
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SURVEY 29 
 
 adventure, went south to teach in a private 
 school in Georgia; and their southern acquain- 
 tances, in return, visited them at Northampton 
 during several summers. It was a household 
 in which a Virgil or a Classical Dictionary ran 
 through the family ; where the purchase of a 
 stove for the kitchen, a carpet for the parlor, or 
 a lamp for the front hall, were matters to be 
 communicated to absent members ; but where 
 money was always forthcoming for books, for 
 travel, for lectures and concerts, or for expensive 
 schools. It was a family, moreover, that could 
 rejoice to sit down at dinner at " a good long 
 table full of Abolitionists," and advise the re- 
 jection of a suitor, otherwise eligible, who was 
 an Episcopalian and thought it not wicked to 
 attend the theatre. 
 
 The entire family was musical, so that when 
 Josiah, always the devoted slave of his sisters, 
 was not taking them on picnics and horseback 
 rides, doing escort duty of an evening, or 
 dancing with them in the parlor after supper, 
 he was pretty likely to be singing in the family 
 quartette, or playing duets on flute or violin. 
 Those were leisurely days, and often, as the 
 young women sewed, Josiah read aloud Jane 
 Austen, Carlyle, Dickens, and Elizabeth's 
 special discovery, "an English writer of the 
 present day," a comparatively unknown person 
 
30 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 called Tennyson. Josiah was, too, the special 
 favorite and playfellow of the younger children. 
 He welcomed each new addition to the steadily 
 increasing troop, watched with manifest pride 
 the unfolding of their varied gifts and graces, 
 and made himself in amusements as well as in 
 studies their sympathizing friend and adviser; 
 while under his initiative, each child was en- 
 couraged to cultivate whatever musical talent 
 it had, that it might contribute its share to the 
 family enjoyment. 
 
 When, however, it came to settling down 
 to a vocation, Josiah Whitney was in the situ- 
 ation of a squire of dames, who, admiring many 
 ladies, cannot settle his affections upon any 
 one. Art, music, science, business, even the 
 law, attracted him by turns. He even con- 
 sidered buying the farm of an uncle at Portage, 
 New York, who was tired of the wild west, and 
 wanted, as he said, to move back east nearer 
 to his friends, where he could find out oftener 
 than once a week what was going on. Josiah 
 did not like banking, and he did like chemis- 
 try. So for want of any better plan, he went to 
 Philadelphia for the winter of 1839, to study 
 chemistry with Dr. Robert Hare, professor in 
 the University of Pennsylvania, inventor of the 
 oxy-hydrogen blowpipe, and one of the fore- 
 most American chemists of his day. Fortu- 
 
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SURVEY 31 
 
 nately, the pastor of the family church in 
 Northampton had shortly before changed to 
 a Philadelphia pulpit, and Josiah had other 
 friends in the city, besides. 
 
 TO HIS SISTER ELIZABETH, TEACHING AT ABBOT 
 ACADEMY, ANDOVER 
 
 November 2, 1839. 
 
 MY DEAR ELIZABETH, How do you affect 
 the hill of Science and East winds ? My teeth 
 chatter at the very idea of the liberties which 
 Jack Frost was and is wont to take with nose 
 and toes in your inhospitable regions. How 
 have you been piling on the hickory logs, while 
 I have been luxuriating in the glories of the 
 Indian Summer, roving on the banks of the 
 Schuylkill during the balmiest days of the finest 
 season of the year! . . . Hitherto I have had 
 nothing to do but to kill the Lions of Phila- 
 delphia, as Dr. Hare does not begin his lectures 
 till next Monday, when I expect to become 
 more of a working man, head over ears in pots 
 and kettles, retorts and alembics, and all the 
 paraphernalia of a well-stocked Laboratory. . . . 
 [Here follows a long account of the lions of 
 Philadelphia, and of the ways of Philadelphians, 
 strange to New England eyes.] 
 
 . . . The Academy of Fine Arts, which is 
 constantly open, contains together with West's 
 
32 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 sublime painting of " Death on the pale Horse," 
 a number of beautiful originals, particularly a 
 St. Cecilia by Guido, and a gem of a painting 
 by the same, a Ganymede. Then there is Sully's 
 Gallery, which contains, among his other works, 
 his painting of the Queen, Miss Victoria. The 
 churches here or those which I have been 
 into are not very remarkable specimens of 
 taste. St. Stephen's contains a gorgeous paint- 
 ing on glass of King John signing the Magna 
 Charta. Mr. Todd's church, where I went half 
 of last Sunday, is very elegant inside. The 
 music was very good, especially Mr. Kingsley's 
 performance on the organ, which was very fine 
 indeed. But "jam satis," I presume you are 
 ready to cry out, and I verily promise that I 
 never will inflict such another catalogue upon 
 you. . . . 
 
 I have called at Mr. Todd's once since I 
 came here, and intend to call on Miss Gould. 
 I saw her at church last Sunday. I also dined 
 at Mr. Wharton's. He has two daughters about 
 your and Sarah's ages, who talk German like 
 a book and play divinely. This is decidedly a 
 musical city, fine concerts here very often. I 
 find that I am almost in the midst of as mu- 
 sical a set as Hogarth's enraged musician ever 
 was. I have two flutes on one side, which mur- 
 der most villainous duets, one ditto * so-low ' 
 
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SURVEY 33 
 
 up stairs, one piano on the other side, thumped 
 with more zeal than science, and to crown all, 
 about a wagon-load of babies down stairs, not 
 to mention that every sweep and coal-seller and 
 newsboy in the city seems to redouble his ex- 
 ertions as he comes under my window. But 
 still I consider myself very comfortably " lo- 
 cated,"- -good rooms and near to the few ac- 
 quaintances I have in the city. 
 
 Now as you owed me a letter before, I send 
 you this as fair warning that if you do not 
 answer me immediately, I shall scratch your 
 name out of my books and close my account 
 with you besides cutting you off with a shil- 
 ling in my will. Direct to 74, 4 th Street to 
 Yours truly and affectionately, 
 
 J. D. WHITNEY. 
 
 FROM HIS SISTER ELIZABETH 
 
 ANDOVER, January 8, 1840. 
 
 MY DEAR, DEAR BROTHER,- . . . Perhaps you 
 will wonder that I am passing my vacation in 
 Andover. I am remaining here to study some 
 and read, etc., instead of passing the time in 
 Boston, as I had a very urgent invitation to do. 
 I am reading Tasso not in the original, but 
 I wish I knew Italian so that I could but 
 Hoole's translation of it. One other young lady 
 and myself are looking over the different poets, 
 
34 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 studying prosody, etc., and reciting to Mr. 
 Stone. It is a very pleasant way of passing the 
 vacation in my opinion. What think you of 
 it? I have been dipping into metaphysics, the 
 last term, have taken up the Will, and have 
 studied Edwards s and Pres 1 Day's books. Next 
 term we study Upham on the subject. I am 
 very much interested in it, but have not de- 
 cided as yet which side I shall take in the great 
 controversy on the subject. I do not mean to 
 make up my mind until I have studied thor- 
 oughly. ... 
 
 Don't think you weary me with your cata- 
 logues of sights, for I admire to hear about any- 
 thing you see. All those that you wrote me of, 
 interested me much. I pray you, don't fear 
 to tire me with such things, you never do, 
 or can. . . . Dear, dear Josiah, you know, 
 you must know, that I long to write you on 
 the most important of all subjects. I cannot 
 bear to send this letter away without say- 
 ing at least a few words to beg you to think. 
 Why won't you tell me how you feel, if you 
 have any feeling at all on the subject, and 
 tell me if you dislike very much to have me 
 write you anything on the subject, and if it 
 does you more harm than good ? I know you 
 are older and know so much more than I do, 
 that I cannot bear to speak of what I know 
 
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SURVEY 35 
 
 you must know as well as I do no, not as well, 
 for if you could feel?& I do, you would think 
 that you can be happy in no other way than 
 by devoting all your talents to the Author 
 of your being to Him who gave you all, and 
 who will, one day, require of you all you have 
 received. Now forgive me for writing thus. I 
 cannot help it. Do I pray you, my own dearest 
 brother, think of these things, and intrust me 
 with your thoughts. Will you not ? 
 
 TO HIS SISTER ELIZABETH 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, January 23, 1840. 
 
 A severe attack of inflammatory rheumatism, 
 which has confined me to my room for a fort- 
 night, must, my dear sis., be my excuse for not 
 immediately answering your long letter. I could 
 almost pardon your long silence, in considera- 
 tion of the peculiar gratification I felt in hear- 
 ing from one whom I had almost given up in 
 despair as a correspondent, although I did not 
 really believe but that you still in some measure 
 recollected me, your elder brother. But really 
 you treated me shockingly, riest-ce-pas? I had 
 made half a dozen resolutions to give you up 
 as a gone case, but they were all scattered to 
 the four winds on seeing your well-known su- 
 perscription. 
 
 They have not treated me very well at home. 
 
36 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 I have not heard a word from Sarah : for aught 
 I know she may be friz in a snow bank fifty 
 feet deep. But I have forgotten what I had to 
 tell you in my last letter, it is so long since I 
 wrote it. Let me see. I must have talked a 
 great deal about /. How /was a chemist and 
 smelt of bottles ; how / burnt his fingers and 
 nose with acids innumerable ; how / blew up 
 occasionally, and the other interesting varieties 
 of Laboratory life. Now, pretty much all I have 
 to say is that I have been quite sick, am get- 
 ting better, and hope in two or three days to 
 breathe the fresh air of heaven, instead of the 
 confined atmosphere of a sick chamber. My 
 friends have all treated me with a great deal of 
 kindness and attention, alleviating as much as 
 possible the misery of being sick anywhere, 
 and especially away from home. . . . 
 
 You almost petrify me with horror at the 
 bare mention of the books you are studying. I 
 do hope you won't take to writing on Meta- 
 physics, for of all the branches of human Science 
 for a young lady to dip into, that seems to me 
 the last. 
 
 I wish you would direct the current of your 
 mind toward some of the modern languages, 
 and penetrate the stores of knowledge which 
 lie hidden under the veil of the German lan- 
 guage. I shall never give up until I persuade 
 
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SURVEY 37 
 
 you to learn that wonderfully rich and copious 
 language. I have just been reading Mrs. Hem- 
 ans's life and was surprised to see how much 
 she owed to that language and her unbounded 
 love for its literature. It is all the fashion at 
 present among the Philadelphia ladies to talk 
 German. I know several who speak it like a 
 book. This is a very musical city, and of course 
 there are all sorts of musical parties going on, 
 as well as concerts and soirees, etc. I went to a 
 few to see how they carried on such things here, 
 but as I found that invitations increased geo- 
 metrically, while my time was decreasing in a 
 like ratio, I was obliged to give them up almost 
 entirely. You recollect Mrs. Kingsley. I have 
 called there several times ; she spoke of you as 
 an old acquaintance. They are delightful mu- 
 sicians and it is quite a treat to hear Mr. K. 
 play at Mr. Todd's church, where I generally go. 
 You must excuse the brevity of this letter, as 
 I am still as weak as water from the effects of 
 leeching and starvation. I hope that you will an- 
 swer this immediately and then I shall be well 
 enough to write you a long letter. 
 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 
 J. D. W. Jr. 
 
 To that part of his sister's letter which was 
 most important of all to her, Josiah makes no 
 
38 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 reply. Nor does it appear that the condition 
 of his soul ever gave him any special concern. 
 True, he had lived all his life among religious 
 people, and he was at this period a pretty 
 regular churchgoer. But he was also a geo- 
 logist; and those were the days when a thou- 
 sand pulpits were shouting denunciation of 
 Lyell, and the test of orthodoxy was a belief 
 in six days of creation and a universal flood. 
 To this bitter controversy over the age of the 
 earth, there succeeded, after 1859, a struggle no 
 less bitter over the theory of evolution. Between 
 the two, for the young man of science, the way 
 into the kingdom of heaven was indeed strait. 
 
 For Whitney, however, there was in all this 
 no such soul's tragedy as, let us say, over- 
 shadowed the life of Romanes. He was essen- 
 tially a " tough-minded " person. His family 
 affections and the two arts which he cultivated 
 satisfied his emotional needs ; he was too thor- 
 oughly pragmatical to trouble himself over 
 predestination and free will. In short, he was 
 an unimaginative young man, contented to do 
 his day's work; and to let the universe go on 
 in its own way. 
 
 This attitude he retained throughout life. 
 He was never a scoffer at religion ; he even 
 went to church when it suited his convenience, 
 and in a loose way counted as a Unitarian. 
 
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SURVEY 39 
 
 But he had too much steady-going morality 
 to experience any conviction of sin; and thus 
 he adopted, in the forties, the attitude toward 
 religion which, nearly two generations later, 
 has become well-nigh universal among scien- 
 tific men. 
 
 Such an attitude, naturally, was altogether 
 incomprehensible to his mother's daughter; 
 and the troubled girl, her brother's illness still 
 on her mind, added at the end of a long and 
 affectionate letter, " could we ever have been 
 happy again, knowing that one we so dearly, 
 dearly love had gone, and we should never, 
 never see him again never even in eternity." 
 
 As for the concerns of this world, with March 
 of 1840 young Whitney was back again at 
 Northampton, uncertain as ever about his fu- 
 ture career. It happened that the elder Whitney 
 numbered among his acquaintances no less a 
 man than Charles T. Jackson, chemist and 
 mineralogist, and world-famous a few years 
 later, as a discoverer of anesthesia. Jackson, 
 trained abroad and a pupil of Elie de Beaumont, 
 had already made the first official geological 
 surveys of Nova Scotia and Rhode Island, and 
 was then State Geologist of New Hampshire. 
 He had, besides, a private laboratory in Boston, 
 where he had some half-dozen pupils and assist- 
 ants: in fact, he seems to have been the first 
 
40 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 person outside of Germany to teach chemistry 
 systematically by laboratory methods. To him, 
 early in April, went Josiah Whitney with his 
 father's note of introduction, and letters from 
 Silliman and Hare. 
 
 Dr. Jackson was most kind. He made Whit- 
 ney his companion at a meeting of geologists 
 in Philadelphia, tried to find him scientific 
 work, and failing in that, took him into his 
 laboratory. Jackson himself was having trouble 
 with his legislature, an experience by no means 
 uncommon with the heads of geological sur- 
 veys ; and by way of circumventing the poli- 
 ticians, who demanded that all salaried posi- 
 tions on the survey should be filled by "citizens 
 of New Hampshire," he arranged with the 
 governor, John Page, to have no paid assistants 
 at all. Instead, he took the men from his labo- 
 ratory, several of whom already knew some- 
 thing either of geology or of engineering, and 
 all of whom volunteered to serve without pay, 
 with the chance that the legislature might, in 
 the end, refund their expenses. Whitney, in 
 default of anything more remunerative, joined 
 the party ; and proving to be the most capable 
 of the young men, was set to work somewhat 
 independently with one associate. 
 
 Dr. Jackson's official instructions for Whit- 
 ney's first geological work were as follows : 
 
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SURVEY 41 
 
 " Messrs.']. D. Whitney, and M. B. Williams 
 are authorized by me to act as assistants on 
 the Geological Survey of the State of New 
 Hampshire. They will proceed to make a 
 series of sections across the rock formations 
 of the state, for the purpose of delineating the 
 extent and limits of the different rocks. They 
 will represent the same, upon the map of the 
 state, in colors, and also in profile. They will 
 measure the heights of mountains, from their 
 bases, and from the sea-level, and will note the 
 latitudes and longitudes of the different places 
 which are of sufficient importance. They will 
 examine the dip and direction of strata, and 
 note their contents ; the direction and the di- 
 mensions of the beds or veins of useful min- 
 erals, collecting specimens for the state cabinet 
 and for chemical analysis. They will also col- 
 lect specimens of all remarkable soils, for the 
 same purposes, noting the crops raised thereon, 
 with such other statistical information, as can 
 be obtained. 
 
 " They will note the direction of mountain 
 ranges, in relation to the theory of Elie de 
 Beaumont. 
 
 " They will correct the Topography of the 
 map so far as practicable, and will collect such 
 statistical information, as may subserve the 
 publick interest." 
 
42 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 Messrs. Whitney and Williams thereupon 
 equipped themselves with a large covered 
 wagon and an ancient horse, with tents, 
 blankets, cooking utensils, compasses, clino- 
 meters, barometers, theodolite, blowpipes, re- 
 agents, drawing-tools, maps ; and began that in- 
 ventory of the natural resources of the state 
 which in the thirties and forties passed for a 
 geological survey. Jackson himself was of all 
 state surveyors one of the most primitive in 
 his methods, while the State of New Hampshire 
 is peculiarly unsuited to be the training ground 
 of a beginner, especially if that beginner is to 
 struggle with Elie de Beaumont's quite erro- 
 neous theories of mountain building. It is 
 probable, therefore, that the summer of 1840 
 brought the two boys little beyond the experi- 
 ence of which one has a glimpse in Whitney's 
 letters to his sister. 
 
 TO HIS SISTER ELIZABETH 
 
 CLAREMONT, June 21, 1840. 
 
 MA CHRE, ... Dr. J. joined us here on 
 Tuesday night, just as we returned from the 
 ascent of Ascutney Mt. and we went on the 
 next day to Proctorsville and Plymouth, Vt., 
 where we spent two days in examining the 
 marble and serpentine quarries, which furnish 
 the finest material in the world for tables and 
 
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SURVEY 43 
 
 such like, and when you are married I shall 
 take great pleasure in presenting you with a 
 specimen. We have also visited Acworth and 
 overhauled and explored everything in this re- 
 gion. To-morrow we start for Haverhill, prin- 
 cipally to be introduced to the Governor, who 
 originated the Survey and takes great interest 
 in it. ... I have joined company with Mr. 
 Williams in doing the sections on which we 
 are to report in our own name, . . . and we 
 are to work . . . together from the southwest 
 corner of the state, diagonally across to the 
 sources of the Macgalloway river which forms 
 the northern line of the state. . . . 
 
 . . . The quantity of our baggage is enor- 
 mous. Yet / find that I have omitted at least 
 half the articles I want, and brought as many 
 that I do not want at all. I will lay any wager 
 that you never would have thought a tin 
 whistle or a gimlet very necessary things, yet 
 there are no two things that we use more. . . . 
 As soon as we begin to camp, I shall begin to 
 talk about those partridges and shall send you 
 a sketch in our first picturesque encampment. 
 There is nothing so amusing and yet so pro- 
 voking sometimes, as the curiosity with which 
 everybody watches us and our instruments. 
 How often I have laughed at the question 
 whether my Barometer was a gun or a spy- 
 
44 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 glass or a trumpet. We are everywhere treated 
 with attention and politeness, though there is 
 no business which more requires tact and care 
 in addressing the people with whom we are 
 constantly obliged to associate, and who are to 
 give us much information which we need. . . . 
 
 TO HIS SISTER ELIZABETH 
 
 June 28, 1840. 
 
 I took tea at the Governor's house last night. 
 He is a plain farmer, intelligent and unpre- 
 tending. When we called first, he had just been 
 creeping under the barn for hens' nests and, 
 of course, presented quite an ungovernorlike 
 air. . . . 
 
 The difference between that part of the state 
 which lies on the river and the interior is as- 
 tonishing. Go ten miles back into the coun- 
 try, and you meet a different order of things 
 entirely, slovenly, disgusting houses, and peo- 
 ple neither remarkable for intelligence nor 
 politeness. . . . 
 
 One thing goes hard : that is, the eternal 
 repetition of ham and eggs, the one article of 
 food to be found in the state, breakfast, dinner, 
 and supper. Salt pork would be a comfort. 
 
 New Hampshire is certainly the most musi- 
 cal state in the Union. Everybody scrapes the 
 fiddle or bass viol, and we are entertained by 
 
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SURVEY 45 
 
 all sorts of music by night and by day. Those 
 who have no other instrument, whistle most 
 vehemently. We went all over Dartmouth Col- 
 lege and every student seemed to be possessed 
 with a musical devil ; such an intolerable din 
 of trumpets, drums and human or inhuman 
 voices I never heard before ; verily the cast- 
 iron band at New Haven was not to be men- 
 tioned the same day. The students there are in 
 open rebellion, and the Faculty do not seem 
 (judging from what specimens we saw) capable 
 of managing them at all. 
 
 TO HIS SISTER ELIZABETH 
 
 LOWER GILMANTON, N. H., July 26, 1840. 
 
 . . . Unless our plans are altered, a thing very 
 likely to happen, I shall be among the White 
 Hills on the I4th of next month. For the last 
 fortnight Mr. Williams and myself have been 
 engaged in investigating the shores and numer- 
 ous islands which "gem the bosom" of Lake 
 Winnipisiogee. We made Centre Harbor our 
 headquarters, and thence took a boat and boat- 
 men and spent several days in cruising among 
 the islands, camping at night, and finding our 
 food'from the abundance of game and fish on 
 the Lake. We live as comfortably and much 
 more pleasantly in camp than in a house, and 
 though one night when we were out it rained 
 
46 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 violently, it never disturbed our slumbers. The 
 scenery of the Lake is beyond comparison 
 beautiful, especially if it is seen as we saw it. 
 The first night we pitched our tent on the is- 
 lands, I shall never forget. We had selected a 
 bold shore overlooking the Lake, just on the 
 edge of a dark wood. Here in the strong light 
 of our camp-fire glistened our snow-white tent 
 while around it were gathered our men, whose 
 scarlet and green blankets, as they stood in 
 various attitudes, formed a picturesque group. 
 Before us was the Lake, stretching miles 
 around, with island on island vanishing in the 
 distance, while over all, the full moon, just ris- 
 ing from the water, with a cloudless sky, threw 
 a pillar of light over the surface of the water. 
 Never in my life have I beheld a scene which 
 could compare with this in romantic beauty. 
 From one of the islands which rises high and 
 abruptly from the Lake, you have an enchant- 
 ing view of the Lake and its islands, enclosed 
 in an amphitheatre of mountains. One of these 
 islands, whose fanciful appearance struck me, 
 I proposed to name ; and boatmen and neigh- 
 bors seeming pleased with the idea, and promis- 
 ing to spread abroad the fame thereof, I duly 
 named it on the spot as Elizabeth Island. I 
 will send you a sketch of it when I write on 
 paper which is not ruled. . . . 
 
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SURVEY 47 
 
 . . . Father has not written me for a long 
 time, but I intend to write him to-day a letter 
 which will draw tears from eyes, I expect, or 
 in other words, a real dunning letter. Oh ! it 's 
 bad business, this working for nothing and 
 finding one's self. Good-bye, you and Sarah 
 must both write immediately now won't you? 
 or I shan't hear from you for more than a 
 month. 
 
 The field work of a geological survey can 
 go on only during the warmer part of the year ; 
 the approach of winter, therefore, drove Whit- 
 ney back to the laboratory of Dr. Jackson. 
 
 TO HIS FATHER 
 
 BOSTON, November 7, 1840. 
 
 MY DEAR FATHER, I ordered while at Phila- 
 delphia the works of Berzelius and Rose, the 
 two most important standard works in Chemis- 
 try, which it is necessary for every chemist to 
 have by him constantly for reference. I suppose 
 they have arrived by this time at Philadelphia 
 and I should like to send for them as soon as 
 possible. They will cost about $37. I wish also 
 to have an overcoat ... to keep out the rheu- 
 matism and to conceal a dirty coat in my walks 
 to and fro for exercise, my cloak not being thick 
 enough for Boston winter weather. Cost thereof 
 
48 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 about $30. These are all the wants, except ne- 
 cessary expenses, which I shall have for some 
 time. If you can spare the money I shall be 
 glad to have it as soon as possible. 
 
 Your affectionate son, 
 
 J. D. W. Jr. 
 
 I am at work as though every day might be 
 the last I shall have to acquire a knowledge 
 of Analytical Chemistry. 
 
 TO HIS SISTER ELIZABETH, TEACHING IN 
 GEORGIA 
 
 BOSTON, February 25, 1841. 
 
 MY DEAR SISTER, There is nothing like 
 distance to lend enchantment to the view, it 
 seems with you, for you actually condescend 
 to hold correspondence with that naughty 
 brother on whom you would scarcely deign to 
 bestow a condescending look when in your most 
 honorable presence ; but as you have begun 
 such a brisk fire, I am sure I shall be happy to 
 do my part to keep it up, and shall in return 
 for this epistle, expect from you an account 
 categorical and dogmatical of all your adven- 
 tures, accidents, circumvolutions and perambu- 
 lations, both on foot and on horseback, at home 
 and abroad. . . . 
 
 . . . As for me myself I would not have 
 you for a moment indulge the idea that I am 
 
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SURVEY 49 
 
 shrinking away to a starved " menotony " (i. e. 
 anatomy), or that my bodily comfort is any way 
 broken in upon. No by no means. So long 
 as the world turns on its axis without upsetting 
 any of my half-finished analyses, so long as I 
 can enjoy the fragrance of my meerschaum 
 after dinner, and an occasional twang of the 
 guitar, without molestation, so long shall I re- 
 main the same comfortable, careless, anything 
 but half-starved alchemistical looking chap. 
 But though the winter's work takes off a little 
 of the edge of health and gives one a little too 
 much of the blues, when gay summer comes 
 with its mountain rambles and wild chase over 
 the country, I grow young and gay, for "a life 
 in the woods " is my motto. My favorite plan 
 now is to go to the Rocky Mountains, as soon 
 as I can find any method of getting there. 
 Then you may expect to hear that "the dis- 
 tinguished traveler, Mr. Whitney, was cap- 
 tured by the Blackfoot Indians and being very 
 fat was supposed to have made them a number 
 of excellent meals " ! [Here follow divers travel- 
 ers' tales.] 
 
 . . . But of all the people for that sort of 
 thing, commend me to the Bostonians. A lec- 
 turer gets up and tells them that the timbers 
 of the Ark may be still seen projecting from 
 Mt. Ararat! and he is loudly applauded; another 
 
50 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 shows the gate of Heaven as seen through the 
 biggest kind of a telescope, and they say how 
 wonderful ! As a proof of the present rage 
 for lectures and all that sort of thing, 25,000 
 tickets were subscribed for to Prof. Silliman's 
 lectures on Chemistry, to be delivered at the 
 Lowell Institute. The number of concerts and 
 lectures which have been given here this winter 
 is immense. . . . And yet although musical 
 men are so liberally patronized, it seems as if 
 there were but few persons of good musical 
 taste or even good amateur performers here, at 
 least compared with Philadelphia. 
 
 I sigh sometimes for my old friends who 
 garnish the bookcase in the Library [at North- 
 ampton], but have to console myself by turn- 
 ing over the leaves of the " Lehrbuch der 
 Chemie" or the "Handbook der Chemie" or 
 the "Manual der Chemie"; delightful variety: 
 bread and cheese, cheese and bread. 
 
 Uncle Samuel [Williston, a brother of his 
 mother] and wife are here in the legislature, 
 that is to say, the former of the two. Uncle S. 
 has been spending some of his spare dollars 
 in founding the Williston Seminary, Easthamp- 
 ton, Mass. Much good may it do to all our 
 ancestors to come. . . . 
 
 ... I wonder whether the man who was 
 appointed some time ago to make a geological 
 
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SURVEY 51 
 
 survey of Georgia, has ever done anything; if 
 so, it is entirely unknown out of the state. Can 
 you find out by the asking? 
 
 This winter brought to Whitney his first 
 professional success, an appointment to the 
 New Hampshire Survey, at three dollars a day. 
 His duties were of the most congenial sort : to 
 remain in Boston and assist Dr. Jackson with 
 his analyses of the minerals collected during 
 the summer. Unfortunately, this work lasted 
 only through the winter, so that the spring of 
 1841 found Whitney again without occupa- 
 tion. His father suggested West Point, an 
 editorship, a course of lectures on some popu- 
 lar scientific topic before the lyceums of coun- 
 try towns. The son, on the other hand, favored 
 a trip to Europe, a voyage to the Indies, or in 
 default of these, a trial of his luck as a profes- 
 sional analyst in Philadelphia. What he did 
 do was to march back to Northampton and 
 enter the law office of Charles P. Huntington. 
 There he spent the summer, his mind on the 
 law, and his heart on the New Hampshire Sur- 
 vey. 
 
 Josiah insisted that all he learned of the law 
 was how to sweep out the office; but to his 
 family he appeared amply equipped to enter 
 the Harvard Law School and begin the serious 
 
52 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 study of his grandfather's profession. Toward 
 Cambridge, therefore, in the fall, Josiah dragged 
 unwilling feet. 
 
 It is difficult, in these days, to realize the 
 plight in which Josiah Whitney found himself 
 in the early forties. In a very real sense all 
 scientific men of his day were amateurs, either 
 self-taught or trained originally for some other 
 profession. Most of them, like Hare and Jack- 
 son, were physicians. Silliman was a lawyer 
 who undertook his professorship at Yale hardly 
 better equipped than his pupils. The practical 
 necessities of medicine had developed the 
 teaching of analytical chemistry; except for 
 this, there was in America no such thing as 
 professional scientific training. 
 
 Here then was young Whitney's dilemma. 
 He might look to the law for his bread and 
 butter, and indulge his tastes for science as 
 an avocation. Or he might adopt frankly, as a 
 means of livelihood, the group of sciences which 
 centres around the meeting-point of geology, 
 chemistry, and mining engineering; and be 
 among the first of his countrymen to be thor- 
 oughly trained for a definite scientific career. 
 The immediate result of this inner conflict 
 was that Josiah Whitney, on his way to the 
 Harvard Law School, got no farther than 
 Boston. 
 
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SURVEY 53 
 
 TO HIS FATHER 
 
 BOSTON, Oct. 20, 1841. 
 
 MY DEAR FATHER, I arrived safe and 
 sound on Thursday, and on Friday I went 
 out to Cambridge and found [his classmate and 
 college friend, Samuel] Fowler. . . . He told 
 me that the room which I had asked him to 
 engage had been preengaged. There are, how- 
 ever, rooms on the lower story which would do 
 tolerably well, although rather too cold for com- 
 fort in the winter. But as Dr. Jackson has 
 not returned, and as I could not make up my 
 mind to engage a room, which I must keep all 
 winter, before talking with him about my plans, 
 and as I had a number of friends from abroad 
 in the City whom I was anxious to see, I have 
 taken a room at my old boarding place, Miss 
 Lane's, for the present, which I can leave at 
 any time, at seven dollars a week. I had the 
 pleasure of meeting Mr. Lyell, the geologist, 
 and spent an hour with him and his lady last 
 evening, also my old and particular friend 
 Ely, who has just returned from Europe, also 
 some four or five classmates one of whom has 
 just sailed for Europe. I found that it would 
 not be convenient to come in and go out [to 
 Cambridge] in the evening to attend Lyell's 
 lectures; so I concluded that I had better re- 
 
54 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 main here while they lasted, say four or five 
 weeks, and in the meantime I thought I should 
 finish up the drawings for New Hampshire 
 which Dr. J. is anxious to have completed as 
 soon as I can do them. He returned Satur- 
 day evening from New Hampshire, and will 
 start this week on Thursday for Maine, where 
 he has a mine to examine. I have been talking 
 with him some in regard to the old subject, the 
 bothering subject, the never decided subject of 
 my profession. He says, "Devote yourself 
 steadily to my profession and you cannot but 
 succeed ; true, the outlay will be larger at first, 
 but it is not a crowded profession, you will be 
 sure to find employment when you have studied 
 sufficiently to have confidence in yourself ; if 
 your father can send you to Europe, you will 
 have an opportunity to acquire skill which will 
 be almost sure to repay your expense and toil." 
 It seems to me more and more clear that I had 
 better decide to devote myself to the profes- 
 sion which I have already advanced so far in. 
 I can hardly think that it ought to be an un- 
 settled point much longer. You see how the 
 matter stands. I have advanced some way in 
 the study of certain departments of science. 
 I have every reason to think that I may be 
 successful if I persevere. Had I not better 
 make up my mind to persevere and do the 
 
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SURVEY 55 
 
 best I can ? Can you not say, go forward eco- 
 nomically, prudently and untiringly, and trust 
 to the future to repay your exertions and ex- 
 pense? Dr. J. would be glad to have me come 
 into his family and work in the laboratory 
 whenever I choose, and as he has now a fine 
 large room in front of the working laboratory 
 where his library and cabinet will be arranged, 
 it will afford great facilities for studying. I can 
 go out to Cambridge once a week and recite 
 if I have time. But first I have three analyses 
 to make, which I must do, as my scientific 
 character is attacked ; that is to say, my new 
 mineral is said by some to be not new, and I 
 am anxious to investigate the matter thor- 
 oughly and as soon as possible. 
 
 TO HIS FATHER 
 
 BOSTON, November 7, 1841. 
 
 MY DEAR FATHER, I received your letter 
 yesterday morning, and hasten to reply as well 
 as I can to the matters therein discussed. And 
 first with regard to the total overturning of the 
 plans which I had formed, I have this much 
 to say. That the more I thought of the subject, 
 the more it seemed necessary to me now to 
 make up my mind as to my future profession. 
 I had pursued the study of law as far as I 
 could without entering upon the technical part, 
 
56 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 interesting only to lawyers. The question then 
 was, shall I go on with this study and give up 
 science, or shall I take hold with all my might 
 and go on with my scientific education. You 
 held out some hope that you might be induced 
 to allow me to go on with this, in Europe. It 
 is the opinion of Dr. J. that if I should deter- 
 mine to adopt this profession, I could not fail 
 of securing a living ; and when one looks at the 
 vast amount of unexplored and useless (because 
 unknown) deposits of minerals, it seems that 
 [there] would be work enough for practical, 
 intelligent men for a long time to come. I cer- 
 tainly think that it would be in the highest 
 degree foolish for me to enter the law school 
 unless I make up my mind to be a lawyer 
 and on the other hand, that it would be a death- 
 blow to all hopes of success in science, having 
 made up my mind to follow science as a pro- 
 fession, not to devote my whole energies to 
 that subject and that alone. You ask what 
 plans I have after my return from Europe, and 
 wish to see what prospect there is of my being 
 at last able to lean upon my own resources, a 
 consummation most devoutly to be wished for. 
 To form any definite plans so far forward would 
 be rather difficult, but this much might be said 
 that I should have accumulated a handsome 
 capital of practical knowledge and that I should 
 
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SURVEY 57 
 
 be ready to offer it to the highest bidder. In 
 what way I could best use it, or rather in what 
 way the use of it would command a reasonable 
 reward, whether as teacher, lecturer, or prac- 
 tical surveyor, is at present uncertain ; but 
 whatever situation was offered me or pro- 
 cured me by my friends, provided I had con- 
 fidence in my own powers to fill it with suc- 
 cess, I should most certainly accept it. But 
 at present, I do not feel the confidence in my 
 own powers which would allow me to accept 
 any situation of responsibility, because I know 
 that I have not had sufficient experience or 
 opportunity of observation to enable me to 
 pronounce with confidence on what I am 
 called to give my opinion on, and for that 
 reason I am unwilling to force myself into 
 notice. . . . 
 
 With regard to making a plan for my con- 
 duct in Europe, I should be perfectly willing 
 to follow the advice of my scientific friends 
 here, subject to the revision of those scientific 
 gentlemen in Europe to whom I should bear 
 letters. . . But it seems to me that the first 
 question of all to be settled is shall I go on 
 with my scientific education, or shall I give up 
 in despair of success and try something else ? 
 Should the answer be " Go on," I pledge my- 
 self, faithfully, untiringly, and economically to 
 
58 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 pursue the best path which can be marked out 
 for me. 
 
 If convenient please send the $50 this week. 
 
 TO HIS FATHER 
 
 BOSTON, January 27, 1842. 
 
 MY DEAR FATHER, I cannot too strongly 
 express to you the gratitude which I feel for 
 your consent to my going to Europe, and I 
 hope that you will not think it from any want 
 of good feeling that I ask your attention to a 
 few words with regard to the time of starting. 
 I must confess that I was not a little surprised 
 that you should say "next autumn." The 
 spring or summer the Dr. [Jackson] thinks 
 to be a far preferable time in which to start. I 
 could find out what was to be done and learnt 
 by a summer's traveling, and where it would 
 be best for me to fix myself for the winter, 
 whether in Paris or at Stockholm [where taught 
 Berzelius], if, as the Dr. suggests, I could get 
 into the laboratory of the greatest chemist in 
 the world. But if I do not go till autumn, what 
 business can I find meanwhile to occupy me, 
 what could I reasonably expect for three or 
 four months ? My mind would be [so] contin- 
 ually occupied with the thought of going, that 
 I fear I should hardly take hold of anything 
 with my whole attention. Again, to go to Europe 
 
J. D. Whitney, del. 
 
 THE FLUME 
 
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE SURVEY 59 
 
 alone and a perfect stranger would not be very 
 pleasant; but should I go next May, Fowler 
 might and would be companion, and certainly 
 such a companion as he is not to be neglected. 
 . . . But most of all, I shall place most depend- 
 ence on the skill and experience acquired in 
 Europe for employment here; and of course 
 the longer I delay going, so much do I put off 
 my expectation of a final successful introduc- 
 tion to business and usefulness. I have hastily 
 noted down a few such things as I have thought 
 of, and I cannot but hope you will at least say 
 what reasons there may be to oppose to them 
 to make me wait several months longer. I have 
 been studying pretty much all winter on the 
 modern European languages, so that I may 
 have, so to speak, my tools ready sharpened to 
 go to work with when I reach Europe. I hope 
 you will answer this as soon as you can. 
 In haste, your affectionate son, 
 
 J. D. W. Jr. 
 Dr. J. desires to be remembered to you. 
 
 The outcome is not hard to guess Josiah 
 sailed on the gth of May. Before he returned, 
 the report of the New Hampshire Survey was 
 printed : divers portions of it Whitney's and 
 Williams's very own, in which they reported, 
 among other important scientific items, that 
 
60 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 they two had been the first of mankind to reach 
 the top of Mount Washington on horseback, 
 by way of the Crawford bridle path. Moreover, 
 there were seven full-page lithographed plates 
 of New Hampshire scenery, each marked in its 
 border, J. D. Whitney del" 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 IN EUROPE. 1842-1847 
 
 SAMUEL FOWLER and Josiah Whitney con- 
 ducted their wander-year like any two serious 
 and well-bred young men. They did the sights 
 of France, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland; they 
 crossed the Alps five times on foot, while 
 Whitney, in addition, made the acquaintance 
 of scientific men and inspected mines along 
 his route. 
 
 With the middle of November, 1 842, Whitney 
 left his companion, and settled down in Paris 
 for a winter at the Ecole des Mines. Then fol- 
 lowed, during the next summer, another tour, 
 through Holland and Sweden to St. Peters- 
 burg and Moscow, thence to Germany, through 
 the Tyrol on foot, then Italy once more, end- 
 ing with a winter in Rome. The spring of 
 1844 took him back once more to Paris for 
 two months of lectures at the College de France 
 and geological excursions with Dr. Jackson's 
 old master and friend, filie de Beaumont. The 
 summer which followed, Whitney spent at 
 Berlin, in Rammelsberg's laboratory, working 
 over chemical analysis. 
 
 With this period, another member of the f am- 
 
62 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 ily group at Northampton begins to replace 
 Elizabeth Whitney as Josiah's favorite cor- 
 respondent. William Dwight Whitney, eight 
 years younger than his brother, had now grown 
 into a tall sophomore at Williams College, a 
 mighty hunter and collector of birds, a bota- 
 nist, and a remarkable scholar withal, " as fond 
 of history as of buckwheat cakes." The friend- 
 ship between the two, beginning as the rela- 
 tion of an elder brother to a younger, soon 
 ripened into terms of equality as William 
 Whitney fulfilled the promise of his student 
 days and became one of the great scholars of 
 the world. The two men were singularly well 
 equipped to aid one another, for they were as 
 unlike in temperament as they were alike in 
 intellect. During more than fifty years, neither 
 brother ventured on any important act with- 
 out consulting the other. This was the most 
 enduring affection of Josiah Whitney's life : 
 one thing with another, it was the most profit- 
 able. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 PARIS, January 31, 1843. 
 
 MY DEAR BROTHER, I can see you scud- 
 ding round the corner of the chapel, the ther- 
 mometer at o or some degrees below ... or 
 perhaps plowing your way through some 
 
IN EUROPE 63 
 
 prodigious snow-drift, pondering on dog-days 
 and ice-creams. . . . And then that popping 
 out of bed so imperatively necessary, groping 
 about in the dark . . . for your lost stocking, 
 trying in vain to break the icy crust of the 
 wash-bowl, or puffing with vehemence at the 
 spark which won't set the pile of green wood 
 ... on fire. O that getting up in the morn- 
 ing in the depth of winter at 6 o'clock, that 
 dimly lighted recitation-room, that line of 
 half-dressed and unwashed sophs ! . . . I don't 
 wonder that your head is so full of your new 
 situation. ... I like it and I want you to sit 
 right down and tell me all about what happens 
 to be uppermost in your head, especially your 
 studies, your Profs., and your Prex. What 
 mathematics do you study ? How do you like 
 them? How much French have you learnt? 
 Can you read it like a book? If you can't, 
 I seriously advise you to read something in 
 that language every day, and not give up 
 until you have become well acquainted with it. 
 You don't perhaps yet feel how important it is. 
 No matter what profession you choose, you 
 will be highly benefited by a knowledge of 
 what France is doing in the same ; if science 
 be your object, French becomes absolutely ne- 
 cessary. What would you think of a French- 
 man who should say that he did not think it 
 
64 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 would be of much use for him to learn the 
 English language ? No matter what you read, 
 read anything that interests you ; that is the 
 way to learn a language. As soon as you can 
 read French with cleverness, then you must 
 begin German ; this you will find a more dif- 
 ficult language, but not a whit the less neces- 
 sary. You need not " go for to tell me " that you 
 have n't time. I know very well how much 
 time the immensely difficult studies of College 
 require for their committal to memory! . . . 
 
 I am here settled down as quiet as can be, 
 and a regular student, attending three or four 
 courses of lectures, occasionally dropping in 
 to hear Gay-Lussac or some other such illus- 
 trious lecturer; in the intervals of time, dig- 
 ging away at Crystallography, Geology, and 
 whatever I can lay my hands on that is inter- 
 esting. 
 
 I live now in quite the Parisian method, 
 breakfast at a cafe and dine at a restaurant, 
 sometimes in one place and sometimes in an- 
 other, an abominable way of living. Eating 
 one meal a day I liked very well at first, but I 
 am quite convinced that it is injurious to the 
 health to depend on what is taken into the 
 stomach at one time, to support life. 
 
 ... As for the internal structure and work- 
 ings of French society, at least in the upper 
 
IN EUROPE 65 
 
 classes, strangers like myself see precious little 
 of it, and I have no doubt that the highest 
 classes of the French are equal to anybody in 
 refinement, delicacy, and education. In what 
 little I see of their scientific men, they appear 
 gentlemanly and modest, which ours do not 
 all of them certainly. 
 
 I could make another chapter on the various 
 ways in which a man may dine and in which 
 a man does dine in Paris. Fowler used to 
 threaten to knock me down when I used to 
 hint of pumpkin pies. 
 
 FROM J. D. WHITNEY, SENIOR 
 NORTHAMPTON, May 14, 1843, Sabbath Evening. 
 
 MY DEAR SON, I wrote you from Boston 
 May ist by steamer of that day. ... I have 
 now only time to give you the substance of my 
 last letter to guard against the possibility that 
 that may not reach you. I have delayed till 
 this time mainly because I have been too feeble 
 . . . to undertake it. 
 
 I wrote you that notwithstanding I found no 
 less reason for economy than I had done, I had 
 concluded to consider this as so extraordinary 
 a case that I would make one last great effort 
 and add to what I have already done ... as 
 needed, $1500, [or in all] $4000. This is to 
 be understood as all I can possibly do; and if 
 
66 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 you think it important to take a journey of ex- 
 ploration West, before you can earn the money 
 to pay the expense of \\.,you must reserve it 
 from this sum, and let nothing further fall 
 upon my shoulders. Since then, I suppose 
 
 it must be said that your uncle M has 
 
 f airly failed, and this throws an additional bur- 
 den upon me. Tho' the direct loss, eventually, 
 to me will not be very heavy, it causes me 
 great inconvenience and perplexity, and will 
 for some time to come. In addition to this, I 
 shall lose probably #500 or more that I had 
 
 loaned to your uncle A , and still further, he 
 
 and John W are both likely to be thrown 
 
 out of business, and both are writing to me to 
 know what they shall do, . . . and how I can 
 help them. 
 
 In this perplexity, I ask you to do some- 
 thing to help me. I ask you to give up your 
 expensive habits, to let nothing be wasted, to 
 dispense with the expensive articles that you 
 would like to have, but are not necessary to the 
 successful prosecution of your pursuits. I ask 
 you to relieve me from the burden just as much 
 as you possibly can. You must not say that you 
 are as economical as you can be ; every one of 
 your friends, with whom I have conversed on 
 the subject, agrees with me, that your expenses 
 are much greater than they need be and ought 
 
IN EUROPE 67 
 
 to be. If they thought differently, I should 
 think I might be mistaken. 
 
 I wrote you about the importance of securing 
 and retaining the friendship of Dr. J. I found 
 that Mrs. J. felt hurt by your neglect, and on 
 my return home, I met Dr. J. at the Spring- 
 field Depot and had a few minutes' conver- 
 sation with him. I thought he seemed very 
 much hurt, tho' I trust you have not lost his 
 friendship, and I trust you will hereafter take 
 such a course as to secure and retain it. Bear 
 in mind, how important, how necessary it is to 
 have friends, if you wish to get a desirable and 
 pleasant employment in your profession. 
 
 However Dr. Jackson may have felt, he did 
 not let his sentiments affect his zeal for his 
 pupil's interests. He urged upon the father the 
 advantage to the son of translating into Eng- 
 lish, one or more of the newer German works 
 on chemistry. The two older men entered into 
 the project with energy. Jackson selected sev- 
 eral books; Whitney interviewed publishers, 
 who, to a man, balked at the idea of any large 
 work, but thought favorably of a small volume. 
 Finally, the two decided that Josiah would best 
 make a beginning with a short work of Berze- 
 lius on blowpipe analysis ; and the father, to 
 enable his son to carry out his advice, borrowed 
 
68 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 and advanced on the copyright enough to keep 
 the young chemist three months longer in 
 Berlin. 
 
 TO HIS SISTER ELIZABETH 
 
 BERLIN, May 24, 1844. 
 
 MY DEAR SISTER, Imprimis, let us rejoice 
 together over the new Piano I take it for 
 granted that it is a good one, that it is in good 
 tune, and that its ivory keys are fast becom- 
 ing acquainted with the ends of Miss Sarah's 
 fingers. ... Is it long, grand, square, upright, 
 soft, loud, tinkling, wiry, cottony, plain, orna- 
 mented, mahogany, rosewood, or what is it? 
 . . . Did the inhabitants of Northampton form 
 a procession and go forth to meet it, and escort 
 it triumphantly up the Rue du Roi ? [i. e. King 
 Street] I should certainly have done so had I 
 been at home, fiddle in one hand and guitar 
 in the other. . . . 
 
 . . . How well I remember when I first be- 
 came the possessor of a little flute, sixteen years 
 ago; how the tears rolled down my cheeks with 
 delight as I retired to the barn to give vent to 
 my feelings in the two only notes which I could 
 produce on my instrument, which I will venture 
 to say was regarded by the rest of the house 
 as anything but a magic flute. Hum, I dare 
 say that I enjoyed my own squeaking of " Auld 
 
J. D. Whitney. Aetat. about 26 
 
. Imp 
 
 over the -new Piano - 
 granted that it 
 tune, and that 
 acquain 
 
 . 
 it tr 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 how th 
 delight as I 
 
 I enjoy 
 
IN EUROPE 69 
 
 Lang Syne " as heartily as I have since the 
 silver tones of Tulou's flute, so clear and sweet 
 amid the pianissimo of an orchestra of a hun- 
 dred masters. Have I not heard music of every 
 kind and variety, since I have been abroad ? 
 The last wonder, however, when I left Paris, was 
 Liszt, the pianist, the Paganini of the piano ; 
 never did musician make a greater excitement 
 there, and never was a reputation more bril- 
 liantly deserved. Who but Liszt can make the 
 piano sing, laugh, thunder? His soul is in his 
 fingers' ends, and he seems to feel every note 
 as if the piano were a living part of himself; 
 certainly among the wonders of this generation, 
 Liszt is one. 
 
 But after all, the piano is but a limited in- 
 strument; and when I listen to such a perform- 
 ance and see the writhing and contortions of 
 the performer, it seems to me to have too much 
 the air of a tour de force and leaves (with me) 
 an uneasy sensation at the bottom of the pleas- 
 ure. I have never enjoyed any music abroad so 
 much as the chanting in the Russian churches, 
 especially one night in a Convent near Moscow. 
 The Russians are naturally musical. Many of 
 them have delicious voices, and there is a 
 plaintive expression about their airs which 
 charms and softens. Moreover, they spare no 
 pains or expense in the cathedrals of Moscow 
 
70 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 and St. Petersburg, and a remarkable voice 
 cannot be too dearly paid, or too sharply con- 
 tended for between the choirs of these two 
 cities. The singing is all by male voices, and 
 to exaggerate the effect of these low, wild, and 
 admirably harmonized chants, sung by the 
 clearest and richest of voices in the softest 
 tones, never rising above piano, would be im- 
 possible. I have heard high mass in the ca- 
 thedral at Dresden sung by all the artists in 
 the city, attended by an imposing orchestra, 
 and seen the elevation of the host amid the 
 rolling of the drum and the clang of the trum- 
 pet; but the effect was as nothing compared 
 with those low, soft notes which filled the 
 whole soul with their melody. 
 
 But enough in all conscience of music, 
 though, as I am at Berlin, I have a sort of a 
 right to talk on that subject. ... A month 
 ago I was a Frenchman, now I am doing my 
 utmost to make myself a German. I have not 
 a single English or American acquaintance 
 here. Very few Americans come here; few 
 even pass through the city, and fewer still re- 
 main here more than five days. . . . 
 
 Berlin is, [of] all cities, in any other than a 
 scientific, literary, and musical point of view, 
 the most disagreeable in Germany. Imagine a 
 city of 300,000 inhabitants, in the midst of a 
 
IN EUROPE 71 
 
 vast sand plain, without a hill of sufficient 
 height to break the monotony of the view 
 within 200 miles! . . . But then it is the resi- 
 dence of the Court and the seat of a University 
 which may well boast of an unrivaled set of 
 Professors; especially is the corps of Science 
 strong. There is Humboldt, the doyen of scien- 
 tific men, Von Buch,Ehrenberg, the two Roses 
 (not the white and the red), Rammelsberg, 
 Weiss, and many others whose names are not 
 so familiar the other side of the water as they 
 ought to be. What a grand chance to study; 
 a dull city where there are few things to dis- 
 tract the attention, learned profs, in abundance, 
 willing to impart their knowledge for a trifle, 
 no acquaintances to bore one and steal away 
 one's time, inhabitants reputed inhospitable etc. ; 
 what other city unites so many advantages? 
 So let us buckle to and work as fast as possible 
 so as not to be discontented that I have not 
 one solitary friend to converse with, and that 
 I must put my mother tongue on the shelf for 
 an unlimited time, having really no other use 
 for it than occasionally to write and read a 
 letter from you or from Father, or to read the 
 Bible which is the only English book I have 
 in my possession. . . . 
 
 I ought to tell you about the famous Expo- 
 sition at Paris, to see which I remained several 
 
72 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 days at Paris; but I despair of being able to 
 give you any idea of its magnificence. . . . But 
 if you had been there, you would have won- 
 dered at the productions of the Lyons looms, 
 the silks, the satins, the velvets, etc., the jewel- 
 lery, the plate, the potato-parers, the porcelain, 
 the stocking-weaving machines, the elastic and 
 miraculously fitting corsets . . . but stop, for 
 particulars see small bills . . . suffice to say that 
 a Northampton cattle-show and fair . . . could 
 not present a more imposing display. . . . 
 
 I 'declare that if you let anybody but Sarah 
 read this letter, you will not conform to my 
 wishes. 
 
 If Josiah could have had his own way, he 
 might have remained abroad indefinitely ; but 
 his family wanted him at home. Elizabeth com- 
 plained that because of her trip south, she had 
 not seen him for five years. William wrote that 
 when Josiah went away, he was not even a sub- 
 freshman and now seemed likely to graduate 
 before his brother's return. His father, who had 
 already advanced five hundred dollars on the 
 copyright of a book not yet begun, ordered him 
 to complete his arrangements with his author, 
 " and then make your way home as fast and as 
 economically as you can. ... It would give me 
 great pleasure to support you at Berlin longer 
 
IN EUROPE 73 
 
 if I could afford it, but after my losses by your 
 Uncle M 's failure, and with so many chil- 
 dren, brothers and sisters and cousins, that 
 need my help and whom I feel bound to help, 
 and whom I have helped so much already, with 
 other losses I feel poor'' . . . 
 
 Home, therefore, Josiah came and reached 
 Northampton during the second week of Jan- 
 uary,- 1845, after an absence of nearly three 
 years. 
 
 With him came three hundred and forty-one 
 volumes, additions to a library already ample 
 for a youth barely twenty-five. There were, as 
 might be expected, all the more important 
 works of the great European chemists, Ram- 
 melsberg, Rose, Berzelius, Fresenius, Liebig, 
 Poggendorff. On the other hand, there were 
 curiously few works on geology, Burat on vol- 
 canoes, a volume of Cuvier, a handful of books 
 on glaciers ; and besides these, a half-dozen 
 volumes on other natural sciences, with two or 
 three more on mathematics. More than half the 
 library was general literature, Jean Paul, Les- 
 sing, Uhland, Heine, Schiller, Grimm, Spinoza, 
 Dante, Machiavelli, Boccaccio, Madame De 
 Stael, Racine, one could go on for some 
 time with the list. If Whitney had spent freely, 
 he had also .spent wisely. There were, besides, 
 grammars and lexicons for French, German, 
 
74 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Russian, Dutch, 
 Spanish, Italian, Icelandic. Most important of 
 all was the Sanscrit Grammar of Franz Bopp, 
 whose lectures Whitney had attended in Berlin. 
 That book was an expansion of mental horizon 
 to Josiah ; for William it proved to be the call 
 to his life's task. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY, AT WILLIAMS- 
 TOWN 
 
 [CAMBRIDGE], April 6, 1845. 
 
 What on earth they wanted to locate a col- 
 lege up among those hills for, I can't conceive; 
 the most astonishing part of it is that they 
 find students to stay in such an out-of-the-way 
 corner of the earth, when they might come 
 down to Cambridge and become members of 
 the greatest University in all creation. You 
 must know that I have advanced a step in life; 
 I have acquired new honors and shed immortal 
 lustre on old Harvard by becoming a Resident 
 Graduate. That is to say, I signed a piece of 
 paper binding myself, my heirs and executors 
 forever, to pay One Hundred Dollars in case 
 I should run off with any of the books which 
 I expect to obtain from the College Library, 
 say an old Indian Grammar or two and a musty 
 history of New Hampshire. . . . Having been 
 here more than a fortnight, I may consider 
 
IN EUROPE 75 
 
 myself at home, especially at the table, where 
 I do prodigious execution among the muffins 
 and baked apples, no doubt much to the dis- 
 may of those who feel a deep interest in the 
 motions of my knife and fork. 
 
 There are seven of us, three tutors, one law, 
 and one divinity student, with the Editor of 
 the "North American" [Francis Bowen], and 
 myself a student of nothing in particular and 
 a practitioner of nothing in general. A right 
 good set of fellows they are, and many a good 
 joke and bad pun circulates with the fish and 
 potatoes. (We are all Yankees.) It is forbidden 
 to talk Greek or quote Patagonian, so that, al- 
 though we are very learned, no one would sus- 
 pect it to hear us talk. I might add that we are 
 strong anti-teetotallers at least in theory 
 and that we consequently are always betting 
 champagne and other intoxicating liquors, 
 which bets are never paid, so that we never 
 have a chance to act up to our principles 
 by getting under the table. The weather has 
 been delightful lately; and were it not that the 
 dust is always flying, and that the livery-stable 
 horses are melancholy proofs of the unscientific 
 treatment of undergraduates, one might enjoy 
 a ride horse-back occasionally. As it is, I con- 
 tent myself with walking into Boston almost 
 every day, especially as Lizzie is there, and I 
 
;6 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 have no regular business, as my printer has 
 not got to work yet on that Blowpipe book. 
 When I first came down, he said he would have 
 it printed in Cambridge, so I thought that I 
 should be at hand to correct proofs ; but all of 
 a sudden, after I had moved out here bag and 
 baggage (i. e. trunk and umbrella) he said the 
 Cambridge printer was not the man, and that 
 it should be printed in Boston. Then he must 
 have it printed with new type, and they have 
 had to be cast and ought to be done before 
 this time ; then, there are no type in the country 
 for printing chemical formulas, and they must 
 not only be cast but cut, and there was a mess of 
 trouble and an expensive job too ; so I have 
 not been near the printer for a week and think 
 it very likely that he would like to back out of 
 the whole scrape if he could. . . . 
 
 I expect to go to the geological meeting at 
 New Haven on the 3oth of April and remain a 
 week, if I can get away from printing and cor- 
 recting proof sheets; and I suppose I shall have 
 to return here after that, as I shall not have 
 finished printing. . . . Anyway I shall prob- 
 ably be at home in your vacation, if it lasts long 
 enough. . . . 
 
 You say you want some advice about how 
 to spend your time after you leave College. 
 Ask me for advice, do you ? I feel proud, no- 
 
IN EUROPE 77 
 
 body else ever did me that honor ... I must 
 be getting ancient and respectable. You must 
 (to speak seriously) write me what your ideas 
 are (that 's what Father always says, when he 
 don't feel competent ... to enter into the 
 matter), and I will sum up and give you my 
 decision, from which you can appeal to the 
 common sense of the family. 
 
 It happened during the three years of Whit- 
 ney's stay in Europe, that Dr. Jackson had 
 been exploring the copper and iron mines of 
 the Lake Superior region. He was not the ac- 
 tual discoverer of the mineral wealth of north- 
 ern Michigan, but he was among the first to 
 appreciate the richness of the deposits, and to 
 make them known to the scientific and indus- 
 trial world. Naturally, then, Jackson became 
 consulting expert for several mining companies, 
 a service for which he exacted twenty dollars 
 a day, half in advance. The less attractive por- 
 tions of this highly profitable work, Jackson 
 was able to throw in the way of his pupil; who 
 in consequence, after "Betsey on the Blow- 
 pipe" was finished, spent July, August, and 
 September in the field, as geologist for the Isle 
 Royale Copper Company. 
 
 Mining on ,a large scale and by any other 
 than primitive methods was then a new indus- 
 
78 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 try in the United States. Jackson, therefore, 
 continually urged his clients to send to the 
 mines of Saxony and the Harz for skilled work- 
 men and furnace masters. Hardly less continu- 
 ally did Jackson recommend Whitney for the 
 commission. Besides this, Jackson was consult- 
 ing chemist for the Cocheco calico print-works 
 of Dover, New Hampshire, and was, therefore, 
 in a position to pay well for exclusive informa- 
 tion as to German cotton cloths. This also he 
 turned over to Whitney; and between the two 
 commissions, with some added help from his 
 father, Josiah went abroad once more, in De- 
 cember of 1845. 
 
 From Berlin, where he had been since the 
 beginning of the year, in the laboratory of 
 Heinrich Rose, he wrote to his brother William, 
 now clerk in their father's bank at Northamp- 
 ton. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 April 25, 1846. 
 
 You do not tell me how you like the Bank, 
 or what your plans are about continuing there. 
 It seems that you have quite given up the idea 
 of studying medicine. I want you to tell me 
 just what your ideas are and what you think 
 Father's wishes and expectations are, in regard 
 
IN EUROPE 79 
 
 to this important matter. Of course my first 
 object will be, as soon as I return, to do all I 
 can to have you enjoy any advantages, which 
 you may wish, in carrying out your education. 
 If, as you proposed, you wish to devote your- 
 self to the study of Philology, and take a Pro- 
 fessorship, you must come out here and remain 
 at least three years. I only wish that you could 
 come out while I am here, so that I could see 
 you fairly started in your course of study, and 
 I do not see why it is impossible. My plans 
 are, to go to New York, as soon as I get through 
 here, and open a laboratory, where I have good 
 reason to believe I can " do a handsome busi- 
 ness " ; that is to say, if I can condescend to a 
 little quackery to start a name and a reputa- 
 tion. 
 
 I should much prefer Boston to any other 
 city as a residence, but there seems to be little 
 chance for me there. Boston has a much more 
 refined and literary society than New York, 
 and it is the only city in America where any- 
 thing of any account is done for science, and 
 where there is anything like a body of zealous 
 naturalists. I suppose I should be run after 
 for a Professorship, if I had studied at Gies- 
 sen, as it seems to be a settled point that no 
 young man can be expected to know anything 
 of chemistry, unless he has studied with Liebig ; 
 
8o JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 while the truth is, that any one who goes there 
 and does not afterwards correct the bad habits 
 acquired there, in some other laboratory, is al- 
 most unfitted for doing any thing in Chem- 
 istry. No doubt Liebig is a remarkable man, 
 who has done much for organic Chemistry, 
 not to speak of his having quarreled with all 
 the Chemists in Europe ; but, that his genius 
 can communicate itself to his pupils by his 
 merely looking at them once a day, I do not 
 believe. It must be a curious sort of place 
 where fifty or more chemists dine together, 
 and discuss the last new Liebigschen theories 
 with Sauer Kohl and Bairisch Bier ad libitum. 
 
 Still, Liebig had the best teaching labora- 
 tory outside of Paris ; and there Whitney 
 repaired for the winter of 1847. There, too, 
 began his lifelong friendship with the great 
 chemist, Wolcott Gibbs. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 GIESSEN, January 26, 1847. 
 
 You know by my last letter to Father, that I 
 came on to Giessen at the beginning of the 
 Semester, and you will have to take my word 
 for it, that I have been working from morning 
 to night ever since, excepting now and then 
 an occasional breath of fresh air on Saturday 
 
IN EUROPE 81 
 
 afternoons. One day is so much like another, 
 that if I give you a description of one, it will 
 answer for all ; and you will be able, by allow- 
 ing for difference of longitude, at any time to 
 give a pretty good guess as to what I am doing. 
 I try desperately hard to get up at six o'clock, 
 at which time I am always awakened by the 
 servant-maid as she comes up to make the 
 fire ; if the thermometer is much below zero, I 
 think about it so long, that it sometimes gets 
 to be seven before I am fairly on my legs. At 
 seven precisely, coffee is ready, down to which 
 I sit, generally with Berzelius in my hand. 
 The breakfast consists of coffee with the in- 
 evitable two brodchen, which are of the kind 
 and size which the apothecaries might well 
 sell for eye stones. While eating them, I think 
 of oysters and fried pudding on alternate morn- 
 ings, and so, with the aid of a little imagination, 
 get on very well. As I am thus engaged, in 
 comes the Stiefelputzer with his invariable 
 " Guten morchen, Herr Doctor " (all Chemists 
 here are ex-officio Doctors, I suppose), makes 
 his report on the weather, which is generally 
 "fiirchtbar kalt," or " schauderhaft nass," and 
 vanishes after a feeble effort to make the boots 
 shine with a composition unknown to Day & 
 Martin, and. a few speculations as to the many 
 colored spots in the unmentionables. 
 
82 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 Breakfast over and boots on, I rush for the 
 laboratory, and generally manage to be the first 
 there. Here we work until dinner time, half-past 
 twelve, when we all march into town together, 
 and dine; back again to the laboratory, work 
 till six, home, a cup of tea, study and write till 
 eleven or twelve, tumble into bed and sleep 
 like a log till the next day's work commences 
 again. One night in a week, a few of us come 
 together and discuss matters and things in 
 general, drink a friendly cup of tea, play a 
 quiet game of chess or whist, and make up for 
 six evenings of quiet and hard work by one of 
 good hearty fun. We have some good fellows 
 here in the laboratory among the numerous 
 specimens of all lands and nations, dialects and 
 tongues, chemists of all sorts ; for ours is the 
 laboratory where Professors and Doctors are 
 manufactured to order. There is nothing which 
 does not get hauled over the coals with us. 
 Gibbs and I are working at sheep's bile and a 
 new substance obtained by subjecting the flesh 
 of an old horse to a fusion with caustic pot- 
 ash. Our next neighbor regales us with the 
 odor proceeding from a quantity of eggs in a 
 very advanced state of decomposition, dried 
 blood, etc. ; another has the monopoly of all the 
 eyes of the animals slaughtered in the village ; 
 another has a quantity of very strong cheese, 
 
IN EUROPE 83 
 
 out of which he is getting all sorts of curious 
 things ; and so through the whole forty or less 
 of us and such a mingled mass of odors as 
 rises up from the laboratory, it is well that it 
 is a good distance from the town, or the inhab- 
 itants would have risen up and driven us out, 
 long ago.^ 
 
 There is a great deal of work done here, and 
 a great deal of money spent in a year, in all 
 the investigations which are carried on. The 
 Professor himself spends a large amount on his 
 own work, and has a special assistant to carry 
 out his analyses, etc., for him, besides the two 
 who have the general oversight and care of 
 the laboratory. The Professor generally comes 
 round and speaks with each of us, both morn- 
 ing and afternoon, enquires what we are doing 
 and gives his advice gratis. At first his ways 
 and manner did not strike me very pleasantly, 
 but now I do not mind so much about him, as 
 I did at first. He has a terribly sharp eye, with 
 which he bores you through and through, 
 when he speaks to you, and all together he is 
 a man whose whole appearance is one which 
 commands and interests. I should want to be 
 here a long time to fathom his character. Out 
 of the laboratory I do not know a soul in the 
 town. The people in whose house I live, I 
 never see, though I am told they are a very 
 
84 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 good sort of folk. Every now and then I hear 
 a piano going on downstairs, from which I con- 
 clude there must be women-kind about, though 
 I see nothing of them except a very stupid 
 Made hen t who almost tires me out by her awk- 
 wardness and sluttishness. I have not been 
 able, to this day, to teach her how to fill and 
 trim my study lamp, which she still looks at with 
 very much the same feeling of awe and aston- 
 ishment that a small boy with us does on a big 
 steam engine, for the first time in his life. . . . 
 
 Think of a town of 10,000 inhabitants and no 
 newspaper, no bank and no banker, no public 
 amusements of any kind whatever, and every 
 other man a Rath ! German from top to bot- 
 tom. The situation, however, makes up for all ; 
 it must be beautiful in summer to be sure, 
 that does not help me much, being only here 
 in winter. 
 
 There are several curious, conical, volcanic- 
 looking, basalt hills around within a mile or 
 two, crowned with the remains of extensive and 
 famous old strongholds, real castles of the 
 feudal ages, with their solid walls and high 
 towers, around and under which clustered the 
 inhabitants in their cottages for protection, on 
 the sides of the hill, in the most picturesque 
 and curious way. Then the geology of the 
 country round is interesting and there is much 
 
IN EUROPE 85 
 
 here which puts me in mind of the valley of 
 the Connecticut: the same rocks and some- 
 thing the same contour of the hills. The valley 
 of the Lahn all the way down to Coblenz is 
 said to be charming. Only think ! if it were 
 summer, what a nice thing it would be to tramp 
 away for a week or two and leave the old horse 
 to take care of himself, and cruise up and 
 down the Rhine, among the Castles and Vine- 
 yards. But it is winter and such a winter ! first 
 of all rain, then rain snow thaw; snow 
 thaw rain. One day in December we caught 
 a few inches of snow, whereupon we started up 
 a sleigh-ride, and drove off to Marburg [about 
 seventeen miles] to visit Professor Bunsen; be- 
 fore night, it began to rain "what you call" 
 pitchforks, and we had the satisfaction of com- 
 ing home on bare ground. Then came a cold 
 snap, and the thermometer actually went down 
 to some 15 Reaumur [two below zero Fah- 
 renheit], and what's more, hovered about that 
 point for nearly a month ; then we had some 
 pretty good skating (by the way, they under- 
 stand harnessing skates better than we do). 
 Last Friday, the snow fell about eight inches, 
 and a capital article for snow-balling, and such 
 a time as we did have ! Never did schoolboys 
 so bepelt, bespatter, bedaub, so besnow each 
 other, as did the grave and reverend doctors 
 
86 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 of the Giessen laboratory. We got all the ma- 
 chines on runners that we could find in the 
 village and drove to Wetzlar [about seven 
 miles away] ; at every village on the way we 
 fought a pitched battle, set the village into an 
 uproar, frightened all the old women and cats 
 out of their senses, and cut up such capers as 
 boys crazy for fun are wont to do. " Die 
 Schlacht bei Dudenhofen " (the next village to 
 Giessen) will be as memorable in the annals of 
 the town as that one which General Taylor is 
 going to fight with the Mexicans, and which 
 we have been expecting to hear of by every 
 steamer, for the last twelve months. . . . 
 
 I am glad that you have taken hold of 
 Swedish; you will not have been long in ex- 
 hausting my library in that department. If you 
 have read all the Arsberattelser through, you 
 shall have two new ones to read, when I get 
 home. In the meantime don't forget, that if 
 you are coming to Europe, French is the most 
 important language, and you must be able to 
 speak it fluently. 
 
 FROM J. D. WHITNEY, SENIOR 
 
 NORTHAMPTON, April 23, 1847. 
 
 You must hurry home to be here before our 
 family is entirely broken up. Come prepared 
 for great events. It is as true as strange, that 
 
IN EUROPE 87 
 
 Elizabeth and Sarah are both engaged / The 
 former to Mr. Putnam, a forwarding merchant 
 at Milwaukee, the latter to Rev. R. C. Learned 
 of New London, a young, unsettled minister. 
 Both within a week of each other. . . . 
 
 With his return to Northampton early in 
 May and the weddings of his two sisters, the 
 period of Josiah Whitney's education comes to 
 an end. Thanks in about equal measure to his 
 father's generosity and to his own industry, 
 there was no better trained young man of sci- 
 ence in the country. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 THE LAKE SUPERIOR SURVEY. 1847-1850 
 
 THE famous copper district of Lake Superior 
 begins at the tip of Keweenaw Point where the 
 Upper Peninsula of Michigan makes out into 
 the lake, and extends in a narrow band paral- 
 lel with the shore, some hundred and twenty 
 miles southwest to the border of Wisconsin. 
 The metal-bearing strata dip toward the north, 
 pass beneath the waters of the lake, and reap- 
 pear fifty miles away on the other side of the 
 great trough, on Isle Royale. There is copper 
 also on the Canadian side both of Lake Superior 
 and Lake Huron. Southeast of this copper 
 belt, near the middle of the Upper Peninsula, 
 lies the iron district. 
 
 This whole region was an unexplored wilder- 
 ness in the forties. It had been ceded to the 
 United States by the Chippeways in 1843, after 
 Michigan became a state, and in consequence 
 belonged to the General Government. When, 
 therefore, after the " copper fever " of 1845 and 
 1846, the Upper Peninsula appeared to be set- 
 tling down to a normal development, it became 
 imperative that the usual survey of the General 
 Land Office, which divides a district into town- 
 
THE LAKE SUPERIOR SURVEY 89 
 
 ships and sections, and was already under way, 
 should be supplemented by a geological survey, 
 for the laws which govern the distribution of 
 the public domain distinguish sharply between 
 mineral and agricultural land. Such a survey, 
 in charge of the Treasury Department, Con- 
 gress ordered in March of 1847. 
 
 The natural head for the new survey would 
 have been Dr. Douglass Houghton, State 
 Geologist of Michigan, who had made a be- 
 ginning at the task. Houghton, however, in 
 the fall of 1845, while at work on the geology 
 of Keweenaw Point, was caught on the lake 
 in a snow squall and drowned ; and the ap- 
 pointment, in consequence, fell to Dr. Jackson. 
 Jackson at once offered Whitney, who was 
 still with Liebig at Giessen, an appointment 
 as a First Assistant, at five dollars a day, with 
 charge of a district as large as the State of 
 Massachusetts. Up to this time Whitney had 
 been fitting himself to become a chemist; 
 Jackson's offer made him, in the end, a geolo- 
 gist. 
 
 Nominally the appointment was for only five 
 months of the year, from the opening of navi- 
 gation toward the end of May, until late in 
 October, when it became no longer safe to re- 
 main in the wilderness, if one expected to get 
 out again before spring. For Whitney, how- 
 
90 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 ever, still more chemist than geologist, there 
 was laboratory work and writing of reports to 
 fill the winter months. Altogether, therefore, 
 the work of the Lake Superior Survey occupied 
 him for three winters and four summers, while 
 it was fully two years more before the last piece 
 of work was off his hands. 
 
 The main object of the Lake Superior sur- 
 veyors was to discover new deposits of ore, to 
 delimit the region within which such deposits 
 were likely to occur, and to record all the fac- 
 tors which might determine the economic value 
 of any mine, new, old, or possible. In addition, 
 they were to collect specimens of rocks, soils, 
 and fossils ; to note the vegetation, the timber, 
 the harbors and rivers, and the promising farm- 
 ing land; to make observations for latitude, 
 longitude, barometric pressure, temperature, 
 dew point. Here, also, Whitney had his first 
 experience with topographical surveying, and 
 here he laid the foundation for the important 
 contribution which, twenty years later, he made 
 to this backward art. Above all, there was the 
 scientific problem, the geologic structure and 
 age of northern Michigan. 
 
 The party varied somewhat from year to 
 year. There were always at least two first as- 
 sistant geologists, each at the head of a party 
 and responsible for his own district. Jackson 
 
THE LAKE SUPERIOR SURVEY 91 
 
 himself kept general oversight, and watched 
 the appropriation bills at Washington, but did 
 less actual field work than his subordinates. 
 William Whitney went out in the summer of 
 1849 as botanist, ornithologist, and clerk. Wol- 
 cott Gibbs was also of the party; and Charles 
 A. Joy, Whitney's fellow-pupil under Jackson 
 and afterwards professor of chemistry at Co- 
 lumbia and editor of the " Scientific Ameri- 
 can." So too was Dr. John Locke, the physicist; 
 and Dr. William Francis Channing, a son of 
 Rev. William Ellery Channing, whom Whitney 
 had known in Jackson's laboratory and on 
 the New Hampshire Survey; and John Wells 
 Foster, who afterwards became president of the 
 Chicago Academy and of the American Asso- 
 ciation. Whitney counted as an experienced 
 man, by virtue of his connection with the New 
 Hampshire Survey, and he knew the country 
 from his work there during the summer of 
 1845. Locke, an older man than the rest, had 
 been on the United States exploring expedition 
 to the Northwest Territory, and on the first 
 state survey of Ohio in 1836 and 1837. Foster, 
 a lawyer and civil engineer as well as geolo- 
 gist, had also been on the Ohio Survey with 
 Locke, and, like Whitney, had come into the 
 Lake Superior region with the rush in 1845. 
 In general, there were besides Jackson and his 
 
92 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 two first assistants, five or six other geologists, 
 mineralogists, naturalists, or surveyors on sal- 
 ary, an accompaniment of packmen, boatmen, 
 and cooks, mostly Indians and Canadians, and 
 a varying number of beginners who served 
 without pay for the sake of the experience. 
 
 The account which follows of Whitney's 
 second summer in the Michigan wilderness, 
 and of the winter which succeeded it, is con- 
 densed from his home letters to his brother at 
 Northampton. In brief, the entire party went 
 first to Copper Harbor near the tip of Kewee- 
 naw Point, where there was a United States 
 fort, and where the expedition made its head- 
 quarters. Thence the first assistants sepa- 
 rated to their special fields. Whitney, in addi- 
 tion to keeping his subordinates employed, 
 himself traveled back and forth somewhat 
 freely, picking up loose ends of work, prepar- 
 ing for work to come, interviewing miners, com- 
 paring notes with his associates, and going 
 over old ground in the light of new discoveries. 
 He took the western side of the district and 
 Foster the eastern. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SUNDAY June 25, 1848. 
 
 I rode all night on Wednesday and the next 
 morning joined Dr. J. and party at Syra- 
 
THE LAKE SUPERIOR SURVEY 93 
 
 cuse. ... I was not much fatigued as the cars 
 were not crowded from Utica on; so that by 
 dint of getting possession of some four or 
 five seats, and curling myself up into a W, 
 making a pillow of my coat, I managed to re- 
 main in a torpid semiconscious situation till 
 breakfast time, despite the amorous occasional 
 punches of the conductor, who seemed bent on 
 finding out how a man could manage to be so 
 very quiet in such a curly kind of a position. . . . 
 We reached Buffalo late on Thursday night, 
 and I went to bed, quite ready to make up for 
 my long journey by a good night's snooze, 
 which happily even the rattling of all the pots 
 and kettles ... in the kitchen, two feet from 
 my window, did not break up till exhausted 
 nature had secured for herself a sufficient dose. 
 We started off after breakfast for Niagara, as 
 no boat left till evening . . . took leave of civi- 
 lization and good dinners for an indefinite 
 period . . . went on board [the boat for 
 Detroit], and were out on the Lake soon after 
 10 o'clock. The boat was crowded with Ger- 
 man emigrants above and below, of all sorts 
 and kinds. I never met so many ill-favored and 
 repulsive looking people on one boat in my life 
 before. . . . But to make up, the religious war 
 was carried on most furiously. From morning 
 to night, there was a set of some twenty in the 
 
94 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 main cabin going it hammer and tongs ; one 
 of whom I am sure repeated the whole Bible 
 through at least three times in the course of 
 the two days. If the voyage had lasted another 
 day, I am confident we should have had a 
 pitched battle and bloodshed. Thirty-six babies 
 crying with most lusty voices were hardly 
 heard in the din of the discussion ; add to this 
 a temperature of + 96, and 196 over the boilers 
 where our stateroom was, and you may per- 
 haps appreciate our situation. ... I expect 
 to leave my poor perspiring corpse in drops 
 between Buffalo and Copper Harbor. 
 
 [Beyond Detroit] boats run with the most 
 desperate irregularity, so that we must depend 
 on [two little steamers] which run from the Sault 
 to Cleveland when they can find nothing better 
 to do, which luckily this year is not so easy as 
 it was last. . . . Times are not as they used to 
 was in '45, when all Yankeedom and no small 
 portion of Christendom were hurrying up to 
 Copper Harbor, and every boat was crowded, 
 and every single passenger had a permit in his 
 breeches pocket and a license to dig out un- 
 limited wealth from the bosom of the El Cop- 
 perando of the West. [While waiting at De- 
 troit] I shall be mostly occupied in rating our 
 chronometers (of which we have prevailed on 
 our Uncle Sam, who is desperately chary of 
 
THE LAKE SUPERIOR SURVEY 95 
 
 giving his boys watches to play with, to give 
 us two), determining our longitude and latitude, 
 adjusting and comparing instruments, and 
 snoozing away the heat of the day to the tune 
 of " Heigh ho! when is that boat a-coming ? " 
 a tune which I have drawled out my share of 
 already, I think, on these lakes. . . . You will 
 think that we shall hardly get to Copper Har- 
 bor before we shall have to look round for a 
 chance to get back again. 
 
 [The party, after a week's wait at Sault de 
 Ste. Marie, found a sailing vessel to take them 
 to Copper Harbor.] 
 
 We had a pleasant run of 36 hours from the 
 Sault to this place with a six-knot easterly breeze 
 and the lake quite smooth, which I put down as a 
 lucky omen, since I believe I never navigated 
 the Lake before with a fair wind. [Professor 
 Louis Agassiz has a party in the region] which 
 is now somewhere on the northern shore of the 
 Lake, if not at the bottom of it. They are some 
 15 or 20 naturalists and Cambridge students 
 on a tour of scientific pleasure, and we arrived 
 at the Sault just in time to see them off. We 
 were much amused by their evident verdancy 
 in regard to a life in the woods. Nobody was 
 captain among the 30 men and voyageurs ; and 
 
96 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 when anything was to be done, the only way 
 was to put it to vote, a precious situation to be 
 in, if overtaken by a squall in making a long 
 traverse. After being fairly gone a couple of 
 days, when we supposed them fifty miles off, 
 they sent back a boat for a dozen earthen bowls, 
 which they had discovered to be better coolers 
 of coffee than their tin ones ! I should love to 
 see them in camp and watch their proceedings. 
 
 I remained at our headquarters . . .while all the 
 rest of the crowd went round and over the point 
 to Lac la Belle and back. I had the chronome- 
 ters to rate, and some observations to take and 
 calculate, which kept me busy. The weather 
 was delightful, the moon being full and the 
 evenings clear and cool ; if any of us had been 
 of a romantic turn of mind, we should have gone 
 off the hooks in a fit of extasy especially the 
 other night, when we were treated to a brilliant 
 exhibition of the " sparks flying off the north 
 pole" but it grieves me to be obliged to say 
 that some ice-creams which were manufactured 
 at the Fort, and of which we were invited to par- 
 take by Mrs. Hawes, excited more enthusiasm 
 than all the moonshine and aurora together. 
 
 We shall probably leave toward the latter part 
 of the week for the Ontonagon. . . . We shall 
 have rather a hard time this next month, but 
 after that the worst of the flies will be over. . 
 
THE LAKE SUPERIOR SURVEY 97 
 
 My party will consist of Dr. Gibbs (fate 
 seems determined to throw us together ; we 
 always passed for one person in Berlin and 
 Giessen, so constantly were we together, namely 
 " Gyps-und-Vitnei " ). [The two men really did 
 look somewhat alike.] Also Mr. Joy of Ovid, 
 N. Y., and three or four good men. We shall 
 first go up the Ontonagon and take another 
 look at the country, see what has been done 
 during the winter, determine a few points as- 
 tronomically ; then to the Porcupine Mts., 
 measure their height (which we could not do 
 last summer, as we had broken our barometer 
 before getting there), examine one or two points 
 of interest on our way back between the Por- 
 tage and the Ontonagon. We shall return to 
 Copper Harbor in about five weeks. ... Thence 
 we shall take a fresh start, probably in com- 
 pany with Mr. Foster and his party, and ex- 
 plore south of the bay at the south of Keweenaw 
 Point through to the Menomonic River, and I 
 presume that ... we shall not return to Cop- 
 per Harbor again. . . . Coming back to Copper 
 Harbor [would, however,] be an agreeable re- 
 lief to the monotony of the season, and we 
 [should] be able to find a few letters and hear 
 what has been going on, instead of being shut 
 up all summer long in the woods. . . . 
 
 Having at last got everything ready, we 
 
98 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 started off under a pressure of white-ash can- 
 vas, with three cheers from a solitary spectator 
 assembled on the wharf, about 5 o'clock P. M. 
 last Friday; but had not gone far before we 
 were overtaken by a most violent thunder- 
 storm, while the rain coming down, as if they 
 had just finished their Monday's washing over- 
 head and were emptying out the tubs on us, 
 soon gave us the pleasing prospect of being 
 wrapped in wet blankets, if not in wet sheets 
 : a hydropathic method of treatment admi- 
 rably well calculated for assuaging a romantic 
 love of wandering, which torments some peo- 
 ple. We soon got ashore and camped as well 
 as we could, considering that it was our first 
 night out, and everything new, and all hands 
 unused to each other, so that nobody knew 
 what his share of the work was. Our tent was 
 new, and when we came to pitch it, we found 
 that all the pitching in the world would not 
 make it mosquito- if it would water-tight. 
 For the flap around the bottom was about 
 three inches too short an arrangement well 
 calculated to promote ventilation, to be sure, 
 but as mosquitoes were very thick, we were de- 
 cidedly opposed to leaving so large a crack for 
 them to crawl in at. So we stopped it up with 
 branches of trees, and putting no admittance 
 on the door in Indian and French, we pro- 
 
THE LAKE SUPERIOR SURVEY 99 
 
 ceeded to partake of a bountiful supper pre- 
 pared by our French cook, whom I had en- 
 gaged at the Sault, he having left his former 
 master, because he had publicly put salt in his 
 soup, I presume. I am decidedly luxurious this 
 summer, having three first-rate men (two pack- 
 men, one cook, and three boatmen), and also 
 two pleasant companions. 
 
 We reached [Ontonagon], the capital of my 
 district and my seat of government, last night, 
 and found it very much as last year the 
 mosquitoes not quite so bad perhaps, but some 
 other things worse. The mines in this part of 
 the country are nearly all abandoned ; and even 
 the farce of " keeping the location " (in a case 
 where there was no prospect of the location 
 ever producing enough to keep you) is given 
 up. None of the men employed by the com- 
 panies in this part of the world have ever got 
 any pay, such being the fashion here from the 
 beginning, and still strictly adhered to ; so you 
 may imagine that ready money cannot be very 
 plentiful. Yet they have been beating each 
 other's empty brain-cases in, and making shot 
 and bullet holes in each other, all about the 
 preemption-right to a parcel of land, which not 
 one of them has got the money to buy, and 
 which is not worth a cent anyway. 
 
ioo JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 Thus far I had written when on looking at 
 my watch, I found that it was nearly ten o'clock 
 which was such an unprecedentedly late hour 
 to be up, that I was quite frightened. We are 
 waiting here still, [with] Mr. Foster and his 
 party, for Mr. Hall to come back from Eagle 
 River with some "tin "... to pay off his men 
 with, when he reaches Green Bay. The rest 
 of us are waiting for the arrival of the pro- 
 peller from Isle Royale, with two of the corps, 
 who have been imprisoned there during the 
 summer. Since I wrote the first part of this 
 letter, we have changed our plans a little. As 
 it stands now if we do not change again 
 before to-morrow, which I hardly think prob- 
 able I shall take the " Chippeway " or some 
 other small craft, with the necessary instru- 
 ments, and accompanied by Mr. Joy, shall pro- 
 ceed to Isle Royale, to fix its position astro- 
 nomically, and measure a few sections across 
 the island barometrically ; in short, to finish up 
 what is yet to be done, before the final map 
 of the island can be drawn. This will be a very 
 agreeable little trip. Meanwhile Gibbs will take 
 my party, and go on with the work where I was 
 intending to go before; and if I get through in 
 time, I shall join him, and give a final look at 
 the country above the Portage, before leaving. 
 This, however, I hardly expect, unless the 
 weather and wind favor us extraordinarily. 
 
THE LAKE SUPERIOR SURVEY 101 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 BOSTON, December n, 1848. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, I have been as busy as 
 possible ever since reaching Boston, as Mr. 
 Foster is here and we have had a great many 
 matters to talk over together. California is all 
 the rage now, and poor Lake Superior has to 
 be shoved into the background. We are al- 
 ready planning to secure the geological survey 
 of that interesting land, where the farmers can't 
 plough their fields by reason of the huge lumps 
 of gold in the soil. In consideration of all of 
 which, I want my copy of Duflot de Mofras's 
 book on Oregon, California, etc. with the 
 plates, which are in one of the drawers under 
 the bookcase in the library. . . . 
 
 I shall drive away to finish the chemical 
 work I have to do now in three or four weeks ; 
 and shall then commence writing my report, 
 which will occupy me a month or two longer 
 then I mean to have a vacation, and do 
 something dreadful in the way of recreating. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 January 3, 1849. 
 
 ... I believe I quite forgot to say, in my 
 last, that I had moved back to my old boarding- 
 house, No. 4 Bowdoin Square. . . . There was 
 
102 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 a very pleasant room vacant, and the situa- 
 tion being so convenient to the laboratory, I 
 thought I had better walk in and take pos- 
 session. So now I am very comfortably settled, 
 and if I could get rid of these diabolical head- 
 aches, I should be accomplishing a good deal in 
 one way and another. I am glad to say that for 
 the last few days I have slept pretty well, my 
 turns of headache coming on generally about 
 8 P. M. and disappearing mostly by 9, or 10, or 
 n, or sometimes 12. I can't bear to go to Dr. 
 James Jackson, in whose advice I should put 
 the most confidence, for I know perfectly well 
 that he would tell me to refrain from reading, 
 writing and thinking, which I cannot do, at 
 least at present. Unless I am down sick, I 
 shall stick by, and work a little at least, and 
 trust to luck to get better by and by. Such 
 turns do not generally last more than two or 
 three months. 
 
 There is nothing particularly new about 
 California. One of my friends received a let- 
 ter from Mr. [Robert C.] Winthrop the other 
 day, in which he did the handsome thing 
 promising to back me up with the strength 
 of his influence. I find that I have a good 
 many strong friends scattered about here and 
 there. 
 
THE LAKE SUPERIOR SURVEY 103 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 BOSTON, January 24, 1849. 
 
 I made an ineffectual attempt to write you 
 last Sunday, but at the end of the second page 
 I concluded that it was no use to try to write 
 when one did not feel like it. So I very delib- 
 erately rolled the letter up into lamplighters and 
 should undoubtedly, had I not left off smoking, 
 have lighted a cigar with one of them and sat 
 me down to ruminate on the mutability of hu- 
 man affairs. Time is wagging along, and I have 
 been so busy that I have hardly had time to no- 
 tice its progress. But here we are at the end of 
 January almost . . . May will soon be here, and 
 I dare say you will welcome it, hey? . . . 
 
 I do not see but that you will have to go up 
 to Lake Superior after all, for it seems to be the 
 general opinion that there will be no survey 
 of California organized this session at least. I 
 don't care about having the thing done at all, 
 unless it can be got up in good style, a regular 
 scientific exploration of the whole territory, the 
 results to be published in handsome style, and 
 not on the filthy wrapping paper which answers 
 well enough to embalm the stale speeches of the 
 M. C.'s. I wrote an article of two columns for 
 the last "Mining Journal" (if I had a copy I 
 would send you one), stirring up such a survey, 
 
104 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 and I mean to follow the attack up in that jour- 
 nal, in the " North American Review," and 
 " Silliman's Journal." I shall begin to go to work 
 in earnest as soon as my Lake Superior report 
 is off my hands. That takes up all my time, and 
 I shall not feel easy till it is finished. I sent off 
 to the printer yesterday, an article for the next 
 number of the "Journal," of thirteen pages, 
 which I have been working on nights and morn- 
 ings, and at odd ends of time. I am going to draw 
 up a plan of a survey of California and Oregon, 
 and lay it before the American Academy; they 
 will endorse it and send it on to Washington, so 
 that that will be a good stepping stone, I think, 
 to an appointment, if the survey is started. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 BOSTON, March 7, 1849. 
 
 By some strange fatality your letter of Feb- 
 ruary 27th was only delivered to-day. I had been 
 wondering that I did not receive a letter from 
 you, and could find no other reason than that 
 you were so set up by your success as a lecturer, 
 that you had concluded not to own relationship 
 with common beings like myself. You must 
 never accuse me of not thinking of you; you 
 would have to scrabble round a long time, I am 
 thinking, to find anyone who loves you as well 
 as I do, or who would value your affection more 
 
THE LAKE SUPERIOR SURVEY 105 
 
 highly. I must confess that I have felt a little 
 jealous of Bumstead occasionally, when he has 
 come round with a pocket full of letters from 
 you, to flourish under my nose. You must not 
 judge me by the length or quality of my let- 
 ters. I am but a poor correspondent at best; I 
 never had a genius for epistolary correspond- 
 ence, and when I have the blues, I have to give 
 up entirely; for to inflict my letters on anyone, 
 when I am in that state, would be a little too 
 bad. I wrote two letters to you last week and 
 week before, which I did not send, because after 
 writing them, I thought them rather too prosy. 
 All day I have been busily engaged in pre- 
 paring the accounts of the last year, which are 
 now ready to send on to Washington. Our cal- 
 culation is to start on the survey June ist. Do 
 you still think that you had better go, that you 
 are equal to the fatigues and exposures of the 
 season ? If so, I suppose that you can have a 
 place as assistant sub-agent at $2 per day, or 
 possibly as clerk at #3. ... I should so much 
 wish to have you with me, that I am afraid to 
 trust my own judgment in regard to the effect 
 of such a trip on your health. . . . The first 
 month will be the severe one. After that the 
 difficulties will rapidly diminish. I will make it 
 as easy for you as I can, and there would be 
 many pleasant things about [it] even in the 
 
io6 JOSIAH D WIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 worst of the difficulties. I do not see that it is 
 possible for Bumstead to go, as there will not 
 be a single vacancy into which he could creep. 
 There are two or three loafers attached to the 
 survey, whom I should be glad to see turned 
 out . . . but the Doctor will not do it. 
 
 Write soon don't wait till you have time to 
 fill a whole sheet, but let us have five cents' 
 worth a little oftener. 
 
 Meanwhile, as if it were not task enough for 
 the survey to unravel the geology of "a hun- 
 dred thousand square miles of unbroken wilder- 
 ness, tangled thickets, marshes, and lakes," there 
 were, in addition, difficulties at Washington. 
 Congress was slow in passing appropriations, 
 and even after funds had been voted, Jackson 
 could get his money only by "sticking to the 
 treasury door." Moreover, the Michigan con- 
 gressmen felt that no outsider could do justice 
 to the mineral resources of their state ; and only 
 the utmost efforts of the head of the survey de- 
 feated an amendment to the appropriation bill, 
 which would compel him to reside in the state, 
 have all the chemical work done at Detroit, and 
 employ as assistants only "practical" men ac- 
 quainted with woodcraft and citizens of Michi- 
 gan. There was, besides, much hostile criticism 
 of the survey, much ventilating of the incom- 
 
THE LAKE SUPERIOR SURVEY 107 
 
 petence of the assistants, and much personal 
 opposition to Jackson, on the part of mine own- 
 ers and men actually on the ground, some of it 
 at least from men whose opinion was entitled 
 to weight. Jackson himself, at this time, seems 
 to have been by no means at his best. His long 
 controversy with Warren and Morton and 
 Wells over the discovery of anesthesia had con- 
 sumed his strength and preyed on his mind. He 
 talked of nothing but ether, and his letters to 
 Whitney on this topic display a bitterness for- 
 eign to his nature. Altogether it is easy to be- 
 lieve that Jackson was a sick man in 1847 an d 
 1 848, stricken with a touch of the malady which, 
 years later, sent him to end his days in an in- 
 sane hospital. 
 
 Be this as it may, disapproval of the conduct 
 of the survey became so outspoken, that in the 
 spring of 1849, Foster and Whitney both re- 
 signed; there was an investigation by the de- 
 partment at Washington, with the result that 
 Dr. Jackson was allowed to retire, while the 
 completion of the survey was given over to the 
 two assistants. 
 
 This promotion, for it really amounted to 
 making Foster and Whitney each an independ- 
 ent head of a survey of his own district, in- 
 volved rather an increase of responsibility than 
 a change of work. The two young men worked 
 
io8 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 together in harmony ; Foster attended to the 
 Washington end of their joint affairs, while 
 Whitney did more than half the work in the 
 field during the two additional seasons which 
 sufficed to complete the survey. 
 
 Several new men joined Whitney's party for 
 the final summer, among them Colonel Charles 
 Whittlesey of the United States Army, who had 
 been topographer and geologist on the Ohio 
 Survey; Edouard Desor, who had worked with 
 Agassiz on the Swiss glaciers ; and James Hall, 
 at that time the head of the New York Survey, 
 and still commonly accounted to be the first of 
 American paleontologists. Their work for the 
 field season of 1850 was in the eastern end of 
 the Peninsula, especially along its southern 
 border. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CLEVELAND, June 24, 1850. 
 
 . . . We arrived that is to say the geo- 
 logical corps, consisting of Mr. Desor and 
 myself yesterday afternoon in good health 
 and spirits. Col. Whittlesey we soon found, 
 and he professes a willingness to join our corps 
 for a short time, at least until he shall have 
 received definite information with regard to the 
 boundary line between Minnesota and Iowa 
 which he expects to have to run. Of course 
 

 J. D. Whitney, del. 
 
 ARCHED ROCK, LAKE SUPERIOR 
 
THE LAKE SUPERIOR SURVEY 109 
 
 he and Mr. Desor are already buried in the 
 [glacial] drift up to their chins and will be till 
 the boat leaves. 
 
 . . . Two of us will probably go to the Sault, 
 and two stop at Mackinaw; that is to say, if 
 Mr. Hall joins us to-day, as I expect. . . . 
 
 We shall thus have two parties of two each, 
 and I think it may safely be said that they 
 will be tolerably strong parties. I do not think 
 we need be ashamed of ourselves when we 
 have such men as Hall, Desor, and Whittlesey 
 with us. 
 
 It seems queer to be directing the move- 
 ments of a corps, all of whom are older and 
 more experienced than myself ! At least I need 
 not feel ashamed of my company, as I did when 
 Jackson sent me on with the " rag, tag, and 
 bobtail " of his party, to get them out of his 
 way, the first year we came up. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 North Shore of DRUMMOND'S ISLAND, July 15, 1850. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, Mousing round in the 
 bushes just now, I came upon [two of the men] 
 frying an enormous pile of doughnuts, by way 
 of making time pass off with speed. The asso- 
 ciation, you can conceive, led me naturally to 
 think of writing to you, and of thus making 
 use of a spare half-hour before dinner, which 
 
no JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 might perhaps, otherwise, be less usefully em- 
 ployed. . . . The wind is strong ahead, and we 
 are degrades on a pebbly beach on the north 
 shore of Drummond's Island [near the upper 
 end of Lake Huron], which we are circumnavi- 
 gating (Mr. Hall and myself). We are making 
 a tour among the islands of the St. Mary's, col- 
 lecting fossiliferouses, and catching trout. 
 
 Let me see, I think that I have not written 
 since we went to the Sault. . . . We waited 
 two or three rainy, easterly-weather days at 
 Mackinaw, where I tried in vain to fit out 
 Whittlesey and Desor for the west. Then we 
 all went to the Sault together. We found some 
 difficulty in persuading the men to go [up the 
 Lake], as it was late and they no longer ex- 
 pected us, and they had, therefore, made prepa- 
 rations for fishing. But finally, by the promise 
 of a few additional dollars, to make up for the 
 cost of the nets, we secured [six men]. . . . 
 We all started in two boats and went together 
 over to St. Martin's Islands, where we camped 
 for the night; and the next morning we sepa- 
 rated, Whittlesey and Desor to go west and 
 examine the coast and ascend the Manistique 
 River, while we are to circumnavigate in this 
 region for a week longer, and then make all 
 sail for the west, and overtake the other party 
 at Bay de Noquet. 
 
THE LAKE SUPERIOR SURVEY in 
 
 We have collected splendid fossils, which 
 are abundant beyond anything I ever saw in 
 this region. Mr. Hall is in tall clover. I must 
 tell you about our Saturday night's encamp- 
 ment. We had been sailing along until it began 
 to grow late and saw no signs of a spot suitable 
 for camping, or a place where we could haul 
 out our boat, and we had thus far not seen a 
 rock in place on the Island' [i. e. they were in 
 the glacial drift]. Suddenly we descried a flat 
 surface of rock descending gradually into the 
 water. As we approached, I let fly [a] gun 
 and killed eight ducks at a shot. We then ran 
 our boat upon the rocks, which we found to be 
 filled with beautiful fossils. We stepped ashore 
 and found ourselves on a level, open surface of 
 rock, without much soil upon it, but covered 
 with the greatest profusion of strawberries ! 
 . . . The next morning, after breakfasting on 
 our ducks and the trout, which we had caught 
 the day before, we started out in search of fos- 
 sils, which we found in the greatest beauty and 
 perfection, and which we literally picked up 
 from the midst of the beds of strawberries. We 
 collected some 200 Ibs. of fine corals, etc. in 
 a couple of hours, besides stopping occasion- 
 ally to refresh ourselves with the ripe straw- 
 berries. . . . 
 
 Mr. Hall and I get on very well together. I 
 
H2 JOSIAH D WIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 shall learn a good deal of him in the way of 
 Paleontology, a branch which I never expect 
 to be a proficient in, in these days of special- 
 ties, but which one can hardly help learning 
 something of, in voyaging in a fossiliferous 
 country with a man who is so skilled in his 
 specialty as is Mr. Hall. 
 
 You must not be surprised not to hear from 
 me again for a month or six weeks, as it may 
 be difficult to get our letters forwarded. 
 
 This summer's campaign completed the field 
 work of the Lake Superior Survey. Not for 
 five years did Whitney undertake another task 
 of like sort. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE METALLIC WEALTH OF THE UNITED 
 STATES. 1850-1854 
 
 IT was now William Whitney's turn to go 
 abroad. Of the five years since he graduated 
 from college, he had spent four behind the 
 counter of his father's bank, while the leaven 
 of Bopp's Grammar worked in his mind, and 
 he saved twelve hundred dollars toward his 
 emancipation from business. After his sum- 
 mer on the Lake Superior Survey, he entered 
 Yale as a graduate student of Sanscrit ; and in 
 the fall of 1850 went to Berlin to become a pupil 
 of Weber, and later to Tubingen, where with 
 Roth he commenced editing the "Atharva- 
 Veda." 
 
 Josiah, in the meanwhile, had set up a private 
 laboratory in Brookline, and was engaged on 
 the analyses of the survey just completed, on its 
 final reports, and on various special papers for 
 scientific journals. Of these, he had already 
 brought out seven, all except one on chemical 
 subjects, and together of sufficient merit to win 
 for him, in August of 1850, his first scientific 
 distinction, membership in the American Acad- 
 emy of Arts and Sciences. Now follow in rapid 
 
ii 4 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 succession six more special papers, four of them 
 on geological topics. From this time on, Whit- 
 ney is no longer predominantly a chemist. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY, AT BERLIN 
 BOSTON, November n, 1850. 
 
 . . * Luck seems to have favored you highly 
 and nothing can be more satisfactory than the 
 good account which you give of yourself thus 
 far. I shall depend on hearing all the particulars 
 of your course of study in which I, too, shall feel 
 a strong interest, for did I not steal from dear 
 old Bopp and Grimm many a lecture, going 
 away always with a longing desire to turn up 
 double, some day, and set one half at work on 
 philology. . . . As for myself everything is 
 going on as usual. I have written our synopsis 
 and forwarded it to the Department; and have 
 also, with the help of Desor, written an article 
 of some length giving the general results of our 
 explorations. This we have sent to the Geo- 
 logical Society of Paris. I mean, as soon as I 
 can find time, to get up an article on the 
 nature of the copper deposits of Lake Supe- 
 rior, for " PoggendorfF s Annalen." My labora- 
 tory work is going on, and I shall probably 
 have enough work to do there to occupy me a 
 couple of months busily. 
 
 . We tried to elect Foster into the 
 
METALLIC WEALTH 115 
 
 [American ] Academy last Wednesday, but 
 met with a Waterloo defeat. Jackson was there 
 with all the forces he could muster, and voted, 
 but said not a word. I think that the unpopu- 
 larity of Bowen and Cambridge in general 
 helped a good deal, though, doubtless, Jackson 
 influenced several votes. The wonder is to me 
 how he could not manage to keep me out. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 BOSTON, April i, 1851. 
 
 I spent ten days of the first half of March at 
 Albany, where I went as a witness in the cases 
 of Agassiz and Hall. . . . The suits were for 
 libel, and brought separately against Agassiz 
 and Hall, by a man by the name of J. T. [not 
 J. W. ] Foster, the author of a ridiculous at- 
 tempt at a geological chart, damages in each 
 case laid at $40,000 ! The chart was a most 
 absurd production, the work of a complete ig- 
 noramus, and yet was recommended by that 
 miserable old sneak [the name omitted is 
 that of a well-known geologist], who had been 
 
 offered a pecuniary interest in it. With 's 
 
 recommendation, there was a probability that 
 it might be adopted in the schools of New 
 York. To prevent this, Hall wrote to Agassiz, 
 requesting his opinion of the production, and 
 having got an opinion expressed in strong Ian- 
 
Ii6 JOSIAH D WIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 guage, published it and killed the chart dead. 
 On this, suits were instituted against both. 
 was the only scientific, or would-be scien- 
 tific man who could be found willing to en- 
 dorse the chart. [James Dwight] Dana, [ J. W.] 
 Foster, and I were there to testify as to its 
 merits. We were each kept on the stand a day 
 (three days occupied in our direct and cross-ex- 
 animations), and you may imagine that the chart 
 was pretty essentially hauled over the coals. 
 We did not spare ; and the more they cross- 
 questioned us, the more the truth would come 
 out. The Judge took the highest ground pos- 
 sible in favor of the right to criticise, and the 
 jury required an absence of only a few minutes 
 to make up their verdict for Agassiz. Hall's case 
 was dismissed by the Judge with the consent 
 of the plaintiffs, as they saw they had no hope, 
 and we returned home in great glee. I had a 
 good opportunity to get well acquainted with 
 Agassiz and Dana, as we were together all the 
 time for twelve days. Agassiz is a very fasci- 
 nating man, and it is impossible not to like 
 him, even in acknowledging that he, like all 
 the rest of mankind, has his faults (except you 
 and me). Dana is a " brick and no mistake." 
 
 It is no small task to get out a geological 
 report. There is, to begin with, a great mass 
 
METALLIC WEALTH 117 
 
 of field notes to be put into shape for printing, 
 or plotted on maps and sections. There are 
 observations to be reduced, minerals to be an- 
 alyzed, fossils to be described and pictured, 
 maps to be drawn and engraved, illustrations to 
 be lithographed, of a sort to catch the eye of 
 the legislator and make straight the path of 
 appropriation bills. Appropriation bills, too, 
 have to be watched, that paper and bindings 
 may not suffer from a spasm of economy. All 
 this successfully out of the way, printer and en- 
 graver and binder must be overseen, to make 
 sure that the government is not cheated be- 
 yond custom. In the meanwhile, the chief 
 geologist must edit or rewrite the reports of 
 his subordinates, and in addition prepare his 
 own text, a hundred or two large printed pages 
 bristling with facts. 
 
 The Lake Superior report was Whitney's 
 first, and he took pains with it. " The illustra- 
 tions," he wrote his brother, "are the best 
 things of the kind which have been got up in 
 this country as yet. There will be twenty 
 plates of scenery [his own drawings], ten of 
 fossils, besides maps, sections, and wood-cuts." 
 There were two volumes, one on the copper 
 district, the other on the iron. Desor did the 
 chapters on the glacial drift ; Hall the fossils. 
 Whitney himself wrote most of the general 
 
Ii8 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 geology, though Foster was equally responsible 
 for the"opinions. Between them, they reversed 
 some of Jackson's important conclusions ; and 
 advanced several new ones of their own, among 
 them the opinion, radical but quite correct, 
 that the So-called " new world " is really the 
 older of the two. Oddly enough, in spite of 
 Desor's connection with Agassiz, the report 
 rather opposed than supported the true theory 
 of the drift which Agassiz had been advocat- 
 ing for some ten years. Strangely, too, since 
 Whitney had been in a way a pupil of Lyell, 
 the more speculative portions of the report 
 have not a little to say of electric earth currents, 
 primeval oceans of hot water, metallic vapors, 
 vast earthquake waves, and the like weird ma- 
 chinery of pre-Lyellian geology. Geology in 
 the fifties was still more than half cosmology. 
 
 The manuscript for the second volume of 
 this report was ready for the printer in the 
 spring of 1851; and in the following summer, 
 Whitney indulged himself in a trip abroad and 
 a visit to his brother. It was a pleasure trip 
 London and a meeting of the British Associa- 
 tion ; Paris ; the Rhine ; Switzerland, where 
 once again fate threw him into the company 
 of his friend Wolcott Gibbs. 
 
 The letters between the two brothers begin 
 again with Josiah's return to America. 
 
METALLIC WEALTH 119 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 BROOKLINE, October 21, 1851. 
 
 I think that the real reason why the Dom 
 of Milan made such an impression on you, was 
 that it was so entirely unexpected. It is a glo- 
 rious work but not to be compared with the 
 Kolner Dom. That, of all the material works 
 of the human mind, has made the deepest and 
 most ineffaceable impression on me. I have seen 
 it at four different visits to Koln and stud- 
 ied it thoroughly. It is the grand realization of 
 a sublime idea carried out in full and entire 
 harmony with itself it is a whole, a unity. It 
 is in architecture, what one of Beethoven's sym- 
 phonies is in music, and the two, though so 
 different, have yet the same effect on me. I was 
 delighted that it should have made on you so 
 strong an impression. The cathedral at Milan 
 is more dazzling at first sight, more eblouissant, 
 more gorgeous; but it lacks the divine harmony, 
 the oneness which makes that of Cologne the 
 masterpiece of art. 
 
 . . . My dear Will, some things may have oc- 
 curred while we were together to mar the pleas- 
 ure of our journey somewhat, but these I shall 
 forget, and hope that you will, and that you 
 will forgive me if I was occasionally rather im- 
 patient and overbearing. I am sure that I shall 
 
120 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 always remember the short time we spent to- 
 gether with infinite pleasure, and shall look 
 forward to other similar days of enjoyment. . . . 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, November 4, 1851. 
 
 Here we are, settled down as quietly as if we 
 lived here . . . with a good wood fire to toast our 
 shins by, in this cold, rainy, and stupid weather; 
 and calmly waiting the printer's good pleasure 
 to furnish us with proof. We are in the hands of 
 a man who seems, in the opinion of all who know 
 him, to be a great scamp. He has a miserable 
 little concern of an establishment, and having 
 taken the contract lower than he can afford to 
 doit, he expects to make himself good by cheat- 
 ing Uncle Sam in various ways. He has some 
 motives for printing this work well, and, having 
 new type and only a hand press, we cannot 
 come off very badly. . . . 
 
 Yesterday and Sunday I spent at Pottsville 
 in the great anthracite coal basin, having run 
 up there Saturday afternoon (92 miles) to see 
 Desorand Rogers [H. D. Rogers, State Geolo- 
 gist of Pennsylvania]. Rogers was excessively 
 polite and attentive, and drove me all around 
 to the most interesting localities in the neighbor- 
 hood. It is a remarkable region both geologi- 
 cally and economically. Rogers has to finish the 
 
METALLIC WEALTH 121 
 
 field work of the survey next year, and the work 
 is to be published in two quarto volumes in the 
 best style. It will be the most creditable contri- 
 bution of this country to geological science. . . . 
 
 As for Whitney's own report, he did his best 
 to have that printed " in a suitable and decent 
 manner " ; but he tried in vain. " The printer," 
 he writes, " seems to have it all his own way, and 
 though he is notoriously defrauding the Gov- 
 ernment, yet there are so many who have their 
 fingers in the spoils, that nothing seems likely 
 to be accomplished in the way of putting an 
 end to such disgraceful proceedings." 
 
 The first edition was so badly done that 
 Congress rejected it; the second was hardly 
 better. There was a small appropriation made 
 for another, condensed, report. But Foster was 
 making money with a marble quarry in Ver- 
 mont, and Whitney refused to touch the mat- 
 ter at all, until assured that it would be kept 
 clear of jobbery. Long before the spring of 
 1853, when the report was finally put in circu- 
 lation, both its authors were heartily disgusted 
 with the whole affair. Meanwhile, a hopeful 
 plan for a private work on the Lake Superior 
 region collapsed promptly, as soon as Whitney 
 learned that a chief promoter of the scheme 
 expected his own mines to be treated discreetly. 
 
122 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 The mining industry in the United States 
 was in an unusual condition during the ten 
 years which succeeded 1845. There were some 
 hundreds of unimportant mines, of one kind 
 and another, scattered here and there over the 
 eastern portion of the continent, many of 
 which had been worked since colonial days. 
 The important lead region, which includes 
 some two thousand square miles of the south- 
 western corner of Wisconsin, and the borders 
 of Iowa and Illinois behind Galena and Du- 
 buque, was developed after 1830. In 1845 came 
 the Lake Superior copper, and in 1849 the 
 beginnings of the rush for gold to California. 
 Oddly enough, the discovery of new mining 
 regions revived interest in the old ; and between 
 new and old, as long as the boom lasted, the 
 demand for mining engineers quite outran the 
 supply. Whitney, with his thorough German 
 training, his five years in Upper Michigan, and 
 enough acquaintance with fossils to handle 
 paleontological evidence, found no difficulty in 
 establishing himself as a consulting expert, and 
 soon had a clientage throughout eastern United 
 States and Canada. 
 
 It chanced about the time when Josiah 
 Whitney was establishing himself in his new 
 profession, that he made the acquaintance of 
 two "funny boys," friends of his brother Wil- 
 
METALLIC WEALTH 123 
 
 Ham, Francis Child, later the great Anglo- 
 Saxon scholar, and George Martin Lane, the 
 Latinist, both then, as for the remainder of 
 their working lives, teachers in Harvard Col- 
 lege. To the younger Cambridge set of the day 
 belonged also Benjamin Apthorp Gould, the 
 astronomer, who at that time was determining 
 longitudes for the Coast Survey. 
 
 " Gould, Lane, and I," Whitney wrote his 
 brother, " have been trying to get a nice, quiet, 
 and retired house in Cambridge, for the pur- 
 pose of establishing an old Bachelor Hall, to 
 which, by a sort of counting our chickens be- 
 fore they were hatched, we have given the name 
 of ' Clover Den.' " 
 
 After no little trouble with landlords who 
 were " afraid of letting a house to such young 
 men," Clover Den finally materialized itself, in 
 April of 1852, in the old Mann house at the 
 elbow of Pollen Street, close to the Cambridge 
 green and just off what is now Massachusetts 
 Avenue, but was then " the road to Porter's." 
 The three original " denizens " added to their 
 number another astronomer, Joseph Winlock, 
 who had already begun his work on the " Nauti- 
 cal Almanac," and a man and his wife by the 
 name of Marshall, who between them kept the 
 house. For Whitney, however, during months at 
 a time, Clover Den was but a temporary shelter 
 
124 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 to which he returned from distant excursions, 
 for the sake of his own books, a place to write, 
 and the two great libraries at his elbow. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 ST. Louis, MISSOURI, November 2, 1852. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, It is indeed a long time 
 since I have written you, longer by far than I 
 mean to have intervene between my letters ; 
 but I have been on the move almost all the 
 time, or else, when brought to a stoppage . . . 
 too feverish and fretting to think of sitting 
 down to write anything more than a hasty 
 page. Since my last, I have traveled many a 
 weary mile, and some very pleasant ones. . . . 
 
 When have I met a man this summer to 
 whom I could talk about [the Tyrol, where 
 William has lately been tramping] ? Oh, it was 
 Dr. Scherzer, a Viennese gentleman, who is 
 making a great journey through North and 
 South America in company with Dr. Wagner, 
 who has written on the Caucasus. His love for 
 Tyrol is about on a par with mine. ... If you 
 did not get your enthusiasm worked up to a 
 high pitch on that journey, then it is a pity 
 that you did not have me along with you, for I 
 should have displayed sentiment enough to 
 carry both of us up to a pretty respectable 
 pitch. . . . 
 
METALLIC WEALTH 125 
 
 As for my own journeyings . . . they have 
 been somewhat circuitous and extensive. I 
 visited all the mines on Lake Superior, went 
 down and through them, and made plans of 
 them all, from the tip end of Keweenaw Point 
 to within hailing distance of Agogebic Lake. 
 [The distance is just about a hundred miles.] 
 My headquarters I made at Mr. [Sam W.] 
 Hill's at Copper Falls, where I was as comfort- 
 able as possible. He accompanied me in a good 
 many of my excursions ; and if he did not go 
 with me, Stevens generally did, so that I always 
 had company. I forget whether you saw Stevens 
 when you were on the Lake. He is the heavi- 
 est owner of mining stocks in that region, and 
 the most active explorer on the Lake. When 
 he first went up, he had 50 cents in baarem 
 Geld, and tended saw-mill. . . . 
 
 All summer long the woods were everywhere 
 on fire. In the Ontonagon region, their clear- 
 ings were burnt over again and again ; the soil 
 seemed to be nothing but tinder ; mining opera- 
 tions were almost suspended to the west of the 
 river, and you could hardly find your way 
 through the woods in the thickness of the 
 smoke. The same was the case on Isle Royale, 
 and we several times saw the light of the burn- 
 ing woods quite distinctly at Copper Falls, a 
 distance of 55 miles in a straight line. 
 
126 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 But to return to my voyaging, that you may 
 know how I got here. When I passed through 
 Albany, on my way west, Hall promised to join 
 me during the latter part of the season, and we 
 were to make a reconnaissance of Missouri to- 
 gether. I also desired to have a look at the 
 lead region of Wisconsin and Iowa. ... Un- 
 fortunately my letter to Hall did not hit him, 
 as he was up in Vermont making a tour with 
 Lyell (who has come over to lecture in the 
 Lowell Institute). So I had to set out for Mil- 
 waukee . . . without hearing from Hall. 
 
 I soon found Lapham [Increase Allen Lap- 
 ham had become, self-taught, the first authority 
 on all matters pertaining to Wisconsin] who 
 made me stay at his house, and together we 
 oxed [i. e. worked] up the environs of that 
 city during three days of continuous rain. Lap- 
 ham is a brick, and he treated me in the hand- 
 somest manner possible. I had the good luck 
 to be able to purchase at Milwaukee a fine 
 collection of specimens from the lead region 
 (for $10), which had been sent to the State 
 Fair. Lapham accompanied me west ; and we 
 traveled together by stage, buggy, and on foot, 
 to Madison, the Blue Mounds, and Mineral 
 Point. [The distance is something like 140 
 miles through the midst of the lead district of 
 southeastern Wisconsin.] Favored from the 
 
METALLIC WEALTH 127 
 
 time of leaving Milwaukee by the most delight- 
 ful Indian Summer weather, we had a fine op- 
 portunity of seeing the country and its geology. 
 I went alone from Mineral Point to Galena, 
 and thence to Dubuque, spending a week in 
 that neighborhood. By this time our beautiful 
 Indian Summer seemed to have come to a close, 
 for we have had nothing but rain and mud for 
 the last ten days. I have been here since Oc- 
 tober 3oth, busily engaged in picking up fossils 
 at the quarries about the city, calling on the 
 scientific gentlemen . . . and looking for the 
 weather to clear up, so that I may start out 
 and take a look at the Missouri formations. 
 
 I shall probably return to the East some 
 time the latter part of this month ; it depends 
 on the weather, and on Hall's movements. 
 
 The trip continued through Iowa, Missouri, 
 Kentucky, and Ohio; and finally ended at 
 Cambridge at the beginning of December. It 
 was the first of a series of such excursions un- 
 dertaken during the next two years. 
 
 TO WILLIAM D WIGHT WHITNEY 
 IRVING HOUSE, NEW YORK, January 16, 1853. 
 
 DEAR WILL, . . . What you write about 
 your eyes is very disagreeable news. I had 
 supposed that you were getting entirely over 
 
128 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 that trouble, as you had not made your appear- 
 ance at home, and I thought that you would 
 certainly come home for a visit if your optics 
 still continued to trouble you. It seems rather 
 to be regretted, on some accounts, that when 
 you left Tubingen, instead of wandering about 
 in mud and rain and trying to find some reason 
 for disliking that heaven on earth, Tyrol and the 
 Salzkammergut, you did not make a straight 
 wake for the salt water, plunge in and strike 
 out for Cape Cod. You might have taken up 
 your quarters at the Den, and vibrated between 
 there and Northampton. As far as the " A tharva " 
 is concerned, I suppose that can be put off for 
 a few months, without serious inconvenience 
 to anybody; though of course since it has been 
 noised about, through the medium of the " Trib- 
 une" and other papers, that you were engaged 
 in the preparation of that work, the reading 
 public is all agog to get hold of it. Why should 
 you not return home at the end of this semester, 
 and spend the summer in bumbling [i. e. loaf- 
 ing] about with me as my assistant, turning 
 your attention again to natural history, and 
 then return in the fall to London and Paris ? 
 
 You would have lost Lepsius's lectures by 
 coming home, and I am glad that you like him. 
 I always had a strong disposition to admire 
 him, though I have heard him much abused. I 
 
METALLIC WEALTH 129 
 
 shall have a great curiosity to know something 
 of the results which you have obtained from his 
 lectures. Will you not want to make yourself 
 acquainted with what the English Archaeolo- 
 gists are doing ? I have heard of some interest- 
 ing discoveries of Layard and Rawlinson, with 
 regard to the antiquity of the book of Daniel, 
 which Lyell said they had found to have been 
 written after the events had taken place which 
 it professed to predict. It seems that Layard 
 was afraid to communicate this discovery to 
 the public, as his publisher assured him that it 
 would injure the sale of his book. 
 
 Mr. Hall came to Northampton just before 
 New Year's in a state of considerable excite- 
 ment, and told me a long story about how 
 
 had stolen a geological map from him . . . put- 
 ting his name to it as the author, and pocket- 
 ing three or four hundred dollars by so doing ! 
 This is Hall's statement, and I need hardly say 
 that he was "riled up" to the last degree, 
 when he found it out. . . . 
 
 There seems to be nothing but quarreling 
 among the scientific men in this country. I 
 certainly have done my share of it, and yet I 
 believe that I have tried to act fairly and hon- 
 orably toward everyone. There is a triangular 
 contest now going on between Morton, Wells, 
 and Jackson, for the sum of $100,000, which 
 
130 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 Congress seems inclined to vote to the discov- 
 erer of etherization, if he can be found. Morton 
 has succeeded in having witnesses summoned, 
 and testimony taken, under oath. ... I had to 
 give mine at Washington. It consisted princi- 
 pally in my having no knowledge of the fact 
 alleged to have taken place in the spring of 
 1842 in Jackson's laboratory, when I was living 
 in his family. ... I felt very unwilling to tes- 
 tify; but, after all, it hardly seems right in me 
 to withhold such important testimony merely 
 because I am afraid that my having given it 
 will be ascribed to motives of revenge. What 
 do you think about it ? 
 
 Materials are gathering in for the large work 
 on the metallic resources of the United States, 
 which I have proposed to Lippincott, Grambo 
 & Co. of Philadelphia to publish. The collect- 
 ing of the materials will necessarily be a slow 
 job. In the meantime I have numerous offers 
 from parties in New York, to make explora- 
 tions and examinations, for which I can be well 
 paid, and which will distinctly serve my pur- 
 pose for the big book. I have every reason to 
 be satisfied with my scientific position, only I 
 fear that I am placed higher than I deserve to 
 be. I cannot begin to do all the work which is 
 offered to me, or rather which I could have, if 
 I should decide to take up my quarters here, 
 
J. D. Whitney. Aetat. about 30 
 
->IAH D WIGHT WH1TKE' 
 
 Mv-d in having witness*,- *usr*imo.' 
 . 'ny taker), under oath, , ; ^acl K 
 give mine at Washington. It consisted y*i&ci- 
 p.< : u my having no knowledge of t!i. 
 aeogv 1 I* 1 * have taken place in the. spring sit 
 ?S 2 in Jackson's laboratory, when I was living 
 in his family. , . . . I felt very unwilling to tes- 
 tify; but, after all it hardly seems right in me 
 to withhold such important testimony merely 
 because m\ afraid "tK.if 'my ha^-xi jpvrr*. ir 
 will he a*ciiberf ; t7 motives ut r- -^m 
 
 do you thissjc aboi^ it - 
 
 on the metallic resources of th\ i Unlteti States, 
 v/hich'J have pi-oros^ :! to U^xincdtf. Grambo 
 & "Co. of- PhiiadeU : ^ ^ pwfcL The cbllect- 
 i:;g.of vhe 'nialer ' ^>:* n*"cNa r i)y be a slow 
 ]"b; 1ft the rnea - > have numerous offers 
 r orn |>urtfe in Nrv York, to make explora- 
 lloas and cxannnur ns, ior which I cari'te wx-ll 
 pale), artd^ whfch r vVill distinctly* strife my |5ur- 
 i: .n: for the fc&g'tbook. I hd've eVetf^ i^s^on to 
 be G 
 
 *j*ar that f am placed higher tKiii^ f^c^rve to 
 I cannot begin tado all'' '^'i.-*- ^c^k which is 
 
 I to me or 
 '5UMU3 decide l< 
 
METALLIC WEALTH 131 
 
 which is one of my plans. I should be sorry to 
 leave the Den, which is so pleasantly fitted up, 
 and on some accounts so desirable a residence ; 
 but there are strong reasons why I should do 
 so. Science in Cambridge in my department 
 stands so low, that it is painful to be there : 
 
 A ! B ! I cannot expect to get much 
 
 work as long as I remain there. It would be 
 pleasant if you could take my place when you 
 return. . . . Cambridge would be a better place 
 for you than for me. 
 
 I am much tempted to make an Ausflug 
 to Central America! Dr. Wagner and Dr. 
 Scherzer are going thither in June, and have in- 
 vited me to keep them company. It would be 
 a great chance to collect some new materials. 
 But but there are many things to be taken 
 into consideration. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 NORTHAMPTON, February 27, 1853. 
 
 . . . Some of the influential citizens of Mis- 
 souri are talking of offering the geological sur- 
 vey of that state to me ; but I have taken no 
 steps to apply for it, having somewhat the 
 dread of fever and ague before my eyes. Ex- 
 ploring in Missouri would do excellently if 
 October lasted all the year, and if there were 
 any roads or bridges or hotels or anything of 
 
132 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 that kind. I don't think it hardly pays to have 
 " them shakes." I have an offer to go down in 
 Tennessee and to Pennsylvania and in Ver- 
 mont and North Carolina and Lake Superior 
 on my hands already. So with all that ... I 
 asked father yesterday, whether he thought 
 I was in danger of starving for want of work : I 
 managed to squeeze out an answer in the neg- 
 ative. 
 
 Edward E. Salisbury, for the sake of indu- 
 cing William Whitney to come to Yale, has of- 
 fered to divide his professorship, give him the 
 Sanscrit, and retain the Arabic. Josiah is 
 doubtful 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 NEW YORK, May 22, 1853. 
 
 DEAR WILL,- I would much prefer to see you 
 at Cambridge, but who is there who will endow a 
 Professorship of the Oriental languages hand- 
 somely for that College ? There is so much more 
 liberality of religious opinion at Harvard, that 
 your position would be pleasanter. As you re- 
 mark, it would be a pleasure to you to assist in 
 editing the Oriental Society journal, at any rate. 
 If being at New Haven would lay any restraint 
 on you, so that you would be unable to publish 
 and write your opinions in the course of your 
 
METALLIC WEALTH 133 
 
 researches, then I would not go there ; other- 
 wise I do not see the necessity of saying you 
 cannot go because your opinions are different 
 from theirs. Gibbs, when consulted about tak- 
 ing a professorship there, remarked that he 
 wished the Faculty to take into consideration 
 that he often worked on Sunday, and rarely 
 went to church. I believe he has not been 
 troubled with any application since that from 
 Yale. ... I could hardly afford to take a pro- 
 fessorship there, as I can earn easily twice as 
 much by my present employment. I am offered 
 $500 a month to go up to Lake Superior this 
 summer. ... I hope you will find it very pleas- 
 ant at Oxford and only wish that I could be 
 with you there, this summer, in beautiful Eng- 
 land. Pity we could n't visit that little Paradise, 
 the Isle of Wight, together. 
 
 As for myself, I have been more of a vagrant 
 than ever lately. I have just returned from a 
 six weeks' tour through the Southern States. 
 I took the steamer to Charleston, South Caro- 
 lina, thence by railroad into the corner of Ten- 
 nessee, back again to Augusta, and up through 
 South Carolina into North Carolina to the 
 copper and gold mines around Charlotte, Lex- 
 ington, Greensboro, etc. I returned by way of 
 Raleigh, Richmond, and Washington. At the 
 latter place I met Foster who is on his way to 
 
134 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 the Southwest, intending to make some ex- 
 plorations away nearly to the base of the 
 Rocky Mountains, for some people in Wash- 
 ington. The precise locality of his destination 
 is a profound secret, I believe. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 COPPER FALLS [MICHIGAN], A ugust 19 and 22, 1853. 
 
 ... I was much surprised to see by the 
 " Hampshire Gazette " that you had actually re- 
 turned a fortnight since. The last I heard was 
 that you were coming by a sailing vessel. . . . 
 However, you are safe at home, and I don't be- 
 lieve that you have lost anything by not being 
 a month or six weeks on the way. You will 
 have time to make a long visit [at Northamp- 
 ton] before I shall be at home. . . . 
 
 My business has kept me peregrinating in 
 every direction. I have been to Prince's Bay, 
 Isle Royale, and Michipicoten Island [Ontario], 
 To-morrow I expect to leave with Hill for the 
 Ontonagon. . . . Then I must go to the Por- 
 tage. . . . The season has been very pleasant for 
 exploring, and there is much of interest to be 
 seen through the country. Only I have been so 
 continually " on the go" for the last thirteen 
 or fourteen months, that I am pretty well tired 
 out and need repose. . . . 
 
 I am going out to the lead region as soon as 
 
METALLIC WEALTH 135 
 
 I get through here. ... I have business out 
 that way in collecting information for my book, 
 for which the materials are gradually accumu- 
 lating. Two or three months more will place 
 me in possession of original observations on 
 all the different mining districts of the country 
 this side of the Rocky Mountains, and of nearly 
 all the important mines. [This] winter [I plan] 
 to get together as fast as possible the materials 
 for the work on the metallic wealth of the coun- 
 try. My position now is a very good one, since 
 I can carry out a favorite plan, and make some 
 $500 a month in doing it. I get that sum now 
 and have hardly any expenses here. They are 
 talking of sending me to England this next 
 winter. . . . 
 
 We shall be able to talk over our plans to- 
 gether next October, and I hope that I shall be 
 at home during a few of the last fine days of 
 autumn, to join in that " gay time " of which you 
 speak. If you are at a loss for manuscript to 
 copy, and have eschewed the Orientals for a 
 space, I can only say that I can give you a 
 pretty respectable salary to act as my assist- 
 ant. Will you not write that article for the 
 "North American Review" on the Egup- 
 shun Arrowglifficks? I wrote to Bowen about 
 it, and he expressed himself tickled at the 
 idea. 
 
136 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 OGDENSBURG, NEW YORK, November 6, 1853. 
 . . . You may be having the most delightful 
 Indian summer down in your latitude, but up 
 in this arctic region we are enjoying the rigors 
 of a Siberian winter. . . . This evening the stars 
 are twinkling with that peculiar vivacity which 
 indicates that the thermometer is down to some- 
 where about 15. For all that, it is melancholy 
 to think that I must leave this comfortable room 
 at the dread hour of midnight, and ride till 
 morning, without ever a bottle of hot water to 
 my head, or a fur tippet around my feet. My 
 teeth chatter now in anticipation. And to-mor- 
 row I must descend into the bowels of the earth, 
 and indulge in a subterranean shower-bath of 
 fearful duration! How much better to be oxing 
 up what some old fogy of a Pharaoh did, ten 
 thousand years ago, in a comfortable arm-chair 
 by a warm stove! . . . We did not reach Mont- 
 pelier . . . till midnight, having been detained 
 by a train which had run off the track, and 
 smashed up ; and yesterday we leaped our en- 
 gine over a big log which some malicious devil 
 had placed across the track, but which luckily 
 failed to throw us off. ... I think I won't get 
 caught up here again in winter unless it is 
 necessary. 
 
METALLIC WEALTH 137 
 
 With this excursion, the field work of the year 
 came to an end, and Whitney settled down in 
 his winter quarters at Cambridge to write the 
 book which he named " The Metallic Wealth 
 of the United States " to his public, and 
 " Grambo " to his friends. 
 
 The memory of Clover Den has not yet 
 faded out of Cambridge. All four of its inhabit- 
 ants were on the way to distinction ; Lane was all 
 his life a famous wit, and between linguists and 
 men of science, the College and Coast Survey, 
 when all roads led to Boston, the Den, enter- 
 taining largely, brought together a brilliant 
 company of guests. 
 
 To the setting of this fellowship, Whitney 
 contributed " his beautiful books"; and Win- 
 lock the fourth largest telescope in the United 
 States, which he mounted in the henhouse, 
 and by a natural association of ideas christened 
 the Shanghai. Winlock with his own hands 
 built a banqueting table at which a handful of 
 the inner circle, togaed in blankets and sandaled, 
 dined in the Roman manner, with the factotum 
 Marshall as chained slave at the door, and all 
 tongues except Latin taboo. The four asso- 
 ciates, combining two ancient customs, united 
 in adoring a gracious lady whom they called 
 the Angebetete, but whose chief function was to 
 preside over mixed dinners. Altogether, life at 
 
138 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 Clover Den was not conspicuously common- 
 place. 
 
 Some touch of its gay spirit survives in 
 Whitney's brief notes to his brother Wil- 
 liam, who himself spent long weeks at the 
 "Grambo Shop" serving as " Hypogrambo- 
 grapher." 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CLOVER DEN, December 25, 1853. 
 
 ... A merry Christmas to you this fine 
 morning; to you who have some chance of 
 being merry. To us, alas ! that hope is not 
 extant. The "femineo ululatu " in the cellar 
 under my feet, informs me that five have 
 been added to our stock of puppies this morning. 
 
 And as misfortunes never come single, Z 
 
 has informed us that he intends to tear him- 
 self away to-morrow. In this flying visit of a 
 month, we have found in his character much 
 to admire, and we trust that, should circum- 
 stances render it convenient for him to come 
 again soon, he will spend a few years with us, 
 so that we may feel less pressed by the fear 
 of his leaving and so enjoy his call somewhat 
 better. 
 
 I know that you have a Christian heart, and 
 so I take it for granted that you will hasten 
 down to console and sympathize with your af- 
 
METALLIC WEALTH 139 
 
 flicted brother under all these tribulations. As 
 soon as you have wound up 1854, and set it 
 going, I shall expect to see you here. . . . 
 Bring down . . . some doughnuts. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 December '27, 1853. 
 
 . . . You must positively be here by Wednes- 
 day noon at the latest better Tuesday night. 
 It 's all gammon to say that you won't want 
 to hear Julien more than a couple of times 
 or so. You must be here to the rehearsal on 
 Wednesday afternoon. As for helping in my 
 book, I have got lots of work for you to 
 do, and I shall bore you with it as long as I 
 can persuade you to stay. Nothing but deadly 
 poverty prevents my having a privateer, as 
 Gould calls his small red-headed secretary or 
 grammaticus. You had better bring down 
 some work of your own, so that I shall not 
 seem to be using up all your time. I only want 
 to get enough out of you to pay for your board. 
 
 As for Z , it is not that I don't like him 
 
 very well, and I was, after all, rather sorry to 
 have him go; it is that he has so little delicacy 
 in his manners and ways of doing things. I 
 can't get over his inviting himself to our house 
 to keep Thanksgiving. You see Lane and I 
 are so different about some things. He con- 
 
140 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 siders it a good joke to have half-a-dozen 
 strangers in the house to tea, unexpectedly, 
 and nothing under heavens for them to eat, 
 and not knives and forks enough to go 
 round. His principles are not in the slight- 
 est degree opposed to sleeping three in a 
 bed. 
 
 As for your idea about coaxing something 
 out of mother for the Den, I would remark 
 that it is all fish which comes to our net. Sas- 
 sengers,when you knows the lady as made 'em, 
 is particularly edifying. Maria might make us 
 some cake, p'r'aps. 
 
 Did I write to you about the glorious per- 
 formance of the Messiah, on Sunday night? 
 No, I believe not. I never heard so fine chorus 
 singing anywhere ; such clear enunciation 
 and volume of voice. The solos were taken in 
 a way that nobody need be ashamed of, by 
 resident Bostonians. All I can say is that I 
 hope they will give us Elijah, while you are 
 here. By the way, would n't it be a good plan 
 to bring the score down, on the principle of the 
 boy who had the salt ready for the egg that 
 Providence might send ? 
 
 Hall writes me that he is coming down to 
 spend a few days. . . . That should be a strong 
 additional reason for you to come as early as 
 possible. 
 
METALLIC WEALTH 141 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 January 3, 1854. 
 
 ... I shall expect you on Thursday and 
 will be at the Fitchburg R.R. depot on the ar- 
 rival of the train. . . . Bring up with you a 
 mask and a glove for fencing, if you can find 
 them ; also Bancroft's History ; also Lapham's 
 Map of Wisconsin, if you can lay your hand 
 on that. . . . As for eatables I am princi- 
 pally anxious lest you should miss, at our 
 homely table, the twenty-five hot buckwheats 
 with which you have been wont to plaster your 
 stomach, every morning. ... So you must 
 bring down something to nibble at in the be- 
 tween-meal hours. Now is the time to ox up 
 Lunam with the Shanghai. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 February 15, 1854. 
 
 . . . Things go on at the Den as well as 
 could be expected considering the weather, 
 which is atrocious. Grambo is moving along 
 at a respectable pace. Mr. Parker preached a 
 tremendous sermon on the Nebraska bill, last 
 Sunday. I was sorry that you were not here 
 to hear it. ... Pais gave a concert, night be- 
 fore last. ... I could n't go on account of the 
 dilapidated state of my only pair of black pants. 
 
142 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 February 26, 1854. 
 
 ... As far as the work on Grambo goes, I 
 think that I shall have 350 foolscap pages of 
 manuscript ready to print, and most of the ma- 
 terial collected and arranged. There is nothing 
 new going on. The Pinakothecarius [Lane] 
 has gone to New York; the Glyptothecarius 
 [Winlock] will not be back before April. The 
 Bpothecarius oxes Hydrargyrum [i. e. B. A. 
 Gould studies the planet Mercury] and grum- 
 bles at the weather, which is truly abomi- 
 nable. . . . 
 
 We had quite a meeting of the solid men of 
 Boston last Thursday afternoon. Rev. Dr. Blag- 
 den of the Old South got tremendously hissed 
 for asserting that Slavery was of divine origin. 
 After all the old fogies had said their say, there 
 was a great call for [Anson] Burlingame ! the 
 meeting being decidedly more anti-slavery than 
 its originators. The day the Nebraska bill 
 passes, I shall begin to pack up and get ready 
 to move to some infidel, despotic country, 
 where such good democratic Christians as 
 Pierce and Douglas don't grow. Will you come 
 along ? 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 Jo, APOTHECARIUS, etc. 
 
METALLIC WEALTH 143 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 March 28, 1854. 
 
 ... I am very sorry to learn that Edward 
 [a brother just turning twenty-one and still at 
 home] has undertaken the flute. There are 
 6,000,000 good reasons, in his case, why he 
 should have stuck to the piano. ... I could 
 have given him a common, eight-keyed flute, 
 which is of no use to me. 
 
 There are only two instruments which a 
 young man (unprofessional) should attempt to 
 learn piano or violin (unless he wishes to 
 play in an amateur four-letter party). Any man 
 who learns the flute is a jackup. I am a jackup. 
 Don't you be a jackup. Don't let Edward be 
 a jackup. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 March 14, 1854.- 
 
 ... [I am] suffering with an abominable 
 cold which still hangs on, though somewhat 
 relieved: consequently I am as stupid as a 
 penguin, or as . 
 
 At New York, I found that it would proba- 
 bly require from six weeks to two months to 
 go to Cuba, and I concluded to give it up. . . . 
 Offers, of the most pressing, were made to me in 
 New York to go to North Carolina, Tennessee, 
 
144 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 New Mexico, etc. I do not see any appearance 
 of being likely to be out of work immediately. 
 Foster and Hall will both be here this week. 
 I think decidedly best, unless Foster brings up 
 some reasons to the contrary, to push Grambo 
 along as fast as possible. Yet I see that I have 
 got to work like a Trowjun to do it up before 
 June. . . . 
 
 . . . As to your going along with me to 
 Philadelphia [to put the book through the 
 press], ... I see plainly that I have got more 
 material than I can manage; and of course, 
 you know that your aid and oversight would 
 be of great help to me. . . . But it would give 
 me no satisfaction to have you along, if I thought 
 that you would have been employed otherwise 
 and in a better manner. ... It would be a very 
 stupid job for you, one in which you would 
 have very little satisfaction other than that of 
 doing good. Could you go to Philadelphia 
 and spend a month, ox the Astor Library, and 
 get back in time for [the meeting of the Orien- 
 tal Society] ? . . . But you must take an en- 
 larged view of the thing, and not decide to go 
 merely out of pity for my loneliness and need 
 of help. As to the former, I am used to living 
 alone ; and for the latter I could ox up a "priva- 
 teer " somewhere, I think, who would do on a 
 pinch. . . . 
 
METALLIC WEALTH 145 
 
 " The Metallic Wealth of the United States" 
 was the first comprehensive work on American 
 ore deposits, and its success was decided. It 
 ran to more than five hundred large pages, 
 contained data from Europe, and in, addition 
 to the commoner metals, included platinum, 
 bismuth, antimony, nickel, cobalt, arsenic, mag- 
 nesium, titanium, molybdenum, uranium, and 
 tungsten. Much of the theoretical part has 
 been, in time, left behind with the progress of 
 science: but its abundance of solid fact kept it 
 for twenty years the standard work of reference 
 in its field. " No one," Whitney wrote his friend 
 G. J. Brush, Professor of Metallurgy at Yale, 
 "knows better than I do, the defects of the 
 * Metallic Wealth'; and I may add, no one 
 knows better, by actual investigation, how diffi- 
 cult it is to get the kind of information required 
 to make such a work perfect. The American 
 Iron Association spent $6000 to get the sta- 
 tistics of iron in the United States for three 
 years. You can guess from that how much I 
 must have spent both of time and money in 
 getting the materials of my book together. I 
 know by actual count, that I traveled over 
 20,000 miles in twenty-five different states 
 from first to last." 
 
 Hardly was the last sheet of the book off the 
 press, late in June, when Whitney married 
 
146 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 Louisa Howe, daughter of Samuel Goddard 
 of Brookline, and cousin to his friend Gould. 
 Mrs. Whitney was three weeks younger than 
 her husband, and thirty-four at the time of 
 their union. The unhappiness of her first mar- 
 riage, which after fifteen years she had termi- 
 nated by a divorce, had so far broken her health 
 that for the rest of her days she was never 
 thoroughly well. She was an ardent musician, 
 and shared to the full both Whitney's joy in 
 the art and his technical skill in it; while a 
 certain restlessness and love of change and ad- 
 venture especially fitted her to be the wife of 
 a working geologist. She had much charm of 
 manner and great social gifts. She was viva- 
 cious, friendly, hospitable, interested in people, 
 ambitious for her husband, fanciful almost to 
 excess. Altogether she supplemented to per- 
 fection her reserved and sturdy husband. 
 
 By way of breaking in a geologist's wife, the 
 pair spent their honeymoon in the employ of 
 a mining company, " oxing up " the north shore 
 of Lake Superior. Here, therefore, ends for 
 Whitney the life at Clover Den. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAULT STE. MARIE, September 5, 1854. 
 
 DEAR WILL, . . . To go back a little and 
 make all things intelligible on the eighth of 
 
METALLIC WEALTH 147 
 
 August the Ward took us over to Isle Royale, 
 and thence to Point Porphyry, leaving Louisa 
 in Mr. and Mrs. Hill's friendly care. We [that 
 is, the geologists, not including Mrs. Whitney] 
 had two boats and eight persons in all, so cal- 
 culated that a party could be left to carry on 
 explorations until the end of the season, should 
 it be found necessary. I also agreed with the 
 Captain to call for us at Rock Harbor [on Isle 
 Royale], in three weeks from the time of leav- 
 ing. . . . We found the time just sufficient to 
 enable us to do all that was necessary, and we 
 examined the whole coast from Les Petits Ecrits, 
 (a little east of St. Ignace), to beyond Pigeon 
 River, and came to the conclusion that there 
 was no reason to suppose there was a workable 
 vein within those limits. The scenery is truly 
 grand in Thunder Bay. We climbed Thunder 
 Cape, 1300 feet to 1400 feet in height, through 
 an extraordinary gorge or cleft in the rock, 
 with vertical walls, smooth and perpendicular 
 for 800 feet in height, and only 10 or 15 feet 
 wide. Down this narrow stairway, we rolled 
 rocks weighing as much as ten tons certainly 
 the most gigantic rock-rolling fun that ever 
 was attempted ; before reaching the half of the 
 descent, the masses became so enveloped in 
 dust and small fragments that nothing could 
 be seen of them, save now and then a volley of 
 
148 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 fragments shot off, like rockets, when some pro- 
 jecting corner was struck. In Neepigon Bay the 
 scenery is almost as fine. The whole bay is sur- 
 rounded by ranges of trap bluffs, rising almost 
 vertically from 800 to 1000 feet. On the 24th we 
 took advantage of a favorable day almost the 
 first and the last we have had to make the 
 traverse from Pie Island over to Isle Royale. 
 
 The next day we were at Scovill's Point, and 
 having a half day to spare, we made a visit, en 
 masse,toihe Monument Rocks, where we used 
 our axes so effectually for a few hours as to 
 lay it bare on all sides, opening a new and 
 beautiful view from the west. But best of all, 
 Livermore, McGiven, and I mounted to the 
 top. McGiven ran up like a squirrel and 
 fastened a rope around the summit, by the aid 
 of which Liv. and I ignominiously or glori- 
 ously, just as you please pulled ourselves up. 
 This is a feat which has only once before been 
 performed. We found the height of the lower 
 pinnacle 58 feet, of the other 50 feet, as near 
 as we could measure, with a cord let down from 
 above. Besides, we cut a trail to the Bay, so 
 that anyone could come directly to the rock 
 without trouble. And to cap the climax, we 
 recorded our exploits in full glory of red chalk 
 on a neighboring birch, and I brought away 
 three new sketches. 
 
METALLIC WEALTH 149 
 
 Punctual to the time, the Ward took us off 
 . . . and touched with us the next morning, at 
 Eagle Harbor, where Louisa got on board. We 
 had a fine run down, arriving at the Sault on the 
 30th. The next day I left for Echo Lake. . . . 
 This morning the boys started for the Palladean 
 [mine], where they are to explore until I join 
 them, in a few days, whence we all proceed to 
 Spanish River. 
 
 The Whitneys spent the next winter in New 
 York, boarding and living in two rooms at 97 
 Clinton Place, a little west of Fifth Avenue 
 and close by Washington Square. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 UNION COLLEGE AND THE STATE SURVEYS. 
 1855-1860 
 
 INTEREST in mining, outside the gold fields, the 
 Lake Superior region, and the lead district 
 which centres about Galena and Dubuque, had 
 pretty well petered out by the middle fifties. 
 There was, in consequence, little demand for 
 Whitney's services in the more settled portions 
 of the country; while to calls into more distant 
 regions he could only answer, " I have married 
 a wife and therefore I cannot come." The 
 " something good " and suitable for a married 
 man for which Whitney waited, turned out to 
 be an appointment, in April of. 1855, to the 
 chair of chemistry in the University of Iowa. 
 Inasmuch, however, as the University of Iowa 
 existed in large part only on paper, the chief 
 duties of the professor of chemistry were under- 
 stood to be in connection with the state geo- 
 logical survey. 
 
 The organization of the Iowa Survey was 
 easy-going enough. Hall, also professor in the 
 State University, was supposed to be its head 
 a position which Hall was glad enough to 
 accept, for the New York Assembly had made 
 
STATE SURVEYS 151 
 
 him no appropriation for three years, and he 
 had been keeping the breath of life in the New 
 York Survey at his own private expense. But 
 before work in Iowa got under way, affairs in 
 New York took a turn for the better ; and al- 
 most at the same time, Hall was made paleon- 
 tologist to the Canada Survey. Among the 
 three, Hall was able to give at most but a 
 quarter of his time to Iowa ; so that Whitney, 
 nominally only chemist to the survey, became 
 practically its working head. The two geolo- 
 gists arranged between them that Hall should 
 look out for the general geology and the pale- 
 ontology, while Whitney should pay special 
 attention to the lead region in the northeastern 
 part of the state, where he had already done 
 privately a considerable amount of work. They 
 agreed besides that, setting off Whitney's time 
 against Hall's experience, the two should work 
 on terms of precise equality and make their 
 report jointly. The Governor, however, James 
 W. Grimes, persisted in regarding Whitney as 
 an analytical chemist hired by Hall. 
 
 Added to these causes of friction was the 
 happy-go-lucky character of Iowa finances. An 
 appropriation by the legislature of funds still 
 to be discovered, supplemented by a warrant 
 from the Governor on an empty treasury, was 
 available only as security on which to borrow 
 
152 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 actual cash at fifteen per cent interest. The 
 assistants loaned to one another ; the principals 
 advanced their private means. Whoever was 
 lucky enough to catch the state treasurer with 
 funds on hand, divided with his colleague as 
 his natural generosity prompted, or as the ne- 
 cessities of his subordinates allowed. Under 
 these exasperating conditions, it was only by 
 Whitney's justness and Hall's tact that the 
 two men managed to get through their five 
 years' work together with no very serious 
 clashes of temper or opinion. As it was, the 
 friendship which had begun in the wilds of 
 Lake Superior never advanced beyond the 
 stage which it had reached in 1855. 
 
 The lead district, concerning which Whitney 
 had made himself a recognized authority, lies 
 more in Wisconsin than in Iowa or Illinois. 
 Hardly, then, was the field work in Iowa out 
 of the way, when Wisconsin reorganized its 
 geological survey, putting it under three com- 
 missioners of whom Hall was chief. Ezra S. 
 Carr and Edward Daniels were the other two 
 members; and the bill, of March, 1857, speci- 
 fied that they were to employ Whitney to com- 
 plete the survey of the lead district within the 
 state, which Daniels, and after him J. G. Perci- 
 val, had begun. " The arrangement," wrote 
 Whitney, " seems to me the poorest and most 
 
STATE SURVEYS 153 
 
 wastefully inefficient one which could be de- 
 vised." Of the finances of the Wisconsin Sur- 
 vey one gets a hint in the fact that poor Hall, 
 who soon became its single head, never so 
 much as recovered the money which he had 
 advanced for his expenses. 
 
 Following close on the completion of the 
 Wisconsin Survey, Amos H. Worthen, who 
 had been an assistant in Iowa but was now 
 state geologist of Illinois, employed his old 
 chief to whom indeed he owed, in part, his 
 promotion to report on so much of the lead 
 district as lay within his new territory. In these 
 several ways, Whitney, though nominally em- 
 ployed successively by three different states, 
 in reality made a continuous survey of a single 
 district, and between overlapping of work and 
 delay in getting out reports, really worked for 
 all three states at once. His contracts with the 
 states, moreover, allowed him to undertake a 
 reasonable quantity of outside work, so that in 
 addition to his lectures in the University a 
 perfunctory labor in the existing condition of 
 the institution he continued to act from time 
 to time as mining expert. In addition, he de- 
 voted some months during the years 1855 and 
 1856 to the mineral collections of Union Col- 
 lege at Schenectady, where his old friend Joy, 
 who had been with him on the New Hampshire 
 
154 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 and Lake Superior surveys, in Jackson's labo- 
 ratory and at Clover Den, was now professor 
 of chemistry. Here, besides arranging the 
 specimens which the college already possessed, 
 he negotiated the purchase, through the gift of 
 a patron, of the valuable Wheatly collection. 
 This also he labeled and displayed. 
 
 Whitney, therefore, so far from settling down 
 to the quiet life of a university professor, con- 
 tinued the roving existence of the days before 
 his marriage. His headquarters were at North- 
 ampton, where he kept his books and did his 
 winter work. During the field season, he flitted 
 back and forth, overseeing his assistants, ex- 
 amining mines, lecturing at the University, 
 and whenever he had a few spare days, stop- 
 ping over at Union to work at the collections 
 there. At Northampton, during the winters, the 
 Whitneys boarded, sometimes at the family 
 mansion, sometimes at the village hotel, the 
 Mansion House. For habitation, they had also 
 three rooms over a down-town store, one fitted 
 as an office, library, and living-room, another 
 equipped as a chemical laboratory, and the third 
 used as a storeroom. Here, in " the Bookery, 
 the Cookery, and the Rookery," during five 
 years Whitney made his analyses, consulted his 
 authorities, and wrote his reports. 
 
 These years, outwardly tame enough, brought 
 
STATE SURVEYS 155 
 
 a considerable development of Whitney's ideas 
 on theoretical matters, especially on the origin 
 of metalliferous veins. With this went, natu- 
 rally, a series of scientific papers, printed for the 
 most part in the " American Journal of Sci- 
 ence," of which his friend Dana was editor. The 
 time brought also a gratifying increase of pro- 
 fessional reputation. Its end saw him, at forty, 
 member of the Philadelphia and Chicago 
 Academies of Science, and of the Societe geo- 
 logique de France. 
 
 With honors came also friendships with 
 Rev. Theodore Parker, "the only man from 
 whom he ever borrowed a book," whom Whit- 
 ney had long admired and came to know 
 through their common friend Desor; with 
 Rev. Eliphalet Nott, sixty years President of 
 Union College, whom Whitney came to know 
 when Dr. Nott, though already past eighty, 
 had still ten years of work before him. The 
 affection of these two eminent clergymen bears 
 witness to the personal qualities of the young 
 man of science. 
 
 TO HIS WIFE 
 
 SCHENECTADY, April '2, 1856. 
 
 DEAREST PEASY, I got here last night just 
 three minutes before the Tuesday, on which I 
 promised to arrive, had ceased to exist; went 
 
156 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 to bed and slept like a top : got up this morn- 
 ing at 6*4, breakfasted at 7, smoked a cigar, 
 cleaned up goniometer, unpacked, packed up, 
 got my trunk from express office, all before 
 Joy and Frau came down to breakfast. I soon 
 ascertained that this was to be a great day at 
 the College. The Herr Graf von Peissner (if 
 his name is thus spelt if not, try Pizener,) 
 was to lead to the altar the fair and accom- 
 plished, etc., daughter of our distinguished 
 professor and fellow citizen, Tayler Lewis 
 (don't spell Tayler with an O), etc. So Joy 
 drew himself on in Schniefel, etc., all prepared 
 to go to the ceremony, his Frau promising to 
 follow after us, in an hour or so, in festive 
 attire. As for myself, not calculating on any 
 invitation, or any acceptance of any on my part 
 if it came, I had on my Northampton pants, 
 also my coat with ventilating button-holes. 
 
 Thus accoutred we went up to the College 
 and found the treasurer, examined the building 
 appropriated to the mineral collections, looked 
 at the outside of about 300 boxes of minerals 
 now stored in the garret, consulted about plans 
 for shelves, etc. Then went into Dr. Nott's 
 house, found the Dr. and Mrs. Nott all ready 
 to go to the wedding. They both received me 
 very cordially. The Dr. insisted on my going 
 with him (he was to perform the ceremony). 
 
STATE SURVEYS 157 
 
 He even did me the honor to request the sup- 
 port of my arm to the house of Prof. Lewis. Of 
 course I had to go, and might have been seen, 
 a short time since, in the pantaloons aforesaid 
 and the buttonholes aforesaid, escorting the 
 venerable Doctor up to the house of a man 
 whom I had never seen, to meet a crowd of 
 people I never before heard of. 
 
 However, as I had acquired considerable 
 interest in the bride and bridegroom from 
 Dr. Robinson's highly romantic story of their 
 courtship, I was not unwilling to see the fun, 
 half thinking that the " nobleman in disguise " 
 would in the midst of the ceremony, astonish 
 the Schenectadians by throwing off his cloak 
 and revealing his majestic figure covered with 
 diamond-set decorations and grand cordons, 
 announcing his intention of carrying his bride 
 to take possession of the Stammschloss of the 
 immortal Potzdonnerwetter^ to which illustrious 
 family he then and there announced that he 
 belonged. Nothing of the sort, however, oc- 
 curred. The bride looked very pretty and very 
 pale according to all the rules. She had on 
 I '11 put a separate note for her costume, 
 if I can find time to write it. Dr. Nott per- 
 formed the ceremony with much real feeling 
 and admirable simplicity and earnestness of 
 manner. 
 
158 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 TO HIS WIFE 
 MUSCATINE, IOWA, April 21, 1856. 
 
 DEAREST PEASY, Our boat left Burlington 
 yesterday forenoon at about 1 1 o'clock and was 
 until 10 at night getting up to this place. Con- 
 found the navigation of the Mississippi ! It is 
 the most patience-trying institution I know of. 
 The quantity of freight that was rolled on and 
 off our boat (professing to be exclusively a 
 passenger boat) was truly wonderful. ... The 
 coffee has that same detestable smell which is 
 so intimately associated in my memory with 
 the backwoods of the United States, from 
 North to South. What can it be ? You know 
 the famous railroad to Iowa city was opened 
 during the winter. . . . The rails are in some 
 places unfathomably deep in the mud. The 
 locomotive (I cannot say whether it is the only 
 one on the road) looked funny enough splashed 
 with yellow clay from cow-catcher to spark-ar- 
 rester. The trains are from twelve to twenty- 
 four hours coming through distance thirty 
 miles or so. It would be better to go in a buggy ; 
 but the river is so high, that you can't get at it, 
 to cross it. 
 
 I collected a fine lot of coal plants this 
 morning. . . . Some of the stems of Sigillaria 
 (tree-ferns) are the largest I have ever seen. 
 
STATE SURVEYS 159 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 BOOKERY, March 13, 1856. 
 
 . . . My occupations this winter have been 
 highly monotonous. From morning to night 
 have I oxed over the analyses of sundry lime- 
 stones, zinc, iron, and lead ores, etc., for the 
 Iowa Survey. In a few days, all I laid out for 
 this winter's work will be finished. Not a penny 
 of funds has yet come from the West, nor have 
 I received any answers to my letters to Hall 
 asking him for information as to what was to be 
 done. I am inclined to start for Iowa, borrow- 
 ing some money, if I can get from the Gover- 
 nor an assurance that the money will be forth- 
 coming eventually ; that is to say, sometime in 
 the course of the actual geological epoch the 
 reign of men and monkeys. . . . 
 
 TO HIS FATHER 
 
 SCHENECTADY, May, 1856. 
 
 . . . When I went out we had received only 
 $1000 of the $5000 appropriated for the sur- 
 vey. Of the balance, Mr. Hall had a warrant 
 for $1500 which they had been promising to 
 payever since last fall; that left $2500, still lia- 
 ble to be drawn. As they did not seem to be 
 likely to pay Hall's draft, and much less any of 
 the other $2500, it seemed to me absolutely 
 
160 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 necessary that I should go out and make a per- 
 sonal attack on the treasury. Mr. Hall agreed 
 to the propriety of the course; and promised 
 that, as soon as he received the money on the 
 $1500 draft, he would let me have half of it. ... 
 
 I could only raise $500 which I immediately 
 forwarded to you, thinking that with that sum 
 and the #750, which I supposed Hall would 
 hand over, I should be able to pay my debts and 
 that I could raise some money at Burlington 
 for going on with the survey. 
 
 . . . To crown all, Mr. Worthen came up 
 from Warsaw to take the field without any 
 money, saying that Mr. Hall had written him 
 that I would supply him with money while we 
 were together. The question then with me was, 
 shall I let the survey go to the bugs and return 
 home immediately, and leave Mr. Worthen to 
 get his money when he can and be a month be- 
 fore he takes the field, and then only in a crip- 
 pled way; or shall I advance him the money, and 
 start him out with a suitable team, so that the 
 survey might not come to a dead stop ? I decided 
 to do the latter : so I drew on you for #300. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SCHENECTADY, May 22, 1856. 
 
 . . . The collection here is now all unpacked, 
 and a great lot of rubbish it is. The meanness 
 
STATE SURVEYS 161 
 
 of the collection furnished by the State Min- 
 eralogist is beyond description. Not even quartz 
 is represented by a decent crystal, and there is not 
 a specimen which I would have in my cabinet. 
 The best things in the College cabinet are from 
 the Bristol [Connecticut] mine. There are a few 
 good specimens from Nova Scotia and now and 
 then a decent mineral picked up or given by 
 somebody. At least two thirds are useless. I 
 shall throw away about one third and save an- 
 other third for the boys to work on. I hope to be 
 through in two or three weeks. ... I am stay- 
 ing at the Doctor's [Nott] and find it quite 
 pleasant. . . . 
 
 MRS. WHITNEY TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SCHENECTADY, /##<? 7, 1856. 
 
 ... I would have come barefoot with scrip and 
 shell and staff to this place to do reverence to 
 Dr. Nott. He is even more benevolent and un- 
 selfish than your grandfather, with far, far more 
 talent, breadth of range, and depth of thought. 
 He is an improved St. John as much love 
 and more brains. You may imagine how my 
 veneration, which I am generally obliged to 
 feed with a Barmecide dinner of abstracts and 
 ideals, flaps her wings and exults. I am perpet- 
 ually on my knees before this shining reality 
 of worth. 
 
162 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 Mrs. Trollope says Schenectady is the only 
 finished town in America! It is gone to seed, 
 quaint and asleep, and made up of low broad 
 Dutch houses and trees, under whose heavy 
 foliage grass and toad-stools spring up in the 
 streets. The College grounds are the most 
 charming I have seen in America or anywhere 
 so characteristic of the place, half Dutch and 
 half rural. . . . 
 
 You look down over clumps of low, broad 
 trees, to the Valley of the Mohawk, and beyond, 
 to low, broad ranges of hills. Nature and Art 
 are both in the Dutch style. Great woods, nurs- 
 ery gardens, old shaded parks and pine banks 
 lie behind the buildings, and there is a most 
 extensive college garden in the English style, 
 quite old and kept up at a good deal of expense, 
 with winding walks, shrubberies, shaven slopes, 
 spreading elms, and a wide, clear, tumbling brook 
 rushing about in every direction under any num- 
 ber of little, shaded bridges. The professors live 
 in large, comfortable houses in the College 
 buildings. It is n't necessary here to marry heir- 
 esses for a living, since living is too cheap to 
 make it worth while to accept it almost. Mrs. 
 Joy is going to have for a servant the Dutch 
 Lutheran clergyman's sister-in-law! So you 
 see how respectable and economical all the best 
 society here find it convenient to be. 
 
STATE SURVEYS 163 
 
 TO HIS SISTER ELIZABETH, NOW MRS. OSGOOD 
 
 PUTNAM 
 NORTHAMPTON, December 17, 1856. 
 
 . . . The Baby weighed eight and a half 
 pounds at birth, and has gone up to ten pounds 
 in the first fortnight. She has very dark and 
 full eyes which shine brilliantly, especially when 
 she is crying for her supper. . . . Whom she 
 looks like nobody knows; but all agree that 
 she is a " beautiful baby." She appears to have 
 her mother's temperament ; but is, so far as can 
 be seen, perfectly healthy. . . . The baby's 
 name is Eleanor Goddard, after her Aunt, Mrs. 
 May, whom you remember about. . . . 
 
 . . . My movements are rather uncertain. 
 Some people are very anxious that I should go 
 to Mexico, and I may perhaps conclude to go. 
 Louisa feels very bad at the idea of my being 
 away so much (I have just returned from Iowa), 
 but my profession is one that requires that I 
 should be on the go. There is everything to 
 make the expedition to Mexico attractive ; bar- 
 ring the separation from Louisa, and the dan- 
 ger which of course one undergoes of being 
 robbed. . . . 
 
 Father appears uncommonly well this win- 
 ter. He comes down to my office every after- 
 noon when I am in town and reads his paper. 
 
164 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 . . . When I get fairly to Mexico, and he ... 
 has you in California, and Will and Maria in 
 Europe, and besides Ed in New York and 
 James in New Haven, not to speak of Sarah 
 down in Connecticut, won't he be busy as a bee 
 in keeping up the correspondence ! 
 
 TO E. DESOR 
 
 NORTHAMPTON, December 30, 1856. 
 
 MON CHER AMI, Right glad I was to see 
 your well-known handwriting, yesterday . . . 
 it seemed a long time since I had heard from 
 you. When I wrote you last, I was in Iowa, 
 where I only remained a few weeks ; and then 
 returned to Boston, where my wife was staying, 
 and with her went to Union College at Sche- 
 nectady, N. Y., where I spent a part of the 
 summer arranging the college collection of 
 minerals and fossils, and having a very pleasant 
 time making the acquaintance of the Professors 
 there. Joy, whom you perhaps remember, is 
 there, having married a German wife not long 
 since. After finishing at Schenectady, my wife 
 went back home, and I ... to Iowa again, 
 where I spent a couple of months only, as the 
 weather was so unfavorable that the field work 
 had to be closed up very early. I never knew 
 such a season at the West before ; it was like 
 Lake Superior rather than Iowa. 
 
STATE SURVEYS 165 
 
 During the fall, I collected in the Carbon- 
 iferous beds, principally, and also made some 
 examination in the coal field of Illinois 
 
 At La Salle the coal measures lie directly 
 on Lower Silurian rocks, which come up there 
 and form an arch two or three miles across. 
 The coal lies directly on Trenton Limestone 
 without any other parting than a seam of fine 
 clay. This we find to be a general fact with 
 regard to the coal of this region. It lies indis- 
 criminately on any group from Lower Silurian 
 up to Mountain Limestone; but, in this wise, 
 that the farther we go north, the greater the 
 hiatus. So we find the coal field of Iowa to be 
 made up of a number of independent basins 
 quite distinct from each other, instead of being 
 in one, as laid down by Dr. Owen. The same 
 is true of Illinois probably. I have collected a 
 good many facts in regard to the mode of oc- 
 currence of the lead in the Northwest, confirm- 
 ing the views I have taken in the " Metallic 
 Wealth " as to the character of the veins. 
 When we shall publish a report, I do not 
 know ; probably not for a couple of years yet. 
 Out; funds have been so .limited in amount and 
 hard to get at, that but little has been accom- 
 plished. Hall has done nothing for Iowa this 
 last year; he has been sick a good deal. In- 
 deed it is doubtful whether another appropria- 
 
166 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 tion is made for our survey. . . . Really, under 
 the present organization I do not much care if 
 the whole thing is dropped. 
 
 My thoughts have been turned toward Mexico 
 lately. A party in New York owning a large 
 grant of land on the Pacific coast, is anxious to 
 have it explored. They applied to me last Sep- 
 tember, but I could not go, . . . so they sent on 
 a large party and wish me to join them as soon 
 as I can. . . . Of course, it would be very pleas- 
 ant to see Mexico, and very certainly profitable 
 in a scientific point of view ; but the question is 
 whether traveling there is not too hazardous to 
 make it worth while for a man with a family to 
 go off. Now if I were a bachelor, like some of my 
 friends, I might rush off to the tropics or the 
 north pole, and nobody would care a copper 
 whether I ever came back or not ; but with a 
 wife and baby at home, look you, that makes a 
 grand difference. 
 
 You say that "next to a good wife there is 
 nothing like an urchin" query, urchin, a 
 boy; or urchin [Desor's specialty], a sea crea- 
 ture ? My urchin, however, has turned out to 
 be a girl, much to her mother's delight. When 
 Mrs. W. writes you next, she will no doubt fill 
 the sheet with praises of her baby; so I will 
 not say a word. . . . 
 
 ... I meant to have written you about the 
 
STATE SURVEYS 167 
 
 Albany meeting [of the American Association 
 for the Advancement of Science, in August] 
 but put it off from day to day until it seemed 
 that any thing on the subject would be old 
 news. There were unusually many geologists 
 present. Almost all, in fact, of any particular 
 note except Dr. Owen. A good deal of inter- 
 esting matter was brought forward. Emmons 
 had a magnificent collection of new fossils, 
 saurians and the like, from the so-called 
 " New Red Sandstone " of North Carolina. It 
 was the most curious, striking set of fossils 
 ever got together in this country, as was de- 
 clared by the paleontologists present. Nobody 
 knew much about them. Rogers made a sen- 
 sation with his trilobites from near Boston. 
 Dawson, from Canada, makes a very favorable 
 impression on all as a man of great ability : he 
 and Agassiz had a set-to on the subject of the 
 unity of the human race. . . . Lesley gave a 
 description of the Broad Top coal field and 
 pitched into Rogers's theories and facts with- 
 out mercy. . . . 
 
 A great deal of information was brought out 
 -on the subject of the geology of the Pacific 
 Coast and Rocky Mountain region from Blake 
 (W. P.), Dr. Parry, who was on the Mexican 
 Boundary Survey, Mr. Schott on the River Gila 
 region, Dr. Newberry on the Pacific Railroad 
 
1 68 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 corps. Blake has the task of putting into shape 
 the observations of the Pacific Railroad corps. 
 
 He also read a review of M 's geological 
 
 map, which was followed by some sharp remarks 
 of various persons, not very complimentary to 
 
 Mr. M . What an extraordinary production 
 
 that map of his is ! How could it get itself pub- 
 lished in so many forms in Europe ? Wosthen 
 exhibited his collection of fish teeth from the 
 Mountain Limestone- at Warsaw; he has hun- 
 dreds of teeth, like the one you found. 
 
 Agassiz treated us to an embryological de- 
 monstration of the existence of a personal God. 
 . . . The Association came, hear voting to print 
 all the sermons preached in Albany during the 
 session. Also the first thing on the programme 
 was to assemble at a church in the city and have 
 religious exercises!! Oh, Potzdonnerwetter ! 
 How pious we are getting in this nation of fili- 
 busters, slave-holders, and speculators (i.e. swin- 
 dlers). There were some flare-ups at the Albany 
 meeting, causing a good deal of excitement and 
 some fun to the outsiders. Hall did not know 
 how to manage in the chair, and by his absurd 
 ruling, put everything into confusion. I am glad 
 to say that the democratic party carried the day 
 against Bache, Henry, and the Cam bridge clique 
 in the matter of a revisal of the constitution, 
 which has been so often up for discussion, and 
 
STATE SURVEYS ' 169 
 
 as uniformly staved off by the Bache and Co. 
 party. . . . 
 
 My brother, the red-headed " good fellow of 
 Will," as you once called him, was married a 
 few months since to the daughter of an ex-gov- 
 ernor of Connecticut: and with her and my sis- 
 ter Maria went to Europe in October. ... I 
 hope you will see them. If you ever see the 
 " Journal of the American Oriental Society " 
 which Will edits in connection with Prof. Salis- 
 bury, you will find occasional articles by him. . . . 
 Your work on the echinoderms pleases me 
 greatly ; the illustrations are indeed exquisite. 
 
 I wish you would tell me more of your per- 
 sonal situation in Neufchatel how you live, 
 and all that. Of your political affairs, we hear 
 but little on this side of the water ; and I have 
 but a vague idea what is going on among you. 
 . . . How much I should like to talk a while 
 with you! and shall I ever have that pleasure? 
 . . . Mrs. Whitney sends her best love. 
 Good-bye until next time. 
 
 J. D. WHITNEY. 
 
 DR. ELIPHALET NOTT TO JOSIAH D. WHITNEY 
 UNION COLLEGE, March 25, 1857. 
 DEAR SIR, I have heard in such a way that 
 you have made a visit to Bristol [Connecticut] 
 that I suppose it must be so. If it is, will you 
 
170 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 give me (confidentially, if you prefer) your frank 
 and explicit opinions as to the existing state and 
 future prospects of the mine. 
 
 I have met with such and so many grievous 
 losses myself lately, that I have .come to place 
 my chief reliance on Bristol (which hitherto I 
 had not much regarded) for my support. If there 
 is no foundation for this reliance (tho sad to 
 know it), it is best I should know it; and I ask 
 you therefore, if you know, to tell me the simple 
 truth. I had hoped to see you here before this, 
 and still hope to do so. If it is lawful in the law 
 of the Puritans to do so, give my sincere love 
 to your wife and the young immortal committed 
 to her care. May God bless both you and them. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 E. NOTT. 
 
 Mrs. Nott is out of town, or she would have 
 corrected this ; and added I presume a note of 
 her own. Indeed I would have written more and 
 better myself. But I am sick and sad to-day 
 more so than a wise man and especially a 
 Christian man ought to be. 
 
 The following letter to William Whitney was 
 written after Josiah Whitney with his wife had 
 been attending the meeting of the American 
 Association for the Advancement of Science at 
 Montreal. 
 
STATE SURVEYS 171 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 NORTHAMPTON, August 20, 1857. 
 
 . . . We were all glad to hear such good news 
 from the baby and his mother. . . . We expect 
 every day to hear that the Governor announces 
 his determination to go to New Haven and see 
 through his own spectacles the young prince. 
 Connecticut Railroad stock has slightly risen, 
 in consequence of the promise of increased 
 travel princeward. . . . 
 
 We found Montreal crowded, the hotels 
 poor and jammed. Seventeen ladies slept on 
 the floor of the dining room and parlor . . . 
 the night before we got there. We thought our- 
 selves lucky to get a room about as big as a 
 
 bandbox The geological part of the meeting 
 
 was intensely Canadian; Logan, Hunt, Daw- 
 son, and Hall had put their heads together to 
 puff Canada, and snub everything and every- 
 body else. I did not get to the section in time to 
 hear Logan's paper on the Azoic, or I would 
 have replied to it. He did not, so far as I can 
 learn, answer my arguments; but contented 
 himself with his ipsedixit, backed by Hall, who 
 has never seen anything of the rocks in ques- 
 tion. They had it all their own way. Hall was 
 savage on Dana, Rogers, and myself, in his 
 address as retiring president. We left partly on 
 
i;2 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 account of our miserable accommodations, 
 partly on account of the expense, and more 
 because I was quite unwell, being troubled 
 with a headache which I could not get rid of 
 although I starved myself for three days. Com- 
 ing back by Lake George we had the most 
 charming weather. Louisa enjoyed it much. 
 Let me hear of what you are doing in the 
 
 way of orientalizing. Your L is clean daft 
 
 on the subject of the ark. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 NORTHAMPTON, March 2, 1859. 
 
 ... I hear that a small appropriation has 
 been made for a survey in Michigan. Joy has 
 been writing for me to the Governor, and I have 
 also written myself and think it not impossible 
 that the place may be offered to me, although 
 not by any means sanguine about it. I lecture 
 a week from Thursday. Subject: " Science, and 
 Humboldt as its Representative Man." Will 
 that do for a title ? I have the lecture nearly 
 written and will send it to you to read if you 
 wish, after it is off my hands and delivered. 
 
 . . . [F. A.] Genth writes me from Phila- 
 delphia that he has discovered a new mineral, 
 which he proposes to call Whitneyite ; it is an 
 arsenid of copper, Cu 9 As 2 quite interest- 
 ing; the most singular thing about it is, that I 
 
STATE SURVEYS 173 
 
 found the same thing at the Minnesota Mine 
 and analyzed it at the mine so far as to make 
 it out to be probably new. But the specimen 
 was lost in some mysterious way, and I have 
 never been able to find it, although I hunted 
 well for it. Fate seems to have destined it to 
 be named after me. 
 
 Genth, who had been at Marburg under 
 Bunsen when Whitney was less than twenty 
 miles away at Giessen, was an authority on 
 copper ; and " your-humble-servantite " at once 
 took its place among the few score minerals 
 which bear the names of men. It is an uncom- 
 mon substance. Genth made the determination 
 on a few ounces, and Whitney himself had 
 only " a piece as big as a pin-head to swear 
 by." 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 March 28, 1859. 
 
 . . . The Michigan Survey was given to 
 one of the professors of the Michigan Univer- 
 sity. They write me that it was a Methodist 
 movement, getting up the survey. Probably 
 the Governor had a vague idea it was a theo- 
 logical survey he was organizing, and not a 
 geological one. Well, I hope the State Geolo- 
 gist will not republish our work without giving 
 us some credit, at least. 
 
1/4 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 MINERAL POINT, WISCONSIN, May 27, 1859. 
 ... I have just come in from a nice trip 
 through the country west of this place, a 
 splendid farming region, rich rolling prairie, 
 with plenty of groves of timber scattered through 
 it ; ledges of rock handy, and no stones scattered 
 over the soil those dornicks which dull the 
 New England husbandman's tools so effectu- 
 ally. At Wingville, I made another bone dis- 
 covery -a tooth of a Mastodon, taken 55 feet 
 deep, and more to be had by digging, I hope. 
 Yesterday, however, came one of those very 
 severe days which make the geologist's life not 
 so easy a one. The whole forenoon I spent in 
 floundering, wriggling, writhing, creeping and 
 crawling through the mud holes of an extensive 
 and interesting, but intolerably uncomfortable 
 mine, whereof my bones are all aching and my 
 flesh battered. Coming out a mass of wet mud 
 with a human being encased in it, the said 
 human was further inhumanly treated by being 
 obliged to ride 20 miles over a road, which was 
 for all the world like the mine with its top cut 
 off, and a driving northeast storm of rain beating 
 in his face all the way, and washing the mud 
 off from him into his boots. Was n't that com- 
 fortable ? 
 
STATE SURVEYS 175 
 
 On Monday I start for Madison, with the 
 object of making a vigorous attack on the State 
 Treasurer; the results remain to be seen. I 
 would rather have the check of J. D. W. Sen- 
 ior on the Northampton Bank, than a warrant 
 on either the Wisconsin or Iowa treasury. 
 
 I hear such lamentable accounts from Louisa 
 of the state of her health, that I take but little 
 pleasure in being out here, and hardly think 
 that I shall remain beyond July ist; but if she 
 is better, I may come out again in the Autumn. 
 
 The " crevices " of the two following letters 
 are the veins of lead ore. Each of these had to 
 be accurately plotted on the detailed " Crevice 
 Map." This was some five feet square, and on 
 a scale of four inches to the mile. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 GALENA, ILLINOIS, October 9, 1859. 
 . . . Were it not for the dust, I would say 
 nothing could surpass the last ten days, just 
 cool enough for tramping over the prairies 
 among the crevices ; but chilly enough at night, 
 when one huddles dismally over the little stove 
 in the stinking bar-room, by an unsnuffed tal- 
 low candle not giving light enough to see to 
 write up one's notes by, and going to bed early 
 just to keep from wearing out one's eyes. The 
 
1 76 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 work of laying down these crevices [on the 
 large scale map] goes on slowly: it is a big job 
 and demands more time. To my surprise, I 
 find the people rather interested in the matter, 
 and the papers have kept me and my doings 
 before the public pretty thoroughly. The whole 
 organization of the survey is a peculiarly un- 
 fortunate one. ... If I had said a word to 
 encourage it, there would have been petitions 
 sent in from all over the lead region, this win- 
 ter, to have the entire survey put in my charge. 
 Hall would not object, but Carr and Daniels 
 would be furious, and it would not be loyal in 
 me to take any step of that kind, under the 
 circumstances. 
 
 I have been traveling this last week among 
 the most God-forsaken people I ever came 
 across, in the heart of the mining region, the 
 vilest, dirtiest, most rascally gang a man could 
 well get among. ... If anything can stand 
 lower than Wisconsin does in point of honesty, 
 I wonder where it is. 
 
 [J. P.] Kimball is not with me this fall ; as 
 I find it much more useful to hire local assis- 
 tance, especially the surveyors who can " show 
 me the corners," and locate the diggings on 
 the map. . . . 
 
 . . . Through Schenectady I heard to-day 
 that Mr. Dana had gone to Europe. ... I 
 
STATE SURVEYS 177 
 
 shall feel quite lost without him ; but he has 
 evidently done a wise thing. . . . 
 
 My plans are to be at home early in Novem- 
 ber, and there to remain until the Lead Report 
 is done with. You will hardly see me unless 
 you honor me with your presence Christmas 
 or New Year's; though I don't know as there 
 will be any this year, as mother is only going 
 to keep a small girl this winter and no cook. 
 Never mind, call up at the Mansion (not the 
 family one), and we will feed you and lodge 
 you. . . . 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 NORTHAMPTON, December 22, 1859. 
 
 The work I have in hand is so laborious 
 that I shall have to ox diligently to get through 
 all I ought to accomplish, and there are forty 
 other things to be finished up. I stick to the 
 office pretty closely, coming down before break- 
 fast and generally leaving at 10 P. M. Louisa 
 thinks that I am rather too much of an ox, and 
 drags me out to walk, nolens volens. We are 
 blessed with the finest sleighing I ever saw. 
 About a foot of solid snow as prettily dis- 
 tributed and evenly distributed as the letters 
 in the title of my big crevice map, which I look 
 on as a Kunststuck, for a man who can't print, 
 that is to say. . . . 
 
i;8 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 NORTHAMPTON, January 24, 1860. 
 
 . . . Friday noon, feeling disposed to bum- 
 ble, and having occasion or excuse therefor in 
 the necessity of getting engravers' estimates on 
 my maps ... I posted to Boston. I own up 
 to the fact that the desire to see Church's 
 "Heart of the Andes " before it left Boston was 
 a strong element in the propelling power which 
 set me going in that direction. . . . 
 
 The picture of Church's was an "astonisher" 
 to me, a sort of new revelation in landscape 
 painting. If it be necessary that a work of art 
 to be great I mean, supremely great should 
 have unity and produce its effect as a whole, 
 then the " Heart of the Andes "is perhaps not 
 to be placed as high as some other works. But 
 if a landscape as painted is to produce the same 
 effect which it does in nature; if it is, like 
 nature herself, to bear minute examination and 
 repay close study by an ever new revelation of 
 new beauties, to confound by an inexhaustible 
 wealth of details, to dazzle by a multiplicity of 
 effects, then Church's picture is beyond any- 
 thing ever yet attempted. You could cut it up 
 into a gallery of landscapes, just as you might 
 the view from Red Hill [near Lake Winnepe- 
 saukee, N. H.], only that in one case you would 
 
STATE SURVEYS 179 
 
 have every kind of view from tropical to Alpine, 
 while in the other, your gallery would be rather 
 monotonously "lake and wood"sy lacking the 
 glacier, the tropical profusion of animal and veg- 
 etable life, the inexpressible majesty of height, 
 an element wanting in our New England scen- 
 ery. I would give several of my brightest six- 
 pences to see Brown's collection of paintings 
 now exhibiting at New York. I have the high- 
 est opinion of his ability. . . . 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 MINERAL POINT, WISCONSIN, May 28, 1860. 
 You will be moving into your new Palazzo 
 presently, I suppose, and spreading yourself in 
 a locality you may reasonably expect to occupy 
 for some considerable time, while my household 
 gods have to be packed in saddle bags. I think 
 of adopting as my coat of arms, a tent, with a 
 
i8o JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 sinister bend in the top (caused by weakness 
 of the ridge-pole); crest, a slice of pork held on 
 a fork, what's the heraldic slang for that? "Sus, 
 impaled per party gules," I guess is near enough. 
 Motto " Ueberall zu Hause." Let 's see how 
 it would look. Let me translate the Latin in 
 my own fashion. " He seeks among the rocks 
 for the traces of primeval monsters," which I 
 take it to be as good business as looking around, 
 sword in hand, for that " placid rest in liberty," 
 which we read about, but don't exactly realize. 
 
 Whitney is now forty, with a wife and child, 
 but with no settled work and no permanent 
 habitation. In person he is short and strongly 
 built, tough and enduring, and thoroughly 
 inured to the hardness of a geologist's life. 
 Yet with all his rough labor he is fastidious 
 enough when not afield, likes clean sheets on 
 his bed every day, and objects to wiping his 
 hands twice on the same towel. At table, too, 
 though always abstemious, he is something of 
 an epicure. There are certain professions which 
 compel a man to lead a double life in matters 
 of toilet and fare ; and those who follow them, 
 when they leave blankets and fried pork, 
 sometimes react violently. In addition Whit- 
 ney works without respite, goes to bed early 
 and sleeps six hours a night, and has a curious 
 
STATE SURVEYS 181 
 
 trick to be justified later by psychologists 
 then unborn of planning his day's work in 
 bed when he first wakes up. 
 
 With his fortieth year, comes to an end the 
 first of the three periods into which his life 
 naturally divides itself. He has been by turn 
 chemist, mining expert, geological surveyor 
 but never the single head of a survey. From 
 now on, he is to be a geologist, and his own 
 master. He has seen geology change from a 
 chaos of speculation into a coherent science; 
 and geological surveying grow from an avoca- 
 tion of physicians and chemists and amateurs, 
 into a profession for the well-trained expert, of 
 whom he is himself among the first. Now he 
 is to become the forerunner of the United 
 States Geological Survey, whose achievements 
 are to be the nation's worthiest contribution 
 to science. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA 
 SURVEY. 1860 AND 1861 
 
 THE rush of the Forty-niners to the gold fields 
 of California and Nevada took them into a 
 region rarely visited by civilized men, un- 
 mapped, and except for the main outlines of 
 its topography, practically unknown. Dana in 
 1842 saw something of the country on his way 
 home overland from the bungled and ill-fated 
 Wilkes expedition to the Antarctic; and Fre- 
 mont's party in 1843 and 1844 had picked up 
 a few fossils, which Hall described. Philip T. 
 Tyson, between 1849 and 1851, explored pri- 
 vately the gold country; and the California 
 Senate printed his report. But Tyson was a 
 chemist, for whom the prospect of extracting 
 wealth from quartz veins seemed "altogether 
 too remote and uncertain to be relied on." 
 Following this, from 1853 to 1856, came a 
 state survey under Trask. Trask, however, 
 though he inspired much of the scientific work 
 of the early days, was by profession a physician, 
 and by avocation more a naturalist than a ge- 
 ologist. His work covered roughly the habitable 
 portion of the state ; but his reports were with- 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 183 
 
 out maps, and no one of the five reaches a 
 hundred pages in length. 
 
 The railway surveys, from the middle to the 
 end of the fifties, were accompanied by geolo- 
 gists, Blake and Marcou among the number ; 
 while Newberry, as geologist of the Ives expe- 
 dition up the Colorado, made out, in part, the 
 structure of the region beyond the mountains. 
 Blake, in addition, reported briefly for the 
 Coast Survey on the sea border below San 
 Francisco. All these, however, were but hasty 
 reconnoissances. In 1860, California was, geo- 
 logically speaking, an unknown land. 
 
 The credit of putting an end to this state of 
 affairs belongs in some small measure to her 
 who was born Elizabeth Whitney. It had been 
 her dream, from the time she married and went 
 to California to live, to have her beloved brother 
 at once her neighbor and the head of a state 
 survey. 
 
 California in its early days had few inhabit- 
 ants, and still fewer citizens. Among these few, 
 however, was Elizabeth Whitney's husband, S. 
 Osgood Putnam, who had come out alone in 
 1850, made his place and established his family, 
 and in the late fifties was the secretary of the 
 California Steam Navigation Company. All 
 but a half-dozen of the American states had by 
 that time established their geological surveys ; 
 
1 84 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 and Putnam, glad to further the interests of a 
 state especially dependent upon mining and 
 agriculture, and at the same time to please his 
 wife, gave himself unsparingly to the project 
 of a survey for California. He was himself an 
 influential citizen, and he soon interested others 
 like himself. Among these was Judge Stephen 
 J. Field, whose brother, Rev. Henry M. Field 
 of New York, was a friend of the Whitney 
 family; the Judge, though in general a thorough 
 party man, did his best to keep the survey out 
 of politics. There was also John Conness, then 
 a member of the California legislature and 
 afterwards United States Senator from his 
 state, whose well-deserved monument is a peak 
 in the Sierra Nevada. To these three belongs 
 especially the credit of instituting the Cali- 
 fornia Survey. 
 
 There were backing and filling and years of 
 delay, while the Californians waited to see what 
 the general government could be persuaded 
 to do without expense to them. Finally, April 
 21, 1860, John G. Downey, Governor, approved 
 "An act to create the Office of State Geologist, 
 and to define the duties thereof." 
 
 " J. D. Whitney," read section one, "is hereby 
 appointed State Geologist, whose duty it shall 
 be, with the aid of such assistants as he may 
 appoint, to make an accurate and complete 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 185 
 
 geological survey of the state, and to furnish 
 in his report of the same proper maps and dia- 
 grams thereof, with a full and scientific descrip- 
 tion of its rocks, fossils, soils, and minerals, and 
 of its botanical and zoological productions, to- 
 gether with specimens of the same, which speci- 
 mens shall be properly labeled and arranged, 
 and deposited in such place as shall be here- 
 after provided for that purpose by the legis- 
 lature." 
 
 Later sections of the bill provided that the 
 State Geologist should report progress "as 
 near as may be at the beginning of each session 
 of the legislature " ; and that there should be 
 an elaborate final report on the completion of 
 the survey. All such reports were to be copy- 
 righted and sold for the benefit of the school 
 fund. The stipend of the State Geologist was 
 fixed at six thousand dollars a year, to be paid 
 monthly out of the appropriation for the survey. 
 
 The act was a model of its kind. It looked 
 to a thorough survey, broadly planned and ex- 
 tending over many years; and Whitney him- 
 self drafted the bill. Its single weakness, cer- 
 tainly not Whitney's fault, was that it carried 
 no appropriation beyond the $20,000 assigned 
 for the first year. For the future, it left the 
 survey at the mercy of each succeeding legis- 
 lature. 
 
186 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 The selection of a state geologist, too, was 
 well managed. The promoters of the survey 
 got a resolution through the legislature that 
 no candidate should be considered at all unless 
 he had first the indorsement of the Smithso- 
 nian Institution. Thus at a single stroke, they 
 cut off at least nine tenths of the aspirants to 
 the position. 
 
 Trask had a natural claim to be considered. 
 Blake was a candidate, and Whitney's most 
 formidable competitor. But the scientific East, 
 almost to a man, united on Whitney, Joseph 
 Henry alone of the Smithsonian officials re- 
 serving the right to indorse Hall also, should 
 he apply. Agassiz urged Whitney's appoint- 
 ment ; among his supporters were Foster, Joy, 
 Gibbs, and Gould, the two Sillimans, Eliphalet 
 Nott, Horsford, Lovering, Benjamin Peirce, 
 and Edward Hitchcock, Dana, Brush, and 
 Marsh, Leidy, Conrad, Meek, Bache, Newberry; 
 while the members of the American Associa- 
 tion, from their meeting in the summer of 1860, 
 sent a joint letter to the Governor of California 
 expressing their " profound gratification " at 
 Whitney's promotion. The general opinion at 
 Cambridge, New Haven, and Washington was 
 summed up in Agassiz's letter to the Governor. 
 
 " A geological Survey of California, to be 
 what it should be in a scientific and practical 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 187 
 
 point of view, requires on the part of the per- 
 son who shall conduct it, abilities of a peculiar 
 kind. . . . You need at the head of your survey a 
 geologist, eminent for his knowledge in metal- 
 lurgy, far more than one who might be dis- 
 tinguished in theoretical Geology. 
 
 " Considering the particular qualifications 
 for a successful survey of your State, I have no 
 hesitation in saying that there is only one man 
 in the United States fully qualified for it, Mr. 
 J. D. Whitney. . . . 
 
 " I do not mean to be understood as if I con- 
 sidered Mr. Whitney as the first Geologist of 
 the United States, taking Geology in the usual 
 acceptation of the word when it is made to 
 include all theoretical questions connected with 
 the structure of the earth, as well as the or- 
 ganic remains contained in the Strata forming 
 the crust. But I know that in those particular 
 branches of Geology a knowledge of which is 
 particularly required for a successful survey of 
 your State, he has not only no superior, but 
 not even an equal, in these United States." 
 
 The only real opposition came from Blake, 
 from Lieber, then at the head of the South 
 Carolina Survey, and from C. T. Jackson, who 
 had never forgiven his separation from the 
 Lake Superior Survey; and this Whitney 
 promptly countered by proof of the several 
 
188 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 motives of the three men. Still the fact re- 
 mained that this was " the only appointment 
 ever made in California on any other than po- 
 litical grounds." " There is no use," wrote Joy, 
 "of mounting upon the high horse of science, 
 and attempting to ride down the Governor. 
 . . . The object of the survey may be to pro- 
 mote land speculations, and the Governor may 
 have an eye to some gold vein"; and a still 
 less hopeful adviser warned, " Keep your hon- 
 esty out of sight, or you are a gone coon." 
 
 With high hopes, therefore, but with no illu- 
 sions, Whitney accepted his opportunity. 
 
 The new-made State Geologist went promptly 
 to work to prepare for his new duties. He 
 cleaned up the field work in the lead region, 
 or put it into such shape that it could be com- 
 pleted by his assistants. William Whitney un- 
 dertook to see the reports through the press. 
 His business affairs Josiah turned over to his 
 father. For his library, now approaching $10,000 
 in value, he built a " shanty " on his father's lot 
 behind the family mansion. It was a story-and-a- 
 half, fireproof structure, with storerooms for 
 furniture above, and a single large room be- 
 low, which served as study and work-room for 
 Whitney when at Northampton, and for other 
 men of science who from time to time consulted 
 his books. Besides these obligations to the 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 189 
 
 past, there were something like two thousand 
 dollars' worth of instruments of one sort and 
 another to be purchased and shipped, and two 
 years' supply of clothes, especially for the 
 " women-folks " ; for in San Francisco every- 
 thing was at least double price and "you really 
 could n't get a bonnet you could wear for less 
 than twenty dollars." 
 
 Most important of all was the selection of 
 assistants. These must needs be unmarried 
 men, for the survey could afford to pay them 
 only twelve or fifteen hundred a year, a sum 
 on which no family man could live in Califor- 
 nia. They needed to be young men, hardy and 
 adventurous; and companionable men and 
 loyal men withal, if they were to get on together 
 in the wilderness. Many, therefore, were the 
 letters and the conferences with the older men 
 over the latent qualities of this, that, and the 
 other beginner. For Whitney, if he did not 
 need, at least followed the advice which Hall 
 gave him at this time: "If you get good men, 
 your work will go well, and you will be greatly 
 relieved. I remember that Ramsay of the Cana- 
 dian Survey said, and had I learned it sooner, 
 I should 'have saved myself much trouble, 
 * We have no difficulty in our survey, but we 
 have none but gentlemen on the work.' " 
 
 There were eight in the company which on 
 
190 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 October 1 8, 1860, left Northampton for Califor- 
 nia by way of New York and Aspinwall. There 
 were Mrs. Whitney and a maid; little Eleanor, 
 now a child of four ; a general utility man from 
 Northampton, by name Michael Eagan, who 
 could turn his hand to anything from camp 
 cooking to laboratory chores ; and of the sci- 
 entific staff of the survey, William H. Brewer 
 and William Ashburner. There was besides a 
 college boy, Chester Averill, whose family 
 was punishing him for a student prank by 
 sending him on a trip around the world. He 
 knew a little engineering, was a friend of Ash- 
 burner, joined the survey for the adventure, 
 acted as clerk, mule-driver, barometrical obser- 
 ver, and general factotum, and turned out in 
 the end to be an efficient and useful man. 
 Ashburner was the assistant in geology, a 
 connection of the Field family, and a former 
 student at the Paris School of Mines. Brewer, 
 now Professor Emeritus at Yale, was then eight 
 years out of the Sheffield Scientific School, 
 where he had been a classmate of Whitney's 
 friend Brush. He had been a pupil of Liebig 
 and Bunsen, was a chemist and botanist, and 
 something of a geologist besides. He had long 
 been interested in the exploration of the far 
 West. In fact he applied for a place on Gunni- 
 son's expedition of 1853 and 1854, and was 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 191 
 
 refused not in the end to his disadvantage, 
 since the entire party was murdered by the 
 Indians. Whitney did not know him personally, 
 but took him for the agricultural end of the 
 survey, on the recommendation of Brush, in 
 whose judgment of men he placed the highest 
 confidence. The outcome was most fortu- 
 nate. Brewer became not only the right-hand 
 man of the survey, but his chief's close friend. 
 Under the peculiar conditions of California, his 
 loyalty and his tact proved hardly less valuable 
 than his scientific attainments. 
 
 The party were nearly a month on the way, 
 and, after an interesting though trying voyage, 
 reached San Francisco on November 14. Put- 
 nam met them on the wharf ; and soon the Whit- 
 neys were making the acquaintance of their 
 two young nieces, while the other members of 
 the party were establishing themselves in the 
 quarters which Putnam's forethought had pro- 
 vided for them. Altogether Whitney had good 
 reason to be pleased with his reception. The 
 survey was popular; the Governor friendly. 
 The newspapers were complimentary, and 
 chronicled every movement of the surveyors. 
 Prominent citizens called, to make the ac- 
 quaintance of the staff. There were, Whitney 
 affirmed, ten thousand applications for places. 
 
 Trask, the former State Geologist, acted in 
 
192 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 the most generous manner, aided his successor 
 by every means in his power, turned over all 
 his private notes, and loaned his collection of 
 fossils. Blake, however, proved distinctly less 
 friendly. 
 
 The first thing to be done, after the survey 
 had settled itself in its offices at 67 Montgom- 
 ery Block, was to try out its camp equipment, 
 and to get some idea of the lay of the land, 
 that detailed plans might be made for work in 
 the spring. It was too late in the season for 
 field work in the central and northern portions 
 of the state, and the Governor, who was a Los 
 Angeles man, advised beginning in the region 
 behind San Bernardino, whence had just come 
 reports of tin deposits of fabulous wealth. 
 
 Here, however, the State Geologist shall 
 take up the story for himself. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY, AT YALE 
 SAN FRANCISCO, December 4, 1860. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, . . . Soon after my ar- 
 rival, I went to Sacramento and bagged (liter- 
 ally) $10,000, to commence work on. The Gov- 
 ernor was very civil ; I was called on by all the 
 dignitaries, and much interest was manifested 
 in the work. Returned to San Francisco and 
 fitted out my party. . . . These left with all 
 the outfit for camp life, a fortnight ago, for Los 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 193 
 
 Angeles to begin work in the Bernardino and 
 Temescal ranges. I started immediately for the 
 Mariposa Estate with Col. Fremont, to meet 
 M. Claudet, agent of Rothschild's, and M. Laur, 
 sent out by the French government to inspect 
 and report on California. We spent four 
 days together in examining the principal veins 
 on the estate, which are indeed magnificent. 
 We had a very jolly time ; and I returned on 
 Tuesday in a great hurry to take the boat for 
 Los Angeles. ... I plunge into the moun- 
 tains, and return here again in February to 
 go to Sacramento, to lobby for a new appro- 
 priation and then up north into the mountains 
 again. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 Los ANGELES, December 25, 1860. 
 
 . . . We came in from the mountains last 
 night after ten days of camp life, having made 
 a little trip west to see how we worked to- 
 gether, what we needed for an outfit more than 
 we had, and what the hitches were likely to be. 
 
 Our party as organized consists of myself 
 (known to you personally), Mr. Brewer, Mr. 
 Ashburner, a Mr. Averill, Michael Eagan, cook, 
 Peter Gabriel, mule-driver, and a young Span- 
 iard or Californian, named Gurrado, a brother- 
 in-law of the Governor, as the go-between for 
 
194 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 us and the Spaniards, . . . who form a large 
 part of the population of Southern Califor- 
 nia. ... A knowledge of the Spanish lan- 
 guage is almost a necessity now, and I am rub- 
 bing mine up as fast as I can. . . . 
 
 We have a medium-sized waggon, on thor- 
 ough braces, drawn by four mules, and five 
 saddle mules in addition. Of course, all the 
 rigging is Californian, closely resembling the 
 Mexican saddles with big wooden stirrups, 
 high pommels, and straight cantles. Each man 
 carries a revolver and a big knife, and, -besides, 
 we have two Sharp's carbines and two double 
 barreled fowling pieces, so that we could do 
 considerable shooting in case of necessity. We 
 never go out from camp, or in town in the 
 evening, without looking to our arms. . . . 
 Every one says it is necessary to be well 
 armed; and that if you are well armed, you 
 will probably be let alone. Our mule-driver 
 was once attacked close by this place, by two 
 robbers; but fought them off, wounding one 
 and frightening away the other. He is a young 
 fellow of genuine pluck, and a valuable acquisi- 
 tion. It is a real science to look after mules and 
 their rigging. 
 
 In camp we live on game, which is abun- 
 dant, and fresh beef, which is quite cheap in 
 these parts. The greatest annoyance we have 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 195 
 
 had thus far, has been from the weather. . . . 
 It has rained more or less almost every day 
 since we took the field, and sometimes has 
 poured steadily for twenty-four and . . . thirty-six 
 hours without a moment's interruption. All say 
 that nothing like it has been seen since 1849-50. 
 We are now at the hotel, as we arrived too late 
 to camp, on Monday night luckily enough, or 
 we should have pitched our tents on the other 
 side the river, which is now swollen to a furious, 
 impassable torrent. Here we are well fed and 
 badly lodged ; cold and damp, of course, as in 
 all countries with a climate like this, no provi- 
 sion is made for bad weather or winter cold. . . . 
 I need hardly say that we find the region an 
 interesting one ; we are here just on the limits 
 of the cactus region, and the wild fig or prickly 
 pear is very common all over the low hills. 
 Artemisia and sage are the most common 
 shrubby plants on the plains, and aroma and 
 prickles are common to almost all kinds of 
 vegetables here. The lower ranges of moun- 
 tains are thickly covered with chaparral, so as 
 to be very difficult to climb. The valleys, or 
 canons . . . are sparsely covered with evergreen, 
 oaks, and sycamores. The spring is just com- 
 mencing (December showers bring forth Jan- 
 uary flowers, in this region). The grass is up 
 high enough to be tolerable food for the cattle, 
 
^196 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 which roam in immense herds over the plains 
 . . . and a good many plants are just coming 
 into flower. . . . On a clear day we find our- 
 selves almost surrounded by distant snow-cov- 
 ered peaks and ranges from 6000 to 9000 feet 
 in altitude. The San Bernardino is the highest, 
 and is about eighty miles due east from us. 
 This is a sort of Gordian knot or umbilicus, of 
 the mountains, where all the ranges come to- 
 gether and weave a curious snarl for the geolo- 
 gist to unravel. . . . 
 
 Next to earthquakes, probably what shocks 
 the stranger most is the scale of prices in this 
 region. Provisions are not dear, excepting 
 groceries ; beef and flour are cheap even ; but 
 all kinds of mechanical work, tools, utensils, 
 labor, etc., are all very dear. Double our prices 
 for common things, and quadruple them for 
 what we call " odd jobs," and you would have 
 an idea of what we have to pay. Meals are 
 always $1.00 each in California; but generally 
 good and abundant. . . . 
 
 I was very much struck at Mr. [Rev. Thomas 
 Starr] King's church by the intelligent look of 
 the audience. . . . What struck me most at 
 San Francisco (next to the dirt and the fleas) 
 was the restless energy with which people fol- 
 low the business in which they are engaged ; 
 which of course, is to make a living, and as 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 197 
 
 much more as they can. It seemed to me as if 
 there were but few who did not really intend 
 to return " to the states " at some future time, 
 to remain there if they could accumulate 
 enough to live on. 
 
 So for all its twenty thousand dollars, the sur- 
 vey was poor. Popular as it was, it depended for 
 its future income upon men who, for the most 
 part, had no permanent stake in the country. 
 
 When, after this first glance at his domain, 
 Whitney came to work out his detailed plans 
 for the survey, he realized that the greatness 
 of his opportunity carried with it problems no 
 less great. California is eight hundred miles 
 long, while nine tenths of its hundred and sixty 
 thousand square miles of area is mountain 
 country or desert, without roads in those days, 
 uninhabited, and in large measure unknown. 
 Its boundaries, moreover, except its sea border, 
 are so entirely arbitrary that any complete 
 study of its geological structure must perforce 
 be carried over into the outlying country; 
 while for most practical purposes, western 
 Nevada, and, to a less degree, Oregon, were 
 then parts of California. Thus four states and 
 Lower California were within Whitney's scope. 
 " I have found out, " he wrote his father, " that 
 the State of California is a prodigiously large 
 
198 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 one. Not that I did not know it before ; but 
 now I have a realizing sense of it. It is as big 
 as Great Britain, Ireland, Belgium, Hanover, 
 and Bavaria put together ! If I had a complete 
 map of the state, a corps twice as large as I 
 now have, and worked as fast (on the geology 
 only) as the English government surveyors do, 
 I should finish in just 150 years. Having our 
 own maps to make, our labor is tripled; and 
 consequently we shall be through in 450 years 
 or thereabouts that is to say, if we work as 
 minutely as the English geologists do." 
 
 Whitney's problem, moreover, took on an 
 added difficulty from his relation to the legis- 
 lature. If the survey was to go on for ten, fif- 
 teen, twenty years, it ought to be planned with 
 far-sighted wisdom. If, on the other hand, the 
 legislature should at any moment change its 
 mind and stop the survey, the work must have 
 been so conducted as to yield immediate and 
 creditable results. Besides this, the bill called 
 for a zoological, botanical, and agricultural 
 survey of the state ; each of which, like the 
 geographical and topographical surveys, must 
 make worthy contributions to science, and at 
 the same time satisfy the expectations of voters 
 by no means especially enlightened. 
 
 To meet these requirements, various and not 
 altogether compatible with one another, the 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 199 
 
 State Geologist decided to spend the first year 
 or two in a reconnoissance of the entire state, 
 except the high Sierras. He would start with 
 the San Bernardino Mountains where he had 
 first broken ground, and work gradually north 
 up the Coast Ranges and the central valley. 
 The results would be well worth having for 
 their own sakes, for they would settle once for 
 all the main features of California geology. In 
 addition, should the survey continue, this in- 
 troductory study would provide a basis for 
 more detailed work in later years. The great 
 mountain range on the east could wait a year 
 or two, until the habitable portions of the state 
 were made out. 
 
 In the meantime, there was the ever present 
 problem of maps. Whitney was himself among 
 the earliest of geological surveyors to abandon 
 vague general descriptions, and to follow the 
 modern practice of locating every geologic fact 
 and delimiting every formation on an accurate 
 chart. But the only maps of California were 
 the rough sketches of private explorers, and 
 the linear surveys of the General Land Office 
 at Washington. Both together took in only a 
 minute portion of the country, and both alike 
 were hopelessly inaccurate. From any point 
 of view, scientific, commercial, or military, a 
 trustworthy map was a necessity. To this, 
 
200 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 therefore, the survey applied itself from the 
 beginning. 
 
 The field work involved in these several 
 plans fell during the first years largely to 
 Brewer; for Ashburner, unfortunately, proved 
 lacking in physical stamina. Shortly before he 
 came to California, he had made a survey of 
 Newfoundland, privately, for Cyrus Field in 
 connection, more or less remotely, with the 
 first Atlantic cable. From that lean country he 
 came back with the scurvy ; and, though he 
 was apparently cured, the privations of camp 
 life brought on his trouble again. Whitney, 
 therefore, detailed him for special work in the 
 mining regions. He, himself, divided his time 
 among the mines, the field party, the work at the 
 office in San Francisco, and the legislature at 
 Sacramento ; while such moments as remained 
 over, he spent on special problems, or in excur- 
 sions to various points in and out of the state. 
 
 So much then for the general scheme. De- 
 tails appear in Whitney's letters from San 
 Francisco to his brother. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, March 10, 1861. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, . . . How blessed thank- 
 ful you ought to be that you are comfortably 
 settled down in your own house, instead of 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 201 
 
 being driven from pillar to post, from tent to 
 tavern as we are ! . . . Monday, Louisa and I 
 go up to the seat of government, where, on 
 Tuesday, I hold forth to the legislature as fol- 
 lows : i st. The objects and aims of geology in 
 general ; 2nd. Origin and progress of geologi- 
 cal surveys ; 3rd. Mining and mineral history 
 of the United States; 4th. What may be ac- 
 complished for California by a well-conducted 
 geological survey; 5th. How such a survey 
 should be carried on. These are the "heads" 
 of my discourse. And won't it be dry ! Next 
 week I shall haunt the capitol, bore and lobby 
 as long as I can stand it ; and hope to get 
 away in time to return to the south by the next 
 Sunday's steamer. I shall find my party at 
 Santa Barbara, and mean to work with them 
 for about three weeks, and then leave them to 
 go ahead on their own hooks. . . . [After that] 
 I, with Louisa, Eleanor, and Mary [the maid], 
 plunge into the gold region, making our head- 
 quarters at the hospitable house of William 
 Longley (an old friend of Louisa's) at the 
 " Dardanelles diggings," way up in Placer 
 County, right in the midst of the great hydrau- 
 lic mining operations. Here Louisa means to 
 remain for about a month. I shall operate in 
 her vicinity, and be governed in my move- 
 ments by the action of the legislature. 
 
202 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, June 19, 1861. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, Since I wrote you last, I 
 have set up housekeeping, and am surrounded 
 by shavings, paint-pots, mops, brushes, and 
 brooms, and all the paraphernalia and infernalia 
 of putting a dirty house in order. . . . 
 
 We commenced housekeeping Saturday, the 
 fifteenth, Mary, Eleanor, and I ; and the same 
 day Louisa started for the " Gosh a ' Mighty ! " 
 or "Yosemite," as it is correctly called. . . . 
 They probably reached there last night, having 
 got to Sonora Sunday night. From there it 
 was fifteen miles by carriage, and thirty-nine 
 and a half by mule or horseback to the great 
 valley. . . . 
 
 I hope the trip will improve her health. 
 Mine has been very poor this last month, 
 although mending now. I was taken sick at 
 Stockton, on the twelfth of May, and have been 
 more or less under the weather ever since. 
 I wrote my address for the California College 
 commencement, and delivered it on the sixth 
 of June ; and started the next day for Calaveras 
 County, where I spent a few days miserably 
 uncomfortable. . . . The doctor said that ... it 
 was the malaria of the . . . Mississippi Valley 
 working itself out, as was often the case in 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 203 
 
 California with those coming from that re- 
 gion. . . . Now I am much better . . . and only 
 lack brains and energy to be all right again. 
 I suppose I have rather overworked myself of 
 late and need some rest which is hard to 
 get, as it is not in my nature to stop work if I 
 can help it. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, August 15, 1861. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, . . . After Louisa got 
 back from the Yosemite, I went to New Idria, 
 about two hundred miles south in the Monte 
 
 Diablo range, taking three weeks for the trip 
 
 Last week ... I spent at the New Almaden 
 mine. . . . Monday I expect to be off for 
 Washoe for a month. . . . 
 
 We have on the stocks a large and fine map 
 of the Bay of San Francisco, reaching from the 
 New Almaden mine up to Napa Valley. It 
 covers a space eighty by forty miles, a mere 
 flyspeck on the area of California. This map I 
 hope to be able to put in the engraver's hands 
 this winter or next spring. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, September 6, 1861. 
 . . . The trip [into Nevada] was in every 
 respect pleasant and satisfactory. I took the 
 
204 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 stage on the overland route to Carson City. 
 At Placerville I was joined by Mr. Ashburner, 
 stopping there a day to look at the geology of 
 the region. . . . We stopped over a day at the 
 Lake [Bigler on Whitney's maps, Tahoe now] 
 to rest and see Lieutenant [J. C.] Ives, who is 
 encamped there determining the point of inter- 
 section of the i2oth meridian with the 39th 
 parallel, from which the boundary line of Cali- 
 fornia runs due north. . . . 
 
 I stayed ten days at Virginia City . . . and 
 reached San Francisco just in time to learn of 
 the success of the Republican ticket in the 
 state election. I had little doubt that [Leland] 
 Stanford would be elected Governor ; but there 
 was a very strong feeling . . . and for days 
 previous to the election there was quiet arming 
 and preparing to fight on both sides in case 
 the Secession ticket had been successful. Con- 
 ness, the defeated Douglas candidate, was one 
 of my strongest friends, and the chief author 
 of the geological survey bill. . . . 
 
 Altogether the first year of the California 
 Geological Survey had been a successful one. 
 The work had begun so late in the fall of 1860 
 that there was $10,000 of the appropriation 
 left over; and this, with the $15,000 more ap- 
 propriated in 1862, enabled the State Geolo- 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 205 
 
 gist to take on three new men. The zoologist, 
 Dr. J. G. Cooper, a surgeon in the United 
 States Army, had been naturalist on one of 
 the Pacific Railway surveys, and was already 
 a man of established scientific reputation. 
 Charles F. Hoffmann, the topographer, was a 
 young German and a find of Whitney's own 
 in California. He was a well-trained man, with 
 some experience, and he soon became one of 
 the valuable men of the survey. Only toward 
 the end of the year, however, did Whitney find 
 a paleontologist to his mind in William More 
 Gabb, of Philadelphia, a man of thirty-two, and 
 already a recognized authority on Cretaceous 
 fossils. For Whitney, contrary to the usual 
 practice, insisted that his paleontologist should 
 go into the field, and actually see his material 
 for himself as it lay in the rocks. Gabb began 
 with no experience outside the laboratory ; but 
 he, too, became one of the main props of the 
 survey, and saw it through almost to its end. 
 The survey still lacked a chemist. But Whitney 
 was unwilling to set up a complete laboratory, 
 or to get together a library, until he saw how 
 matters were going at Sacramento, and there- 
 fore sent east his more important work to be 
 done under direction of Brush. 
 
 The plans made at the beginning of the year 
 had been carried through without mishap. The 
 
206 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 Chief Geologist had seen with his own eyes 
 some portion at least of forty of the forty-six 
 counties of California. Brewer, at the head of 
 the field party, had traveled twenty-six hun- 
 dred miles on mule-back, a thousand more on 
 foot, and enough besides, by other means, to 
 bring his entire tour of exploration close to 
 five thousand miles. In general, the survey 
 had covered the southern two thirds of the 
 state, halfway back from the sea to the eastern 
 border. 
 
 "There are many points," wrote Whitney 
 to his brother, "on which we need farther 
 light, although some of the most important 
 ones I consider about as good as settled for 
 instance, the age of the auriferous rocks of the 
 Sierra Nevada, which I have pretty well made 
 out to be Jurassic and not Paleozoic as every- 
 body has assumed. The auriferous detritus is 
 Pliocene, containing many bones of extinct 
 animals. The coal of this coast is Cretaceous, 
 etc. We have probably two hundred new spe- 
 cies of fossils . . . and a great many new ani- 
 mals and plants. There appears to be a strong 
 disposition on the part of some of the promi- 
 nent men here to have me go to London to 
 represent the state at the World's Fair. But 
 I have not favored the idea, lest it might injure 
 the survey, and being more interested in the 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 207 
 
 geology of California than anything else at 
 present." 
 
 The winter rains, two weeks late, stopped 
 outdoor work at the middle of November, 
 when the field party had reached the geyser 
 region west of Mt. St. Helena, some sixty-odd 
 miles north of San Francisco. The workers, 
 except the scientific staff, were paid off. Dr. 
 Cooper went south to San Diego to collect 
 during the winter. The other men settled down 
 at the San Francisco offices to work up the 
 materials collected during the summer ; while 
 Whitney, in addition, prepared his first report. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE SEARCH AFTER A HIGH MOUNTAIN 
 1862-1864 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, January 19, 1862. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, . . . Since I wrote last, we 
 have had a very hard time of it here in Cali- 
 fornia : the state has been, and still is, swamped, 
 submerged, inundated, deluged, overwhelmed, 
 anything in the aqueous line that your fancy 
 chooses. Losses in " the dry way " have here- 
 tofore been the greatest calamities brought 
 upon our towns and cities ; but this application 
 of the humid process beats them all put to- 
 gether. It has rained almost incessantly all 
 over the state ever since we left the field in 
 November. The fall of water in the mountains 
 has been terrific ; everywhere, both in mountain 
 and valley, it is one scene of desolation. Sacra- 
 mento is now in its third submergence, and 
 what the end will be nobody knows, as there is 
 no indication of stopping. All bridges are gone 
 and communication absolutely cut off in all 
 directions. The Overland mail has not arrived 
 for ten days, and the damage to the road on 
 the " grades " is so great that it is said that it 
 
SEARCH AFTER A HIGH MOUNTAIN 209 
 
 will take two months to make it passable again. 
 What we are going to do for mails, I do not 
 know. Some of them may get through in the 
 course of time, but a majority of them will 
 probably never be heard of again. . . . 
 
 It is estimated by some that one third of 
 the taxable property of the state has been de- 
 stroyed. Sacramento is generally considered 
 as having "gone in." The resources of the 
 state will be very seriously crippled for some 
 time to come, and it is no more than reasonable 
 to expect that, amid the absolutely necessary 
 retrenchments, the geological survey will come 
 in for a share. The estimates will all be cut 
 down to a much smaller figure, or possibly the 
 whole thing will be temporarily suspended. 
 
 I am at work on my report, but have not 
 decided how full to make it. We have material 
 for quite a " lengthy " document already. I much 
 prefer, however, to cut it as short as possible, 
 so that it may be off my hands before the season 
 for field work begins, and to save expense. . . . 
 We are all well, in spite of wind and weather. 
 It would n't be California not to keep up good 
 spirits. The drowned-out Sacramentans, even, 
 take it coolly and do not add to the aqueous 
 precipitate by any unnecessary tears. Judge 
 Longley's property at the Dardanelles is un- 
 doubtedly more or less injured. It is impossi- 
 
210 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 ble to get to [the] place at present, as the 
 bridges are down and the north fork of the 
 American River rolls a raging flood, over which 
 no one can pass. . . . Osgood's ranch has es- 
 caped without serious damage, being pretty 
 well up on the foot-hills. It would have been 
 very hard for him, if his barn and stock had 
 been swept away, as has been the case with 
 almost all the dwellers lower down in the val- 
 leys. Money 4% a month, and not to be had 
 at that. 
 
 TO HIS FATHER 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, March 24, 1862. v. 
 
 . . . Our legislature appropriated #15,000 
 last year for the survey; but of this, owing to 
 the emptiness of the state treasury, I have 
 not received a cent. . . . My account is au- 
 dited for $10,000, . . . and this the Controller 
 promises me in May. . . . The remaining 
 $5000 still due ... of last year's appropriation 
 . . . will not be paid before next December. 
 
 Now, as soon as I get my $10,000, it will all 
 have to be paid out, and I shall soon have to 
 commence borrowing again at two per cent 
 per month ... or stop the survey. ... If 
 you can borrow $5000 and lend it to me . . . 
 I cannot see that you would be running the 
 least risk, as you have the credit of a sovereign 
 
SEARCH AFTER A HIGH MOUNTAIN 211 
 
 state behind you, and there is no reason to be- 
 lieve that the state is going to repudiate. . . . 
 If I have to pay you 12% a year for the money, 
 it will save me 12%, as there is no hope of 
 getting the money here for less than 2% a 
 month. 
 
 TO HIS FATHER 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, May 29, 1862. 
 
 Your letter . . . was duly received on the 
 arrival of the steamer . . . and also the draft 
 for $1000 per Wells, Fargo & Co. I was very 
 glad to get the money, but am sorry that you 
 should feel so uneasy about lending it. ... I 
 hoped that you would put the rate of interest 
 so high that you would look upon it as a good 
 investment, rather than as a favor. . . . 
 
 You seem to think that I ought to stop the 
 work of the survey and wait until the money 
 is paid ; but this would not do at all Neither 
 the Governor nor the people would understand 
 such a move. Everybody here is accustomed 
 to borrowing, and they expect me to borrow 
 as a matter of course. The last legislature did 
 try to mend matters a little for me as an ex- 
 ception, by making my appropriation a special 
 one, to be reserved as a u special fund " out of 
 the first money coming in. ... 
 
 Suppose I were to discharge my assistants: 
 
212 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 the corps would be broken up, they would 
 seek and find employment elsewhere ; and when 
 I wanted to resume work again, it would be 
 almost equivalent to beginning the survey 
 anew. ... I could not in the whole United 
 States (or Confederate States either) find two 
 men who would answer my purpose as well as 
 Hoffmann and Brewer . . . and as Gabb has 
 only just come out and begun work, I cannot 
 send him back now. . . . 
 
 Suppose that my 'appropriation of $15,000 
 for next year is cut down to the extent of $1000 
 by interest paid for money borrowed, and sup- 
 pose that that sum came out of my pocket, 
 leaving me only $5000 salary, would it not be 
 better to carry on the work until some results 
 had been obtained creditable to myself and the 
 state ? But I have no doubt that the amount 
 I have to pay for money advanced will be al- 
 lowed as part of the necessary expenses of the 
 survey. . . . No one expresses the shadow of 
 a doubt that the appropriation will be paid in 
 time. I can borrow money here of the sharpest 
 money-lenders on the security of a state appro- 
 priation. The state is not really in debt to any 
 considerable extent, but the treasury is empty, 
 and so each creditor has to wait his chance to 
 be paid in his regular order. The Governor 
 and Chief Justice are just as badly off as I am, 
 
SEARCH AFTER A HIGH MOUNTAIN 213 
 
 as far as their personal salaries are concerned. 
 I have already talked with the Governor ; he 
 does not wish to interfere with the survey in 
 any way nor to hamper my movements. He 
 is quite favorably disposed, and trusts me to 
 do as I think best. I should not dare to sug- 
 gest to him discontinuance of the work for a 
 year, for fear he would think me "green" in 
 California ways. 
 
 So J. D. Whitney, Senior, financed the Cali- 
 fornia Survey, albeit with many misgivings. In 
 the end, the state paid him in full; and was 
 never, at any one time, in debt for more than 
 a single year's appropriation. 
 
 With such slender resources, the survey be- 
 gan its second season of exploration. Ash- 
 burner went east to finish in Brush's labora- 
 tory his special work on gold and silver ores. 
 That done so far as funds allowed, he left the 
 survey and returned to California, to the less 
 taxing work of a mining superintendent. By 
 way of further economy, the zoological work 
 of Dr. Cooper was suspended, and the little 
 that could be done without him distributed 
 among Gabb, Brewer, and Whitney. Thus re- 
 duced, the survey carried the reconnoissance 
 of the previous year from the region about 
 San Francisco to the northern end of the state. 
 
214 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, May 3, 1862. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, This is to let you know 
 that our steamer communications are opened 
 again and that we are now going to have a 
 weekly mail, per Dampschiff, for the present, in- 
 stead of an uncertain one through Indians and 
 snows. . . . 
 
 Our camp life for the season has commenced. 
 Brewer, Hoffmann, Gabb, Averill, and a vol- 
 unteer by the name of Remond, took the field 
 last week and are now inhabitants of a cotton 
 house over the bay in Contra Costa County, 
 near Monte Diablo, where I left them last 
 night having been with them for the last 
 five or six days. We have been tracing out the 
 Cretaceous formation which runs by Monte 
 Diablo to the straits of Carquines at Martinez, 
 opposite Benicia. . . . 
 
 Our present party bids fair to be a very 
 pleasant one. Brewer is a capital assistant; 
 Hoffmann does as well in his place as anyone 
 could possibly do. He is a German, twenty-four 
 years old, formerly topographer to Lander's 
 wagon-road expedition, with a capital eye for hills 
 and orography in general, and no vices. Gabb 
 is young and rather green and a good deal self- 
 conceited ; but he will find the air of California 
 
SEARCH AFTER A HIGH MOUNTAIN 215 
 
 very salutary for such cases as his. He knows 
 Cretaceous and Tertiary fossils well, and that is 
 the sum and substance of his knowings. He 
 has had no experience in the field, and has but 
 little idea of stratigraphical geology. He draws 
 fossils well and has already materials nearly 
 ready and drawings made for ten plates of Cre- 
 taceous fossils of the size of Iowa Report plates. 
 Besides, we have as a volunteer, a young French- 
 man, named Remond, with as good a natural 
 gift for finding fossils as anyone I ever saw. 
 If he will remain with us and the survey goes 
 on, he bids fair to make a capital assistant in 
 the field. Averill acts as mule-driver, commis- 
 sary, barometrical observer, etc. A young Ger- 
 man, namens Schmidt, is our cook, vice 
 Michael Eagan, retired from the service. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, May 29, 1862. 
 MY DEAR WILL, ... The party in charge 
 of Brewer . . . are now working down the west 
 side of the Monte Diablo range, on the bound- 
 ary of the San Joachin Valley, hoping to get 
 about 100 miles in the course of the next month, 
 and then to cross over and join me in the Sierra. 
 We have worked out the geology of the vicinity 
 of Monte Diablo pretty thoroughly, and made 
 a topographical map and a geological on a scale 
 
216 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 of two inches to the mile, embracing the vicin- 
 ity of the mountain and the coal beds, now 
 quite extensively worked. We have determined 
 the mass of the "mountain to be made up of Cre- 
 taceous rocks more or less extensively meta- 
 morphosed. The coal lies very near the top of 
 the Cretaceous, and is undoubtedly of the same 
 age as that of Vancouver's Island. 
 
 We have also learned from Dr. Cooper's col- 
 lections that the Cretaceous exists at San Diego, 
 and also carries coal. The metamorphic Creta- 
 ceous contains as well developed mica slates 
 with garnets and zircons as one might ask to 
 see in a Paleozoic region, besides a variety of 
 other rocks which have a very ancient look. 
 [They had indeed, previously, been mistaken 
 for ancient rocks.] 
 
 While we were in camp at Monte Diablo we 
 had a visit from Rev. Mr. King, Mr. and Mrs. 
 [Edward] Tompkins, and Louisa, and Gorham 
 Blake. They all went up the mountain 3876 
 feet high. The day was peculiarly fine and the 
 view one of the most extensive in the world, 
 as, owing to the peculiar formation of the state, 
 the range of vision is almost unlimited from 
 north to south. We saw the white snow- 
 covered cone of Lassen's Butte, two hundred 
 miles distant in an air line; and the whole chain 
 of the Sierra Nevada was spread out before us 
 
UNIVERSITY I 
 ,o^' 
 
 OF 
 
 SEARCH AFTER A HIGH MOUNTAIN 217 
 
 to the east, northeast, and southeast. We esti- 
 mated that the area over which we could see, em- 
 braced not less than 40,000 square miles. . . . 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, June 2, 1862. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, . . . Having a day of rest 
 here while waiting over, in order to deliver a 
 lecture to-night at this place, I brought up this 
 unfinished letter to be mailed in time for the 
 next steamer. . . . 
 
 Yesterday, Louisa and I went over to the 
 anniversary exercises of the College at Oak- 
 land, Mr. King delivering the address. We 
 took the occasion to examine Dr. [Wesley] 
 Newcomb's superb collection of shells one 
 of the best in the country, especially in the 
 department of land shells. He has in all between 
 10,000 and 11,000 species. Tomorrow I shall 
 push on to the Calaveras copper mines, and 
 to Mokelumne Hill and Jackson an inter- 
 esting mining region, which I have not yet 
 visited. Brewer and party will be over from 
 the Coast Ranges in about three weeks, and we 
 shall work up the foot-hills of the Sierra to 
 Mt. Shasta, by the end of August, and we 
 hope to go to the Yosemite early in July. As 
 the coal of this coast is Cretaceous, and this 
 formation runs along the base of the Sierra, 
 
218 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 we hope to find some workable beds ... on our 
 route. We have carefully worked up the geo- 
 logy and topography of the region about Monte 
 Diablo, as being a sort of key to the geology 
 of the Coast Ranges. 
 
 I think it safe to say that our next winter's 
 report will contain a good deal of interesting 
 matter to the scientific world. We shall be 
 able to settle, or throw a good deal of light on : 
 ist, the age of the auriferous rocks; 2nd, the 
 age of the auriferous detritus ; 3rd, the strati- 
 graphy of the Sierra Nevada; 4th, the age of 
 the Coast Ranges and their structure ; 5th, the 
 phenomena of metamorphism, etc. Would it 
 be possible to make a greater change geologi- 
 cally than to come from Southern Wisconsin 
 to California! . . . 
 
 My views on mineral deposits will receive 
 an ungeheure Erweiterung, as it appears to 
 me, from what I am to see and have seen on 
 the Pacific coast. The whole mode of occur- 
 rence of the ores is so different here from what 
 it is in Europe, that I am beginning to feel as 
 if it were here that the solution of many of the 
 problems in this line of inquiry were to be ob- 
 tained. Certainly the ranges near the Pacific, 
 from Mexico northwards, constitute clearly the 
 metalliferous region of the world; and yet I 
 am beginning to think that there is no such 
 
SEARCH AFTER A HIGH MOUNTAIN 219 
 
 thing as a " fissure vein " on this coast. Cer- 
 tainly as the Veta Madre and Veta Grande of 
 Mexico are described to me by the most intel- 
 ligent miners, they clearly are not true veins. 
 The same is the case with the great veins of 
 Washoe, which certainly rival anything in the 
 world in extent and importance. I am un- 
 able to bring them into the category of fissure 
 veins. I hope some time or other to be able to 
 combine all my observations on veins and min- 
 eral deposits into one Arbeit ; but first I must 
 see Mexico and Chile, which can easily be done 
 from this coast. 
 
 TO PROFESSOR G. J. BRUSH 
 
 STOCKTON, June 5, 1862. 
 
 MY DEAR BRUSH, . . . As you say, I am 
 having rather a hard time of it financially ; but 
 hope to get through with it without collapsing 
 entirely. The state owes me $15,000 now, and 
 besides this, I have got to carry on the survey 
 for from three to six months longer before re- 
 ceiving a cent. ... I do not think there is any 
 fear that the survey will be formally killed, but 
 am rather disposed to think that the appropria- 
 tion may be so small that I shall not feel disposed 
 to carry on the work any longer. We can do 
 nothing with a small sum in this great state, 
 and with so many branches of science to culti- 
 
220 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 vate. Money does not go half as far here as at 
 the East, and what would #7500 (half of 
 $15,000) be for a man who had to make a map 
 and complete a natural history survey of the 
 region extending from New York to Florida 
 and back to the summit of the Appalachian 
 chain, supposing no more to be known of its 
 geology and topography than was known fifty 
 years ago which is just about the position 
 we are in here, except that the country here is 
 ten times as difficult to explore, from heat, 
 want of water, abundance of chaparral, dis- 
 tance of settlements, and absence of roads. I 
 cannot afford the wear and tear of mind and 
 body merely to make a piddling survey with 
 one or two assistants, and the necessity of 
 making economy the predominating thought. 
 That might be very well in Vermont ; but it 
 won't pay here. If the next legislature will 
 appropriate not less than $25,000, we will go 
 on. ... 
 
 As to your magnanimous offer to remain in 
 office without salary, I think you have done 
 more than your share of that already. I shall 
 take the liberty of referring to you as the Con- 
 sulting Metallurgist of the survey, whose dis- 
 tinguished services will be called into requi- 
 sition, when we have the means of paying for 
 them. 
 
SEARCH AFTER A HIGH MOUNTAIN 221 
 
 TO PROFESSOR G. J. BRUSH 
 VIRGINIA CITY, NEVADA TERRITORY, July 28, 1862. 
 
 MY DEAR BRUSH, You see by the date of 
 this letter that I am "over the border" again; 
 but, in truth, the interest of California in the 
 Washoe region is the same as if it were within 
 her own dominions, as all the big mines are 
 chiefly owned at San Francisco, and all the 
 business goes through that city and over the 
 Sierra Nevada. The Comstock lode maintains 
 its reputation as one of the wonders of the 
 world. As I sit now writing, I can look out of 
 my window and see the burrow of the Ophir 
 mine, a vast heap of white pulverized quartz, 
 which has been the refuse of the mine, but 
 is now supplying twenty-six mills with material 
 and yielding about $40 a ton. I saw a large heap 
 of ore at the Mexican mine a few minutes since, 
 worth $3000 a ton; and some specimens 
 would n't they have brough't the tears to your 
 mineralogical eyes? Surfaces of a foot square 
 covered over with silver wool I don't know 
 what else to call it. ... 
 
 The famous Gold Hill mines are in the di- 
 rect line with the Comstock lode, and only one 
 mile distant, and I have no doubt that it is all 
 one lode. But the Gold Hill yields chiefly the 
 native metals and so rich that a foot of the 
 
222 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 lode, . . . cannot be bought for less than 
 $10,000. The worst of the Gold Hill is, that it 
 is cut up into such small claims that it cannot be 
 decently worked. Some are only just the width 
 of a shaft. The coal mines reported as having 
 been found here are all humbug the accounts 
 of the Humboldt mines are very conflicting. 
 ... If you wish to have an idea of rocks and 
 mountains, you should come here. Such a be- 
 wildering succession of ranges I never beheld. 
 It is utterly useless to try to give names to 
 them, they are " too many " for us. Nature has 
 made the mountains, but has forgotten to put 
 in the trees and sparkling water courses which 
 ought to accompany them. 
 
 You would get a new wrinkle by seeing some 
 of the big hydraulic mining operations of the 
 California miners. What do you think of a 
 man's using $140 worth of water per day, with 
 an occasional blast of a couple of hundred kegs 
 (not pounds) of gunpowder, just to shake up 
 the ground a little, and then running his ma- 
 terials over three tons of quicksilver in the 
 sluices ? You see I am trying to set forth some 
 of the attractions of the country, as if to bother 
 you for not having come out here. 
 
 But it is not all fun : the heat is intense, the 
 dust fearful and I might add that the expense 
 is some. 
 
SEARCH AFTER A HIGH MOUNTAIN 223 
 
 Interruption of a half an hour during which 
 I have secured a fine lot of Cretaceous fossils 
 from the Humboldt Range : thus gradually we 
 are filling up the blank in the geological map 
 of the United States, and wiping out the Paleo- 
 zoic, Metamorphic, and Laurentian ! 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. D. W. 
 
 The party continued to work northward up 
 the Sacramento valley, until early in the au- 
 tumn it had reached the region of Mt. Shasta 
 and was within a hundred miles of the state 
 line. Here they established several barometric 
 stations, and prepared for the solution of a 
 somewhat difficult problem, the precise height 
 of the loftiest peak of the vicinity. 
 
 TO MRS. WHITNEY 
 
 CAMP AT BASE OF MT. SHASTA, 
 Sunday, September 14, 1862. 
 
 MY DEAREST PEASY, We are camped at a 
 place called Strawberry Valley, ten miles south- 
 southwest of Mt. Shasta, which rises in full 
 view before us to the height of a little over 
 n,ioo feet above us, and about 14,500 feet 
 above the sea. As this is the most important 
 fact to be communicated, I will put it first. We 
 left Shasta City a week ago yesterday, leaving 
 
224 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 Remond to observe barometer, and very discon- 
 solate at losing his chance of going up the 
 mountain. The weather was intensely hot [so 
 that] at noon we had to stop and camp. 
 . . . The next day we went on, and were three 
 days going up the valley of the Sacramento 
 River. The valley of the upper Sacramento, 
 to this place, is one of the most romantic I 
 have ever traveled through ; it is a canon all 
 the way, with lofty steep walls on each side 
 covered with the most magnificent forests of 
 oak and pine. The former gradually die out as 
 we go north, and here we have only pines, firs, 
 and cedars of immense size and the greatest 
 variety. At Shasta City we got fine views of 
 Mt. Shasta from all the neighboring hills ; but 
 it was not until we came within some twenty or 
 thirty miles of the mountain that it was fre- 
 quently visible on the road. From some points, 
 when the mass of Shasta filled up the back- 
 ground with the river and its walls in the fore- 
 ground, the view was as fine as could well be 
 conceived. 
 
 The country adjacent to the river is entirely 
 unsettled, except for a few ranches and taverns 
 used as stopping places along the road. . . . 
 We reached this camp on Tuesday night, and 
 pitched our tent on the edge of the pine forest, 
 on a carpet of strawberry vines, looking across 
 
SEARCH AFTER A HIGH MOUNTAIN 225 
 
 a little meadow to another dark forest of pines, 
 above which towers the mass of the mountain, 
 the lower 4000 feet clothed with pines and firs, 
 the remainder (7000 feet) either snow or bare 
 rock. 
 
 On Wednesday we were occupied with our 
 observations, and in getting ready to go up the 
 mountain. It is impossible to tell how many 
 different stories we had heard on our way up, 
 about the mountain, and how little real informa- 
 tion we had obtained. We were told by many 
 that nobody had ever been to the summit, and 
 that it was entirely inaccessible ; by others, that 
 five hundred persons had been up this summer. 
 Even when near the mountain we could not 
 ascertain definitely where we were to start from. 
 
 At Soda Springs we were joined by a per- 
 son, who desired to make the trip up the moun- 
 tain in our company, and we engaged him as a 
 sort of guide here a man whose only quali- 
 fications were that he was good-natured and 
 that he had been up the mountain once before 
 (we have not been able to learn of any persons 
 having been up twice). 
 
 We left camp at Strawberry Thursday morn- 
 ing, and arrived at the snow line in the after- 
 noon ; and after a hasty dinner, turned in to our 
 blankets early, so as to be ready for a start at 
 3 o'clock the next morning. Mr. Hoffmann, who 
 
226 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 has been quite sick recently, concluded that 
 he would not try to go to the summit ; so he 
 remained in camp to observe the barometers, 
 and Mr. Brewer, Mr. Averill, and I, with our so- 
 called guide and two others who had joined us 
 for the fun of the thing, constituted the party. 
 We were on foot soon after three and com- 
 menced the ascent by following up the snow in 
 one of the deep gorges or valleys of the moun- 
 tain. As we went up, it began to be harder and 
 harder work, and when the sun rose we found 
 that although we had come up a great height, 
 there was still a greater one to be overcome. In 
 front of us, seemingly but a little way off, were 
 the so-called Red Bluffs over which we were to 
 climb, and which was the highest point of our 
 route which we could see; but we seemed to be 
 forever in getting to them. Below an altitude 
 of 10,000 feet, it went pretty easily, but the last 
 4000 demanded of me, at least, frequent stop- 
 pages to get breath. I felt relieved always after 
 stopping a few minutes ; but the sensation of 
 relief lasted only a very short time, and after a 
 few steps more of climbing, I had to stop again 
 to get breath. Thus the higher we got the 
 slower we went; but all of us reached the sum- 
 mit, one after the other, I last but one, and our 
 guide last of all. 
 
 On the summit all looked rather tired and 
 
SEARCH AFTER A HIGH MOUNTAIN 227 
 
 some were soon quite sick. ... I felt dull and 
 heavy, and a little sleepy, but had no headache 
 or pain, although I did not desire to eat much. 
 Some looked almost black, and all had their 
 eyes more or less bloodshot. The blood settled 
 under our finger-nails, and I had the ends of the 
 fingers of the hand with which I supported 
 the barometer all the way up, slightly frost- 
 bitten. . . . 
 
 We were at the top of the mountain at just 
 about 12 o'clock. We suspended our two ba- 
 rometers, which Mr. Brewer and I had brought 
 up unbroken, and found that the mercurial col- 
 umn stood at about 17^ inches, which would 
 give roughly a height of between 14,000 and 
 1 5,000 feet. We shall not have the exact height 
 above the sea-level for some time, but it is about 
 14,500 feet and 500 feet higher than the 
 Finster Aar Horn, the highest mountain in 
 Switzerland. 
 
 Whitney's final calculation made the height 
 to be 14,442.3. It turns out to be 60 feet less, 
 or 14,380, so that the accuracy of Whitney's de- 
 termination is noteworthy in view of the disad- 
 vantages under which he worked. This was, 
 moreover, the first accurate measurement of a 
 high peak ever made in the United States. 
 
 From this time the subject of mountain 
 
228 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 heights took on an especial interest for Whitney. 
 Three months later he wrote his brother : - 
 
 "... If there is a set of the 'Zeitschriftfiir 
 Allgemeine Erdkunde ' in the College library, 
 will you be good enough to look at vol. iv 
 (1855), and see on what authority Mt Hood is 
 put down as 1 8,360 feet high ? I have been look- 
 ing up the subject lately, and I have come to the 
 conclusion that Mt. Shasta is the highest moun- 
 tain in the United States and Popocatepetl of 
 North America. The measurements of Mt. 
 Hood giving 1 8,000 feet and over is all a fiction." 
 
 Whoever the authority, he was wrong by 
 some six thousand feet, for the damp climate 
 of the coast brings down the snow line and 
 makes the mountains seem higher than they 
 are. It is a striking commentary on the state 
 of geographical knowledge at the beginning of 
 1863, that beyond Mt. Hood stands Rainier, 
 higher than Shasta, while within the bound- 
 aries of California, not three hundred miles 
 from the office of the survey, is a peak which 
 overtops them both. 
 
 Two years of labor over rocks in the field 
 and maps and fossils in the office had sufficed 
 to make out, in a general way, the relations of 
 the stratified rocks of the western ranges of 
 California and of the great central valley. 
 There remained for the task of the next two 
 
SEARCH AFTER A HIGH MOUNTAIN 229 
 
 years the great lava and granite peaks of the 
 Sierra. 
 
 In April, therefore, of 1863, while Whitney 
 and Hoffmann remained at San Francisco, 
 Brewer and Gabb explored the southern end 
 of the chain where it begins to drop down into 
 the Mojave desert. They zigzagged back and 
 forth through the passes, moving gradually 
 northward; and when they could no longer 
 cross the range, they kept on along its west- 
 ern flank. 
 
 By the first of June they had reached the 
 valley of the Merced, and were ready to begin 
 the attack on the high peaks beyond its upper 
 end. Mrs. Whitney settled down at the Mari- 
 posa Big Trees to read a station barometer 
 through three summer months; Whitney, 
 Brewer, and Hoffmann kept on up the valley, 
 explored the region which is now the Yosemite 
 Park, and continuing up the Yosemite, entered 
 the high mountains beyond. 
 
 In the following letter to Professor Brush 
 the unnamed peak is the one afterwards called 
 Mt. Lyell. All comparisons of altitude, how- 
 ever, must be taken with some allowance : Mt. 
 Lyell stopped the explorers at the last two hun- 
 dred feet, while the great knot of mountains 
 which Brewer and Gabb had skirted earlier in 
 the season proved to be higher than it appeared. 
 
230 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 TO PROFESSOR G. J. BRUSH 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, July 10, 1863. 
 
 MY DEAR BRUSH, ... I returned only day 
 before yesterday, from a most interesting trip 
 in the High Sierra, between the Yosemite Val- 
 ley and Mono Lake. We found the mountains 
 stupendous. The highest points of the Sierra, 
 except Mt. Shasta, are there at the headwaters 
 of the Tuolumne and San Joaquin rivers. Two 
 peaks rise above 1 3,000 feet, and several above 
 12,000. As we were out of funds, I had to 
 leave Brewer and Hoffmann to ascend the only 
 peak which can possibly be a rival to the one 
 we were all upon, and which we called Mt. 
 Dana, believing it to be the highest mountain 
 in the state, except Mt. Shasta. Brewer's sub- 
 sequent observations, which I have not yet 
 received, will settle the question, as there is 
 only one other which can compete with it. 
 
 The view from Mt. Dana is (we reckon) 
 the finest mountain view in the United States. 
 Language can't do justice to its grandeur. 
 Literally, hundreds of peaks, snow-covered, are 
 around you, in every variety of fantastic form 
 and outline. And farther than this, we are in 
 the midst of what was once a great glacier 
 region, the valleys all about being most su- 
 perbly polished and grooved by glaciers, which 
 
SEARCH AFTER A HIGH MOUNTAIN 231 
 
 once existed here on a stupendous scale, having 
 a thickness, in the Tuolumne Valley, of a thou- 
 sand feet, and having left splendid moraines 
 medial, lateral, and terminal. The beauty 
 of the polish on the rocks, covering hundreds 
 of square miles of surface, is something which 
 must be seen to be appreciated. So come on 
 and see it, and bring all your brothers (in sci- 
 ence). The Yosemite, with its five great water- 
 falls from 700 to 2500 feet high, is not a small 
 affair ; but did not seem so great after we had 
 camped for a week at an elevation of nearly 
 10,000! 
 
 Brewer and Hoffmann are now on their way 
 back from Aurora by the Sonora trail. I join 
 them in a few days at the Big Trees, and back 
 we go again to the crest of the Sierra on the 
 Big Tree route, and so zigzag via Washoe and 
 so forth up to Lassen's Butte, I hope by the 
 end of August. 
 
 As you might perhaps suppose that Mt. 
 Dana was named after some other man, I 
 might add that the Dana intended is the emi- 
 nent V. P. of the N. A. S. Tell him about our 
 glacial discovery. 
 
 Messrs. Dana and Lyell expressed them- 
 selves as highly gratified over the honor done 
 them; as well they might, for a thirteen-thou- 
 
232 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 sand-foot peak is no mean memorial for any 
 man, while of all human monuments few en- 
 dure like place names. 
 
 For the rest of the season, the party kept 
 along the higher parts of the Sierra, and by 
 the end of the good weather reached the east- 
 ern flanks of Shasta. Two letters, written at this 
 time, afford a glimpse of surveyors and survey. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, November 14, 1863. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, As this is the anniver- 
 sary of the day we were put ashore to grapple 
 with the geological structure of an unknown 
 region of unlimited extent, three years having, 
 if not rolled, at least hitched and scrambled by, 
 since we disembarked as aforesaid, I think it no 
 more than fair to use a portion of this day in 
 writing home, even if my letter bears rather a 
 sombre impress from the recognition of the fact 
 that three years have not sufficed to do up the 
 geology of the western half of the continent 
 much as we have sweated to bring that desirable 
 end about. 
 
 I returned day before yesterday from the field, 
 having been engaged for the last three weeks in 
 measuring a section parallel to the axis of the 
 Sierra, and about forty miles to the west of it. 
 Brewer is still near Crescent City. . . . Hoff- 
 
SEARCH AFTER A HIGH MOUNTAIN 233 
 
 mann is sixty or seventy miles southwest of here, 
 finishing up a corner of the Bay Map, which had 
 remained for the last year undone. 
 
 By the way, that map of the Bay [of San 
 Francisco and vicinity] is a beauty. I think all 
 will acknowledge it to be the handsomest and 
 most correct map, of any as large an area, ever 
 gotten up in the United States, unless by the 
 Coast Survey. We propose now to commence 
 on the map of Central California, scale three 
 miles to the inch, size about five feet square, to 
 include all the principal gold regions, the main 
 body of the Central Sierra, and the eastern 
 slopes as far as Virginia City. This map, I cal- 
 culate, will take four years to finish . . . and 
 the topographical work this winter will be a sort 
 of preparation for that. . . . But I won't go into 
 detail now, lest my letter become as long and 
 as dry as a geological report. 
 
 TO PROFESSOR G. J. BRUSH 
 
 November 15, 1863. 
 
 MY DEAR BRUSH, . . . We are just com- 
 mencing our spring rains (spring commences 
 here about the middle of November) after a very 
 dry and dirty time as you might have realized, 
 had you seen me two or three days ago, rolling 
 under my mule in dirt about twelve inches deep, 
 with a barometer on my back at that. 
 
234 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 We are gradually coming in from the field 
 now. Brewer is at Crescent City, waiting for 
 a "hypothetical steamboat" to come down. As 
 the line is withdrawn, he will probably come 
 down on a practical stage-coach, after a few days 
 more waiting. . . . They have had a glorious 
 trip. . . . They were on Lassen's Butte at sun- 
 rise of a perfectly clear day, and the view must 
 have been stupendous. Gabb is on Vancouver's 
 Island, and will return in a couple of weeks or 
 so, with a quantity of light on the geology of 
 Oregon and the region north. 
 
 I hardly know what we shall do this winter; 
 but the first thing will be to color a geological 
 map of the state . . . and admire the fearful gaps 
 in our knowledge of the range and extent of the 
 formations. ... I shall make no strenuous ob- 
 jection, before the legislature, to a discontinu- 
 ance of the survey. If it is continued, I shall 
 proceed to publish a preliminary report, and also 
 commence the publication of a volume of pa- 
 leontology, which will constitute a part of the 
 final or permanent report. If no farther appro- 
 priations are made, I shall get what materials I 
 have into shape; and publish as well and as 
 much as I can find money to pay for. 
 
 The action of the legislature which came to- 
 gether in the winter of 1863 was especially 
 
SEARCH AFTER A HIGH MOUNTAIN 235' 
 
 momentous for the survey. By the constitution 
 of California, all offices created by the legislature 
 expired by limitation after four years, and since 
 under the new constitution the legislature it- 
 self met only biennially, the size of its appropria- 
 tions took on a double importance. The new 
 bill was distinctly less ambitious than the old. 
 It suppressed the agricultural, botanical, and 
 zoological sides of the survey; it slighted the 
 general geology, and directed the State Geolo- 
 gist to devote his farther efforts " to a thorough 
 and scientific examination of the gold, silver, and 
 copper producing districts of this State" and to 
 "such scientific and practical experiments as 
 will be of value in the discovery of mines and 
 the working and reduction of ores." It cut the 
 stipend of the State Geologist to #4500, allowed 
 him pay for two assistants, $5000 a year for ex- 
 penses, and $6000 toward publishing two vol- 
 umes of his report. The precise details of the 
 appropriation, however, were of no very im- 
 mediate concern to one to whom the state was 
 wont to be ten and twenty thousand dollars in 
 arrears. 
 
 The act was approved April 4, 1864, and on 
 May 13 the State Geologist and his family 
 started for the East to superintend the printing 
 of his reports ; for printing in California cost 
 three times its proper price, and engraving was 
 
236 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 not to be had on any terms. The field work 
 which remained, he left to his assistants. 
 
 Unfortunately, the field of the California 
 Survey now included only "the gold, silver, 
 and copper producing districts," while the most 
 pressing of its unfinished tasks was to map the 
 unexplored mountains to the south of Mts. 
 Dana and Lyell. There remained, however, a 
 small sum from the last appropriation under 
 the original act, and this served to cover the 
 expenses of the field party, and to do something 
 toward the salaries of the scientific staff. When 
 that was gone, the men worked for nothing. 
 
 The survey was, on the other hand, unusu- 
 ally fortunate in its volunteer assistants. Clar- 
 ence King and James T. Gardner, recent grad- 
 uates of the Scientific School at Yale, and 
 pupils of Dana and Brush, having leisure, 
 means, and much thirst for adventure, had 
 come across country with an emigrant train to 
 California. On their way over the mountains 
 on foot from Virginia City, in August of 1863, 
 they happened across Brewer who, having worn 
 down his exploring party to a single packer, 
 was easily persuaded to take on King for the 
 expedition northward to Lassen's Peak and 
 Shasta. The next year, Gardner also volun- 
 teered, and with them went as packer a young 
 Irishman of twenty, Cotter by name, whom 
 
SEARCH AFTER A HIGH MOUNTAIN 237 
 
 they had picked up on the emigrant train. No- 
 thing could have fallen out better under the 
 circumstances. Gardner, under Hoffmann's 
 training, soon became a skilled topographer. 
 Something of King's quality appears in the 
 fact that after three years under Whitney, and 
 by the time he was twenty-five, he was head of 
 the United States Fortieth Parallel Survey. 
 King could climb any surface to which human 
 fingers and toes could cling ; and wherever he 
 could go, Cotter was ready to follow him. 
 
 One would like to dwell on the campaign of 
 1864, and relate how Brewer, with the disabled 
 Hoffmann tied to his horse, made his way 
 through the wilderness from the headwaters of 
 the San Joaquin to the Yosemite trail ; or how, 
 when lack of food stopped the main party at 
 Mt. Brewer, King and Cotter, a week's provi- 
 sions on their backs, one blanket and one ba- 
 rometer between them, lowered themselves by 
 ropes into King's River canyon, camped with- 
 out fire above twelve thousand feet, ate their 
 food frozen, climbed Mt. Tyndall, and saw from 
 its top the peak which has turned out to be the 
 highest in what was then the United States. 
 
 The campaign of 1864 was a splendid piece 
 of adventure, and its scientific results were no 
 less splendid. It established the age of the 
 gold-bearing rocks of California, and it added 
 
238 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 to the map of California a region as large as 
 Massachusetts and as high as Switzerland. 
 Whitney had forbidden his subordinates to 
 name for him the mountain which is now called 
 after the Rev. Lorentine Hamilton. This time, 
 in their chief's absence, they stood upon their 
 rights of discovery, and called their great peak, 
 Mt. Whitney, knowing only that if Mt. Shasta 
 had a rival in California this was it. 
 
 It was an unusual set of young men who 
 took the field under Whitney between 1860 
 and 1865. Their chief had picked them care- 
 fully ; their work and their loyalty to him and 
 to the survey amply justified his choice. One 
 tie they had in addition to their common toil 
 they were about the only persons in Cali- 
 fornia who were concerned with the earth, and 
 were not trying to make money out of it. On 
 this point the rule was absolute. No member 
 of the survey should use his knowledge of 
 California geology to make a penny for him- 
 self. So long as they ate the bread of the state, 
 their information was the survey's, and the 
 public's, not theirs. Such a self-denying ordi- 
 nance may be a strong bond among men. It 
 becomes doubly strong when men see their 
 leader deliberately turn his back on a fortune, 
 rather than break his lifelong rule never, so 
 long as he might be called upon to give an 
 
SEARCH AFTER A HIGH MOUNTAIN 239 
 
 opinion upon one mine, to own the least part 
 of any other. 
 
 The toilsome, happy life of these first years 
 of the survey, has left its mark on the map of 
 California and in the museums of the world. 
 Mt. Hoffmann, Mt. Gabb, Mts. Gardner and 
 King, Mt. Remond, Lake Eleanor, attest the 
 regard of the topographers for one another and 
 for the naturalists ; Helicoceras Breweriana, 
 Mactra Ashburnerii, Flabellum Remondianum, 
 and a dozen other Cretaceous fossils mark as 
 many of the supreme moments of a collector's 
 days. The paleontologist was a distinctly lo- 
 quacious person. One can imagine, then, the 
 laughter of these lean, brown men when Dr. 
 Cooper, the serious, the unbending, announced 
 that he had discovered a new species of the old 
 brachiopod genus, Lingula; and that in honor 
 of his friend William More Gabb, he had be- 
 stowed upon it the name of Lingula Gabbii. 
 
 Whitney himself had no marked gifts for 
 pleasing his official superiors ; but toward his 
 subordinates he was a different man. At each 
 new camp, he was the first to be out with his 
 hammer ; and in the wise and genial talk around 
 the evening fire, he was less the State Geolo- 
 gist of California than the gay Apothecarius of 
 Clover Den. He was kindly, just, unsparing of 
 himself; and his associates gave him not merely 
 
240 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 esteem but affection. With one of them in par- 
 ticular, he formed at this time one of the en- 
 during friendships of his life. 
 
 Baron -Friedrich von Richthofen was four- 
 teen years younger than Whitney. He had 
 come to California shortly before he was thirty, 
 chiefly to study volcanic phenomena, and hav- 
 ing some private means, worked only irregularly 
 for the survey. Modest, sincere, affectionate, 
 he had for Whitney a worshipful admiration, 
 which altered to a regard no less ardent as 
 Richthofen himself became one of the first of 
 living geographers. Richthofen's geological sur- 
 vey of China was Whitney's idea ; and during 
 its progress, Richthofen's reports of his doings 
 reached the world by means of long letters to 
 his friend and adviser. These Whitney edited 
 (for the Baron never quite mastered English) 
 and transmitted to the American Academy 
 and other learned bodies ; and when the Japan- 
 ese government called upon Richthofen for 
 plans for its national schools of geology and 
 mining engineering, it was Whitney who pro- 
 vided the American data. Often used the Baron 
 to recall the New Year's eve, between 1867 and 
 1868, when he and Whitney sat up all night 
 and planned the China Survey. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE MIDDLE YEARS OF THE CALIFORNIA 
 SURVEY. 1865-1869 
 
 THE three and a half years which comprise the 
 first period of the California Survey had been a 
 time of ceaseless activity for the State Geologist. 
 He had lectured each year formally before the 
 state legislature, and from time to time before 
 other bodies ; he had labored privately with legis- 
 lators and citizens. He had carried on an ex- 
 tended correspondence with members of his own 
 family and with various men of science in the 
 East. His yearly report to the Governor kept 
 the public acquainted with the progress of his 
 labors ; he had communicated with the scientific 
 world through the " American Journal of Sci- 
 ence." He served as chairman of a commission 
 which drafted a plan for a State University, with 
 a School of Mines, a School of Agriculture, and 
 a State Museum ; and he spent not a little effort 
 over the California Academy of Sciences, which 
 Dr. Trask and a little handful of devoted natu- 
 ralists had founded in ^863, the first scientific 
 society west of the Mississippi. His duties 
 had varied from running down the report of 
 a meteorite in the fastnesses of the moun- 
 
242 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 tains, to rescuing a surveyor whose instru- 
 ments had been held up by the custom house. 
 By one means and another, he had kept his 
 survey steadily at work on an average yearly 
 appropriation of less than $16,000, and made 
 one dollar do the work of two in a land 
 where it seldom attained the efficiency of fifty 
 cents. 
 
 It was, therefore, with no little relief that 
 Whitney settled down for a year and a half 
 at Northampton and Boston, "hearing much 
 music after the long fast, . . . dining with Judge 
 Hoar, Norton, Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, 
 etc.," honored by the growing friendship of 
 Agassiz. He had, moreover, the satisfaction 
 of knowing that the scientific world approved 
 his work. He was made head of the projected 
 School of Mines at Cambridge, with indefinite 
 leave of absence, without salary, to attend to the 
 California Survey; the American Philosophical 
 Society made him a life member ; he was one 
 of the fifty eminent men chosen in 1863 to f rm 
 the National Academy of Science. 
 
 A few extracts exhibit Whitney's states of 
 mind in an uneventful time. 
 
 George W. Julian, Member of Congress from 
 Illinois, had consulted Whitney in regard to his 
 bill, then before Congress, on the mineral lands 
 belonging to the government. 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 243 
 
 TO HON. GEORGE W. JULIAN, M. C. 
 
 BOSTON, January 12, 1865. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, In reply to your favor of 
 the tenth ... I would state that I have given 
 much thought to the subject of the policy of 
 the Government in regard to the management 
 of the mineral lands, as I believe it to be a subject 
 of vast importance to the country. I have accu- 
 mulated many facts which demonstrate, in the 
 most conclusive manner, that the most pro- 
 found ignorance of everything connected with 
 the subject exists in the General Land Office 
 and the Census Bureau, and that the Govern- 
 ment is likely to be greatly misled and may do 
 a great injury to the country, if it allows itself 
 to be guided by recommendations emanating 
 from the Department of the Interior. . . . 
 
 I have not yet been able to see how any plan 
 could be devised by which the mineral lands of 
 the United States could be sold; although I 
 am not prepared to say that such a one might 
 not be. Nor am I certain that a general code 
 of mining laws might not be made by Congress, 
 based on the Mexican system, which would 
 meet the difficulty. . . . 
 
 In my lectures and addresses in California, 
 and in my paper presented to the National 
 Academy of Science at its last meeting, I have 
 
244 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 shown that the progress of California had not 
 been what it should be, as compared with that 
 of the Province of Victoria in Australia; and 
 after comparing all the conditions of the two 
 countries, I have been led to the conclusion 
 that it is the defective system of management 
 of our public mineral lands by the Govern- 
 ment which has put back our development so 
 much. . . . 
 
 In addition to the chronic differences of 
 opinion between the Californian geologists and 
 the Californian speculators in mines, a short- 
 lived boom in oil lands, contemporaneous with 
 the oil excitement in Pennsylvania, threatened 
 " to kill the survey as dead as a door-nail " ; 
 for, as usual, there were marked discrepancies 
 between the prospectuses furnished by pro- 
 moters and the data given out by the survey. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 BOSTON, March 10, 1865. 
 
 DEAR WILL, . . . Some high officials have 
 called on me ; and not finding me at home 
 have poured out to Louisa their sorrows at 
 having been swindled. ... If you consider 
 that $40,000,000 or so of bogus, worthless min- 
 ing stock has been set afloat, indorsed and 
 guaranteed to be of the highest value . . . 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 245 
 
 (two companies alone have $20,000,000 capi- 
 tal), you will see that it is no joke. Ashburner 
 has been down to the " Petroleum Region " 
 . . . and says it is all a humbug, and all the 
 San Francisco papers implicitly admit the same 
 thing. Everybody has known that there was 
 asphaltum in California in abundance, and 
 many attempts have been made to get oil from 
 it, and to get oil by boring, but all have proved 
 failures, although some hundreds of thousands 
 have been expended. [Francis Humphreys] 
 Storer to whom I referred the matter for 
 examination, two years ago, with a statement 
 of facts reported that the asphaltum did not 
 furnish a valuable oil for illumination. He says 
 that asphaltum precludes the existence of pe- 
 troleum : they are entirely different articles. . . . 
 It is not for me to act in the matter ; I am 
 too much an interested party; if ... reports 
 are correct, I am an idiot and should be hung 
 as soon as I get back to California. 
 
 TO J. N. HOAG, SECRETARY OF THE CALIFORNIA 
 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 
 
 BOSTON, May 15, 1865. 
 
 ... As far as I am personally concerned, I 
 should have no objection to furnishing an arti- 
 cle annually for the Report of the California 
 Board of Agriculture. My whole time is given 
 
246 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 to the service of the state and I should be per- 
 fectly willing to use a portion of it in the way 
 you propose, if the legislature will authorize 
 it. You are mistaken, however, in supposing 
 that such a thing can be done " without labor." 
 I am not one of those who can scratch off an 
 article of permanent value in a few hours* time, 
 especially on a subject of so much difficulty as 
 that of the geology of California. In fact we 
 are ourselves only learners in that field. With 
 four years of the most persevering labor, we 
 have only just begun to get an outline of the 
 geological structure of the state, and it remains 
 to be seen whether we shall have permission 
 from the next legislature to go on and try to 
 fill it up. The survey of New York, commenced 
 in 1836, is still going on, nor do I suppose that 
 it is expected to be completed "in less than ten 
 years; and yet, while California is four times as 
 large* as that state, and while her geology is 
 ten times as complicated, I have no doubt that 
 we are looked upon, by many, as blunderers be- 
 cause we have not already got through with 
 our job ! 
 
 If Governor Low thinks there is no objec- 
 tion, I will endeavor to prepare an article as 
 above for the next Report. I must add, how- 
 ever, that although, in my own case, I am al- 
 ready paid by the state and would accept no 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 247 
 
 farther compensation, I do not believe that the 
 other gentlemen associated with your work, 
 should be expected to contribute their labor 
 gratuitously ; nor do I consider that anything 
 of value will be obtained unless they are paid. 
 I have never observed that people were in the 
 habit of working for nothing in California, and 
 there are certainly few scientific men there who 
 are rich enough to be able to do so. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 J. D. WHITNEY. 
 
 Governor Low approved the project, June 
 20. The reports were out of the way by the end 
 of October, one large volume of five hundred 
 pages on the general geology, one on the pa- 
 leontology, on economic geology nothing. 
 Whitney at once set sail with his family for 
 California, despatching from the steamer a last 
 note to his brother. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 ON BOARD HENRY CHANCEY, OFF CUBA, November 6, 1865, 
 
 IN WHITE PANTS AND STRAW HAT. 
 
 DEAR WILL, ... I had an interview with 
 Baron Stockl at New York, who is bent on 
 recommending to his government (he is the 
 Russian Ambassador, you know, if you can read 
 the name) to have a geological reconnoissance 
 
248 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 made of Russian North America under my 
 supervision. He seems very much in earnest 
 about it and was overwhelming in civility. . . . 
 I did n't say yea or nay. I did say that I thought 
 valuable mines of the precious . . . metals 
 would be discovered there. So much the geo- 
 logy of the country justifies me in saying. 
 
 The romantic days of the survey were now 
 over. The first four years had "skimmed the 
 cream " by solving most of the greater problems. 
 There remained the painstaking detailed work 
 of an ordinary geological survey, enlivened by 
 an occasional unexpected find, or by an excur- 
 sion inpartibus infidelium. One great problem, 
 nevertheless, remained the antiquity of the 
 human race on the Pacific coast. Whitney, in 
 addition to his other labors, turned anthro- 
 pologist, and followed up every find of human 
 remains. It was an especially important ques- 
 tion just at this time, when the caves of France 
 and Belgium were yielding up their evidence, 
 Darwin was at work on the " Descent," and 
 Lyell just bringing put the first edition of his 
 " Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of 
 Man." 
 
 In the meantime, there were changes of per- 
 sonnel in the survey. Various new men came 
 on. Brewer went East to his professorship at 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 249 
 
 Yale. King and Gardner were loaned to the 
 United States Government for the exploration 
 of Arizona, where " they had an escort to pro- 
 tect them from the Apaches, but . . . needed 
 additional assistance to protect them from their 
 escort/' There were now eleven different pub- 
 lications of the survey either on sale or under 
 way; while the State Geologist, in addition to 
 his responsibility for the California State Uni- 
 versity on one side of the continent, and the 
 Harvard School of Mines on the other, was now 
 president of the California Academy and head 
 of a new-made board of three commissioners to 
 manage the Yosemite Park. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, January 9, 1866. 
 
 . . . As soon as I receive the expected vol. 
 (I), I am going up to Sacramento to see how 
 the land lies. . . . Mr. Gabb has gone to the 
 southern part of the state to look up some 
 doubtful geology, collect Tertiary fossils, and 
 examine into the progress of the oily interest. 
 Remond will leave us for Chili. He expects to 
 return again, but I think it extremely doubtful 
 if he does, as his lungs are much diseased. 
 Like many consumptives, he keeps up good 
 courage and imagines he will get well. Gabb, 
 Cooper, and Remond are all consumptives, 
 
250 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 but Gabb's health has improved since he came 
 out. No doubt California air and outdoor life 
 have helped him much. 
 
 I hear from Cambridge that the mining 
 school is progressing favorably ; and they talk 
 of putting up a building, as soon as we can 
 agree on a place. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, February 8, 1866. 
 
 . . . As an old Zuhorer of Bopp, I shall be 
 glad to subscribe to the Bopp Stiftung, as you 
 suggest, and leave it to you to fix the sum, get 
 the money from Father, and otherwise do the 
 needful. I shall never forget that I too might 
 have been, or become a Sanskritaner ! 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, February 17, 1866. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, ... My own health is 
 somewhat better than it was when I wrote last ; 
 but I am far from well. Anything like worry 
 of mind always affects me physically, and I 
 cannot help being worried about the survey. 
 There is so little appreciation of, or care for, 
 anything but money-making in this state, that 
 it is terribly up-hill work to drag this concern 
 which I have been pulling at for five years, up 
 the hill of difficulty. It is hard enough work to 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 251 
 
 do to carry on the survey even if it were ap- 
 preciated and no obstacles were placed in my 
 way. While I could not help being secretly 
 gratified, or at least relieved, if the survey 
 were stopped, yet my scientific instincts make 
 me fight for its continuance. 
 
 Strictly in confidence, let me say that they 
 have sounded me from Columbia College to 
 know if I would take a professorship. I have 
 made no reply. ... I consider, however, that 
 I am bound to Cambridge, if they raise money 
 enough to pay me a salary as I suppose 
 they will do when I am ready to go. ... On 
 one account ... it would be much easier in 
 New York, as all I should have to do there 
 would be to lecture and instruct in geology, and 
 I should not feel that I had the concern on my 
 shoulders as I do at Cambridge. . . . The 
 mining speculators are as bitter against me as 
 ever, and every unfavorable report by any min- 
 ing engineer is always laid at my door or at 
 least I get cursed for them all. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, April 4, 1866. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., ... My four visits 
 to Sacramento have not been without fruit; in- 
 deed I have devoted a large portion of the last 
 two months to " pulling the wires " of the legis- 
 
252 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 lature. For the first time my appropriation bill 
 went through without a word of dissent in 
 either branch. . . . 
 
 The Assembly Committee on Mines recom- 
 mended $30,000 and that was inserted in the 
 general appropriation bill by the Committee of 
 Ways and Means. At the same time the Chair- 
 man of the Mining Committee expressed him- 
 self as highly favorable to the survey, but 
 thought that they could n't carry over $30,000 
 through the House. After the bill had passed 
 the Assembly, I went up and coaxed the Chair- 
 man of the Finance Committee in the Senate 
 to introduce an amendment, adding $15,000 
 for printing and engraving. This was done, and 
 my friend C. B. Porter of Contra Costa, a real 
 backer-up of the survey, deserves a large part 
 of the credit of inducing the usually flinty- 
 headed Chairman to let this go in. The amend- 
 ment slipped through the Assembly without 
 opposition and almost, or quite, without no- 
 tice. . . . The $45,000 is a larger sum than 
 has ever before been appropriated " at one 
 lick," and besides I have the advantage of 
 not being hampered in any way in the spend- 
 ing of it. It is mine to do just what I please 
 with. . . . Still $15,000 a year is a small 
 sum with which to do all I would like to ac- 
 complish. 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 253 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, July 18, 1866. 
 
 . . . The great excitement now at the 
 office is the discovery of a human skull at a 
 depth 153 feet below a series of volcanic beds 
 with intercalated gravels. I have just returned 
 from the locality, and we have the skull at the 
 office. It is a bony fide find of the greatest in- 
 terest, all the particulars of which I shall work 
 up with the greatest care. 
 
 Thus ran the first report of the far-famed 
 Calaveras Skull, probably the most discussed 
 of all relics of primitive man on the western 
 continent. Whitney himself maintained it to 
 be proof of a Tertiary race going back to the 
 times before the great lava flows when the pre- 
 sent mountain tops were valley floors. Certain 
 believers in special creation insisted that its 
 original owner was one Jo Bowers, an ill-fated 
 miner of early Californian days. The question 
 of its real age has never been absolutely set- 
 tled, but general scientific opinion is rather 
 against the extreme antiquity which Whitney 
 assigned to man on the Pacific coast. There 
 is, moreover, some doubt whether the skull 
 now in the Peabody Museum at Cambridge is 
 really the original find of 1866. 
 
254 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 TO J. D. WHITNEY, SENIOR 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, July 28, 1866. 
 MY DEAR FATHER, The survey is going 
 now on a large scale: two parties are in the 
 field and another one is about to start. This 
 one I shall myself accompany for a time, until 
 they get their work well under way. 
 
 My staff at present consists of Messrs. Gabb, 
 King, and Hartwig as geological assistants; 
 Hoffmann, Wackenreuder, and Gardner, topo- 
 graphers; Brinleyand Coffey, barometrical ob- 
 servers and general sub-assistants; Bolander, 
 botanist; Cooper, zoologist. There are, besides, 
 some twenty or thirty persons engaged in draw- 
 ing and engraving at the East. So you see that I 
 have my hands pretty full to manage all these, es- 
 pecially as my forces are so scattered abroad. 
 
 We have been very much troubled because 
 our good friend Dr. [Martin John] Burke has 
 not been renominated for the office of Chief of 
 Police. The roughs have got possession of the 
 city government again, after being kept out for 
 ten years or more, and I fear that we are going 
 back to the old days of rowdyism and crime. 
 I feel more disgusted with California than I 
 ever have been before, even when the state 
 was $15,000 in debt to me. By the way, they 
 are not paying up very promptly now. . . . 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 255 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, January 18, 1867. 
 
 . . . Music, with me, is a thing of the past. I 
 neither play nor sing, and in our family the 
 music has gone down to another generation, 
 and my only connection with it is to pay Nora's 
 bills. Concerts worth hearing are entirely un- 
 known here, and the opera is atrocious; ... I 
 believe that four is the number of my attend- 
 ance on concert, opera, theatre, or public amuse- 
 ment of any kind, since I first came to Califor- 
 nia; and one of those times was this week at 
 the Japanese performance of gymnastics and 
 acrobatism (if there is such a word). Everything 
 about this was curious and interesting. 
 
 ... Of late I have been much engaged with 
 the affairs of the California Academy, as we 
 have had to move into and fit up new rooms, 
 and have tried to resuscitate in general. We 
 seem now to be in a fair way to live; but when 
 I came back last year, it seemed as if it was as 
 dead as a door-nail. We have now a pleasant 
 reading-room, with a goodly number of scien- 
 tific periodicals ; and are fitting up our meet- 
 ing-room and collections in a respectable man- 
 ner. The last sheets of the Proceedings . . . 
 will tell you what we have been doing, and you 
 will notice my account of the Skull, etc. 
 
256 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, March 8, 1867. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, You can now realize the 
 fact that a man who has only just turned forty 
 is a mere boy; it is only the old chaps just ap- 
 proaching the fifties who are the patriarchs. You 
 will realize that I am getting pretty old, when 
 I tell you that I have left off smoking not 
 having had a cigar or pipe in my mouth for the 
 last two months. I see your book advertised 
 by Triibner, and suppose it will be out "by and 
 by" like the reports of the Geological Survey. 
 
 It was on account of the assurance I received 
 from Gabb, Ashburner, and Osgood [Putnam] 
 that the survey was killed by the discovery of 
 vast quantities of petroleum, which we had over- 
 looked, that I concluded to turn my thoughts 
 to Harvard. Now, since all [such] statements 
 have been proved to be lies, and never a drop 
 of oil found in the . . . ranch where . . . there 
 were "fabulous quantities," there is more con- 
 fidence in the survey than ever. 
 
 Gabb writes me in frantic language about 
 
 the meanness of in his behavior to their 
 
 party in Lower California. . . . According to 
 Gabb's account the country is horribly dry, bar- 
 ren, and uninteresting and what is worse, 
 destitute of fossils. 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 257 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, May 9, 1867. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, L'homme propose, Dieu 
 dispose, as the fact of my being in S. F. at this 
 time clearly demonstrates. In vain I keep my 
 saddlebags packed: I get no chance to put 
 them across horse or mule. It is just as much 
 as I can accomplish to keep straight the work 
 of others, especially when every detail has to 
 be watched with the utmost care. . . . 
 
 All the work here is going on as fast as I 
 can urge it, and I shall soon have spent the 
 sum total of the appropriation for the next fis- 
 cal year ending July first, 1868! ! 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, May 12, 1867. 
 . . . Tell Brewer that I expect Remond up 
 by the next steamer with a great lot of interest- 
 ing things. But I have little hope that he will 
 ever do any more work ; it is evident from the 
 tone of his last two letters that his time is 
 nearly up, and that he begins to realize it him- 
 self. What a contrast between his position and 
 that of King, coming up in the same vessel, 
 the one just at the opening of as fine a career 
 as ever was offered to a scientific man; the 
 other with finer natural abilities by far, but cut 
 
258 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 off just as he is beginning to make his mark in 
 the world. Poor fellow ! I pity him from the 
 bottom of my heart ! 
 
 Remond died before the end of the month. 
 
 The " we " of the next letter includes only 
 Mrs. Whitney and her husband, who have at 
 last found opportunity for a long-planned ex- 
 cursion north. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, July 20, 1867. 
 MY DEAR WILL, Our journey was quite a 
 successful one as far as health and pleasure 
 go : I wished very much for more time, however, 
 as one month is very little to see Oregon, 
 Washington Territory, and British Columbia in. 
 We were gone just thirty-two days. By sea to 
 Portland, stop there a day, then up the river 
 to the Dalles and back to Portland, . . . across 
 by land to Olympia, head of Puget's Sound ; 
 then by boat touching at all points on the 
 Sound to Victoria, . . . New Westminster and 
 back ; then to Salem by boat, then by stage to 
 Dorvill, California, and home by railway and 
 steamboat . . . stopping over about thirty hours 
 at Yreka to rest and have a good look at Mt. 
 Shasta. We rode two consecutive nights in a 
 road wagon, never stopping from the time we 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 259 
 
 left Salem until we reached Jacksonville [the 
 airline distance is 175 miles], when we had 
 six hours' rest. I was not tired at all when we 
 reached S. F., nor does Louisa seem to have 
 had any ill effects from the journey. . . . 
 
 I was extremely anxious to go farther up the 
 Fraser River : but it seemed as if one month 
 was all that I could take for my absence. I got 
 many geological facts of interest to supplement 
 Gabb's work of 1864 and 1865. 
 
 Of course, one of the great points was to see 
 the big mountains, Hood, St. Helens, Adams, 
 Rainier, and Baker ; and we were favored by 
 the weather so that we saw them all to advan- 
 tage, especially the three nearest the Columbia. 
 . . . The view of Rainier from the boat as we 
 passed the head of an arm of the Sound . . . 
 produced an impression of greater height and 
 grander mass than either of the other mountains 
 gave. But the position of Rainier is not suffi- 
 ciently well fixed to enable me to get an idea 
 of its height. ... I should think, however, 
 judging by the eye, that it is the highest of all 
 the Oregon and Washington mountains. . . . 
 My arrangements had all been made to ascend 
 Hood ; but on seeing [Col. Robert S.] William- 
 son, I found that he intended to send a party 
 up in August better provided with instruments 
 than I was. So I left the work for him to do, 
 
260 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 which I was the more inclined to do, as I found 
 that it would cost me about #200 and ten days' 
 time to make the trip, while it was too early in 
 the season to have a good chance to examine 
 the rocks, as the snow came almost down to 
 the base of the mountain. 
 
 I was convinced from all that I could learn, 
 that there is no difficulty or danger in going 
 up any of these mountains, and that the cock- 
 and-bull stories told by W and others are all 
 
 humbug. The measurement of Hood published 
 
 by "W was in reality made by Rev. Mr. 
 
 Atkinson of Portland, who carried up his ther- 
 mometer, one . . . with a heavy metallic scale, 
 and who made the observations and calculated 
 them by a rule given in " Porter's Chemistry." 
 Of course, under the circumstances no sort of 
 approximation to the truth could have been ex- 
 pected. The best joke is that Rev. Mr. H , 
 
 whose pretended measurement, as communi- 
 cated to the Royal Geographical Society, is 
 noticed in the May number of the " American 
 Journal [of Science]," never carried up any 
 instrument at all, as I ascertained from those 
 who went with him. 
 
 The views of Hood, St. Helens, and Adams, 
 from near the mouth of the Willamette in a 
 clear day, are indeed wonderfully beautiful. 
 The mountains impose on one exceedingly be- 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 261 
 
 cause they rise so high above their bases. . . . 
 All have been ascended except Rainier. ... 
 
 If we have taken down Mt. Hood consider- 
 ably, I regret to say that we have done the 
 same by the Big Trees. The trees in the Mari- 
 posa grove have all been plotted and measured, 
 and not one of them reaches three hundred 
 feet. The highest is 272. . . . In the Calaveras 
 grove there are two, and two only, which exceed 
 
 300 feet. . . . J 's measurements are all 
 
 wrong from thirty to sixty feet out of the 
 way ! ... By the way, D' Heureuse [an assist- 
 ant of the survey] has discovered a monstrous 
 grove of Big Trees ... on the head of Tule 
 River ; the largest eighty-three feet in circum- 
 ference. He has not sent me a full account yet. 
 
 Gabb and party are somewhere between the 
 White Mountains and Death Valley. ... I 
 hope they are doing well ; but they have a hard 
 job before them. I intend to go out to meet 
 them in about three weeks, to see how they are 
 getting on and help in some of the astronomi- 
 cal work. We go next to the Yosemite, Hoff- 
 mann and I with Louisa and Nora. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 September 17, 1867. 
 
 . . . I had a most interesting trip [in southern 
 Nevada] ; but did not find Gabb and party, 
 
262 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 and presume they have gone far south of all 
 settlements . . . straight across to ... the 
 southeast corner of the state. . . . The fact 
 that bad news always travels fast, leads me to 
 believe that they have not come to grief ; but I 
 shall be much relieved when news from them 
 turns up. 
 
 Although I failed to meet Gabb, I accom- 
 plished a good deal, considering the shortness 
 of the time ; saw the mines and mills of Aus- 
 tin and vicinity, got a general idea of the geo- 
 logy and physical character of the country, 
 and enjoyed the trip very much, spite of alkali 
 dust and heat. On the way out, at the first station 
 beyond Virginia City, we were gone through 
 by the "road agents," i. e. highwaymen, in the 
 neatest and most scientific manner. . . . They 
 took from me a little over $200, but left me 
 my two chronometers, so that I felt, on the 
 whole, as if I had rather made money by the 
 operation. 
 
 Hoffmann is getting on finely with his party. 
 They are now in the big canyon of the Tuo- 
 lumne, and will be back here in about ten days. 
 You and Brewer will be glad to learn that they 
 have a lot of fine photographs of the High 
 Sierra, glacial surfaces, moraines, and all that. 
 They were in the region of soda springs, up 
 Mt. Dana, etc., and got photographs from those 
 points. 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 263 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, January 27, 1868. 
 
 . . . The last steamer brought 50 copies of 
 the Bay map from Bien, au naturel, the swamps 
 a little blurred by rapid printing, but otherwise 
 looking very well. It was lucky that they came 
 as they did, for I go up to Sacramento on 
 Wednesday to address the legislature, and 
 should have been very sorry to have failed to 
 have some copies of the map to show. I had 
 two or three gaily colored and mounted and 
 can now sail into the legislature with flying 
 colors. 
 
 ... If the legislature does not respond 
 pretty soon to my address, I shall commence 
 packing and getting things in order for an 
 eastward march. The disgust with California 
 that I have had since the legislature voted to 
 ask Congress to give the settlers in the Yosem- 
 ite Valley 160 acres of land apiece, has been 
 so great that I feel less inclined than ever to 
 remain here. The hope that the Governor will 
 veto the bill is my consolation at present. But 
 even if he does, the whole proceeding shows 
 such a depraved condition of public feeling . . . 
 that the legislature, the state, and the people 
 have become disgusting to me. I am afraid that 
 I shall be saucy in my address, but I cannot 
 
264 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 help it. The Governor [Henry H. Haight] is 
 all right on the survey question, as he took oc- 
 casion to inform me by letter. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, February 26, 1868. 
 
 . . . The prospects of the survey remain as 
 uncertain as ever. Two committees have been 
 at the office and exhibited even more than 
 their usual amount of stupidity and ignorance. 
 Since the Yosemite Valley bill passed over the 
 Governor's veto, I feel so disgusted with Cali- 
 fornia that I can hardly stand it much longer. 
 Still I am running the survey along in a small 
 way at my own expense, waiting to see what 
 the jackasses at Sacramento will do. . . . 
 
 ... I am told, on good authority, that this 
 legislature is by far more corrupt and reckless 
 than any of its predecessors. It is a fact at 
 least everybody believes it to be that votes 
 can only be had this year by purchase. I have 
 been semi-officially notified that I must come 
 down with $2000, if I want my bill to pass. 
 Considering all the circumstances, I do not 
 think it prudent for me to expend any more 
 money on the survey; and unless you have 
 received a telegram from me to the contrary 
 before you get this letter, you will please to 
 make no more payments for the survey with- 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 265 
 
 out my special authority. ... I have written 
 to Gabb to discontinue his work, and to Baird 
 to do the same, unless he receives telegraphic 
 information through you, to go on, before my 
 letter mailed by this steamer reaches him. 
 
 While Hoffmann and Wilson were down at 
 Santa Barbara on a private survey, I got them 
 to make a detailed topographical survey of the 
 " oil region," that is, of those ranches where all 
 the work was done during the excitement in 
 the way of procuring petroleum by tunnels. 
 Everything is deserted there now; and they 
 admit that it would not pay to barrel the stuff, 
 if they had it on the surface all ready to hand. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, March 29, 1868. 
 
 We have had a nice little time of it in the 
 legislature. The petroleum and other swind- 
 lers made a dead set on the survey and killed 
 it, having malleable material to work with in 
 the Democratic legislature. ... A deficiency 
 bill of $15,000 appropriation to wind up the 
 survey with, passed the Senate, but it is doubt- 
 ful whether it is reached on the Assembly's 
 file before adjournment. If that does not pass, 
 all the property of the survey is left on my 
 hands to pay myself with. The committees in 
 the Assembly and Senate both made favorable 
 
266 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 reports and recommended large appropriations; 
 but the swindlers are too strong. We were es- 
 pecially unfortunate in having in the Senate a 
 man, the fugleman of the Democracy, a veteran 
 politician and a former United States Surveyor 
 General, under whose administration the fraud- 
 ulent surveys in the southern part of the state 
 were made, and the character of which is being 
 exposed as fast as our work covers the ground. 
 Of course he fought against us with all his 
 might. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, April 13, 1868. 
 
 . . . For the past few weeks I have been 
 packing and winding up business with 4O-horse 
 power speed. . . . We have concluded to sail 
 on the 3oth of this month. . . . We have wound 
 up housekeeping, sold out our furniture, and 
 moved to a hotel a big job. Are now pack- 
 ing at the office and storing the collections 
 away. . . . Everybody thinks that the next 
 legislature will repair the damage done to the 
 survey as far as possible : the indignation at its 
 stoppage is very general. There is a good deal oi 
 talk of raising a private subscription to carry on 
 the work. Perhaps I may get enough to publish 
 two or three volumes during the next two years. 
 
 " Petroleum " is what has killed us. By the 
 
-> 8, 
 
 I 
 fi 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 267 
 
 word "petroleum," understand the desire to 
 sell worthless property for large sums and the 
 impolicy of having anybody around to interfere 
 with the little game. ... 
 
 The situation of the State Geologist of Cali- 
 fornia was now a most embarrassing one. The 
 legislature had neither stopped the survey, nor 
 continued it. All the property of the survey, 
 the finished and unfinished publications, had 
 simply been left on Whitney's hands, with 
 neither means to continue any part of his work 
 nor authority to bring it to an end. Fortunately, 
 however, he had the loyal support of Governor 
 Haight, who encouraged him to believe that a 
 later legislature might be persuaded to repair 
 the damage done by this. Whitney, therefore, 
 stored the collections under charge of Hoff- 
 mann ; and with them such of the instruments 
 as von Richthofen did not carry off to China. 
 
 Whitney himself hired the furnished house 
 of Professor Asa Gray at the Botanical Gardens 
 in Cambridge, and settling down to the un- 
 eventful life of a university teacher, he got the 
 new Mining School under way, and brought 
 out at his own expense, two more volumes of the 
 California Survey, the second of the paleonto- 
 logy, and a popular scientific guide to the region 
 adjacent to the Yosemite Valley. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE LAST YEARS OF THE CALIFORNIA 
 SURVEY. 1869-1874 
 
 Two years Professor Whitney stood to his 
 teaching before he turned once more to the 
 wilderness. There were four students in his 
 first class at the Mining School, the class of 
 1869; and by way of rounding off their pro- 
 fessional training, Whitney set them at work 
 on an unsolved problem in geography on which 
 he was himself engaged. There were rumors in 
 geographical circles of eighteen-thousand-foot 
 peaks in central Colorado, at the culminating 
 point of the Rocky Mountains ; of peaks there- 
 fore, which certainly rivaled, and which might 
 surpass, the high places of the Sierra Nevada 
 and the great volcanoes of the Pacific coast. 
 During the winter and spring of 1869, there- 
 fore, Whitney took his four apprentices into 
 his study, to struggle under his practiced guid- 
 ance with the discordant evidence of travelers' 
 tales and government reports. After they had 
 learned all that was to be had from books, they 
 were to attack the problem on the ground. 
 
 Whitney himself, Brewer, and Hoffmann 
 were the backbone of the summer field party ; 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 269 
 
 and besides the four students there were two 
 instructors from the Mining School. They 
 took up their mapping on the main ridge of 
 the Rocky Mountains west of Denver, and by 
 the end of the summer had settled the main 
 features of its topography. The usual results 
 followed. The eighteen-thousand-foot summits, 
 fairly confronted with barometer and level, 
 promptly shed a fourth of their reputed height, 
 and shrank to the dimensions of the California 
 peaks. The accurate measurement of high 
 mountains, however, is a difficult art; and 
 Whitney, in general, tended somewhat to ex- 
 aggerate altitudes. But his estimate of relative 
 heights has turned out to be pretty correct, 
 while a mistake of even five hundred feet may 
 be forgiven to one who is correcting an error 
 of five thousand. Mt Harvard, Mt. Yale, and 
 Mt Princeton, three great peaks of Colorado, 
 are among the mementos of the summer of 1 869 
 when Hoffmann taught four students to handle 
 a transit. 
 
 All through the suspension of the survey, 
 Whitney had been encouraged to hope that the 
 legislature of 1870 would reverse the action of 
 that of 1868, and order a resumption of the 
 work. As soon, therefore, as the new legislature 
 convened, Whitney repaired to California and 
 laid siege to the new body. Of his scientific 
 
270 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 friends in the East, Dana, Henry, Guyot, and 
 Agassiz gave special aid ; while of the Califor- 
 nians, Leland Stanford lent the weight of his 
 very considerable influence and Edward Tomp- 
 kins, who was state senator, took charge of the 
 details of the campaign. Governor Haight was, 
 as always, favorable. Among them the bill went 
 through. 
 
 Meanwhile Professor Asa Gray returned to 
 Cambridge and claimed his house. Luckily, 
 however, Whitney's old friend and cousin by 
 marriage, B. A. Gould, was made head of the 
 government observatory in the Argentine Re- 
 public, and left vacant for the Whitneys his 
 house at 12 Oxford Street. To the question, 
 therefore, where he lived, Whitney made an- 
 swer: "I am staying [in Boston] at the Parker 
 House; my family is in Brookline; I have a 
 house in Cambridge ; my library and collections 
 are in Northampton, and my office and busi- 
 ness at San Francisco." That year Whitney 
 crossed the continent four times. 
 
 TO F. VON RICHTHOFEN, AT SHANGHAI, CHINA 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, July 14, 1870. 
 DEAR BARON : 
 
 I think I wrote you of the passage of the 
 survey bill through the legislature with an ap- 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 271 
 
 propriation of $48,000 for two years, besides 
 $25,000 to pay arrearages. 
 
 We are all under full headway now. Hoff- 
 mann and party, with Goodyear as geologist, 
 took the field in April and have been exploring 
 the Inyo Range and north to Mono Lake, on 
 the east side of Owen's Valley. They are now 
 at Aurora. I am going to join them, and cross 
 the Sierra, exploring the region between the 
 Tuolumne and the Stanislaus. There is also a 
 party mapping the detailed topography and 
 geology of Yuba and Nevada counties, and 
 Wackenreuder starts out in a few days to finish 
 up his work. One quarter of the Central Cali- 
 fornia map is nearly engraved, and is a very 
 fine piece of work. The first volume of the 
 " Birds " is going through the press, and the 
 sheets, as printed, go to the colorist in Phila- 
 delphia, who is busily at work on them. The 
 work on the Botany is being busily pressed for- 
 ward, and Brewer will give his whole time to 
 it, and Professor Gray a large part of his. The 
 worst feature is that there is no money in the 
 state treasury, so that it is pretty tight squeez- 
 ing to get so big a work along. I went east in 
 May, and have been back ten days. Mrs. Whit- 
 ney was taken sick shortly after my arrival at 
 Boston and .remained in a very critical condi- 
 tion until a few days before I left to return. 
 
272 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 She seems now to be gaining, although slowly. 
 I have taken a house in Cambridge and expect 
 to return there in September, as I have to lec- 
 ture in the University this coming winter, hav- 
 ing promised to do so before the continuance 
 of the survey had been ordered. My subject 
 is "Structural and Dynamic Geology." The 
 work of the survey will go on without interrup- 
 tion, however, and I shall return here again in 
 May. I am obtaining additional evidence all 
 the time of the great antiquity of man on this 
 coast, and shall have an interesting chapter on 
 that subject, in the next volume of the Geology. 
 The hammers, etc., you are most welcome to : 
 I am glad to contribute that much to your great 
 work. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, August i, 1870. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., Yours of the loth of 
 July was found on my table last night, as I 
 arrived, dusty and dirty, from the mountains. 
 Also, among heaps of others, one from Brewer, 
 informing me that my Alma Mater had 
 honored me to a degree [LL.D.] that I cer- 
 tainly never expected. Had I appeared before 
 the Corporation in my yesterday's rig, with be- 
 grimed linen duster, skinny and shiny red 
 nose, awfully battered hat, greasy pants stuck 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 273 
 
 in my boots, and so on, what would they have 
 thought of such an object as a recipient of 
 their honors ! 
 
 However, I had a good time in the moun- 
 tains, although worried by the mosquitoes and 
 broiled in the sun, between the showers, to a 
 degree that I have not experienced for some 
 years. I found both parties in the field in good 
 condition, and the work progressing in all re- 
 spects satisfactorily. The survey seems to be 
 firmly on its legs now, and I rather regret that 
 I have promised to return to Cambridge and 
 spend the winter, although the courses of lec- 
 tures which I have to give will interest me 
 much in their preparation, if they do not my 
 auditors (provided I get any) in the delivery. 
 I suppose that I must go east about the mid- 
 dle of September, and that by the ist of Oc- 
 tober we shall be settled in our house. . . . 
 
 TO MRS. WHITNEY AT PROUT's NECK, MAINE 
 SAN FRANCISCO, August 13, 1870. 
 
 MY DEAREST PEASY : 
 
 I do not " remember at Northampton " that 
 
 I demurred to what you said about . I do not 
 
 remember that I demurred to anything, or had 
 any ideas on the subject, except such as you 
 put in my head. I only remember vaguely that 
 
274 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 you said that they never would be engaged, or 
 ought not to be, or something of the kind, be- 
 cause she was taller than he ! I never saw 
 
 that I remember ; at least I should not know 
 her if I saw her now, but I have a vague idea 
 that she is a nice girl, although I do not know 
 how I got the idea, unless from you. As to her 
 being taller ... if she is, I do not see that that 
 is killing. A little more, and you would be taller 
 than I. At all events, I wish them well. . . . 
 I am also willing to admit, once for all, that you 
 understand human nature better than I do, 
 although I consider you unsound on the alti- 
 tude question ; and shall believe that you half 
 regret having married a short man who could 
 only be highered up by having letters added 
 to his name like slips of leather on his boot- 
 heels. 
 
 . . . The people have gone into ecstasies over 
 Lake Eleanor and the Hetch-Hetchy ; and are 
 building trails up there, and say that the scen- 
 ery is finer than that of the Yosemite. . . . 
 
 I do not exactly understand what you mean 
 by your remarks on [Raphael] Pumpelly's 
 book [on his experiences in China, Japan, and 
 Arizona] and King's ascent of Mt. Tyndall. 
 That is just the beauty of Pumpelly's book, 
 that it is entirely true. When he came up from 
 Arizona, all these facts that seem so strange 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 275 
 
 now were well known to us ; he knew all those 
 people that were killed, etc., and never was 
 there the slightest reason to suppose that he 
 exaggerated in fact there was no need to do 
 so. Everybody who went to Arizona had the 
 same experience. . . . Pumpelly was lucky, 
 others had rich experiences, but unfortunately 
 lost their hair or got too many bullet-holes, and 
 so lost their chance of telling their stories. It 
 is an entire misrepresentation to say that Pum- 
 pelly's book is not trustworthy. As for King's 
 credit for climbing Mt. Tyndall, he deserves all 
 he ever got for it ; but the credit given a man 
 for first climbing a mountain is very different 
 from that given for scientific discovery or grand 
 scientific generalizations. 
 
 The work in California is interesting ; but it 
 is difficult and a great deal of physical exertion 
 is required to carry it on. I can do other scien- 
 tific work which will bring me in just as much 
 scientific reputation as this, without half the 
 wear and tear which this survey demands, and 
 for which I am getting less fitted as I get older. 
 I do not wish to settle down and do nothing 
 outside of my study; but do desire to have 
 less of outdoor work, especially in a climate 
 like this, which I see from its effects on my 
 assistants, if not from my own experience, to 
 be a very trying one. 
 
276 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, November 21, 1870. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., I am glad you like the 
 " Birds " [i. e. the first of the two volumes on 
 the ornithology of California], the colored 
 copies will be " illigant." 'T is a pity that we 
 could not have made our Thanksgiving at 
 Northampton ; for, among other reasons, I am 
 afraid that I cannot go up to Christmas. 
 
 Work presses, this winter, wusser than ever. 
 My lectures commence on the 29th (Nora's 
 birthday). December i3th I shall hold forth 
 at the Academy on the Antiquity of Man, being 
 myself an ancient (51, day after to-morrow), 
 Eheu ! We are in a stew about the scientific 
 school, and know not what Eliot and the mor- 
 row have in store for us. Meantime, however, I 
 have bought a lot of land, so as to have at least 
 a place to squat on, if only Sunday afternoons 
 when the weather is fine. It is next to [Pro- 
 fessor Ephraim Whitman] Gurney's [near the 
 Cambridge reservoir], far, far away from these 
 earthly scenes, and we call the place " Alturas," 
 that is our fixed determination and nothing 
 can alter us. 
 
 The boys continue to report interesting dis- 
 coveries and good work in California. More 
 facts a tappuide F homme fossile keep coming 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 277 
 
 in ; also a gigantic lama has turned up among 
 our rubbish, whose cannon bone measured 19 
 inches long, to 13 of the corresponding bone 
 in the camel! Who'll say that California is 
 not the land of giants ! 
 
 We had a great treat in hearing and seeing 
 Fechter in Hamlet ; the first time I ever saw 
 a Shakespearian play performed ! 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, February 3, 1871. 
 
 I take pleasure in sending you the first com- 
 plete copy of the " Birds." If you do not think 
 it handsome please send it back ! Words cannot 
 express how much labor (and money!) it has 
 cost. Some copies will be ready next week 
 bound in y z Turkey; one for Dana and one 
 for King (to whom I am greatly indebted for 
 photographs, etc.). ... I am just through 
 the physical geography division of my lectures 
 and begin on climatology as soon as I get 
 back from New York. . . . Just beginning on 
 the little "Yosemite Guidebook" a pocket 
 edition. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, March 13, 1871. 
 
 . . . The boys are writing all the time to me 
 urging me to return to San Francisco, and I 
 
2/8 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 may have to go. I hope not, for I need a little 
 rest after my lectures are over, and have one 
 or two papers to write, one on glaciers, and 
 one on the cause of volcanic and earthquake 
 action, for the " North American Review." 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, July 15, 1871. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., You will perhaps be in- 
 terested to learn that this child got into Fr'isco 
 safe and sound on Monday last, after a very 
 pleasant passage right through from North- 
 ampton. . . . The affairs of the survey seem 
 to have been going on prosperously during 
 my absence, and the map of Central California 
 is now nearly completed and looks very fine. 
 . . . All the assistants will be in next week, and 
 we shall overhaul the geological field work of 
 the past year and see what remains to be done 
 to enable us to color up our Central map. . . . 
 
 I got the " North American Review" to-day 
 and read your notice of M Ciller and " liked it 
 first rate." Hope you will be able to say as 
 much for mine of King's book [" U. S. Geolo- 
 gical Explorations of the Fortieth Parallel"]. 
 My article for the October number is in type. 
 ... The article is decidedly heavy, but has 
 cost me labor and has some points in it which 
 I consider of importance. 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 279 
 
 Did you notice in the " Saturday Review " 
 of June 24 a tremendous puff of the California 
 Survey? King climbed to the top of Mt. Whit- 
 ney, endlich, and will tell us all about it in his 
 new book [" Mountaineering in the Sierra Ne- 
 vada " ] when it comes out. 
 
 It turned out, nevertheless, that King had 
 not climbed Mt. Whitney. He came in on the 
 southeast, from the Owen's Valley side, climbed 
 by mistake the peak now called Mt. Langley, 
 and did not discover that the real Mt. Whitney, 
 500 feet higher, lay five miles away in the 
 clouds. Mt. Whitney itself, therefore, remained 
 unmeasured and unclimbed, until the summer 
 of 1873, nine years after it had been named, 
 when W. A. Goodyear, a topographer of the 
 survey, corrected all errors and finally identified 
 the peak which Brewer and Hoffmann had 
 seen from afar and named in 1864. 
 
 TO MRS. WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, August 26, 1871. 
 
 MY DEAREST PEASY, . . . Next Wednes- 
 day is the day fixed for starting, and I am glad 
 of it, for I am far from well, and hope that the 
 journey back will do me good. This climate 
 does not seem to agree with me, somehow. . . . 
 
 In that long letter I wrote you, I gave vent 
 
280 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 to some of my feelings in regard to house-build- 
 ing, the survey, etc. This we will talk over 
 when I return. . . . 
 
 We are going at a tangent from each other. 
 I want to get settled down in a house, so that 
 I may feel that I have not got to move my traps 
 again, and that I may have, for a few moments 
 at least, the feeling of repose ; you want to go 
 and keep going. I propose to compromise, and 
 first secure a^place of deposit, at least, of our 
 own ; and then start out on a reasonable amount 
 of wanderings. I do think, however, that . . . 
 we shall have to be economical, until we get a 
 house built, and after that until we get a little 
 saved up for traveling purposes. The main 
 thing is that we keep our healths. . . . 
 
 If I should feel as poorly as I do now, I should 
 be inclined to go somewhere for a few months, 
 and absolutely throw off all care and work. But 
 I hope that my indisposition is only temporary. 
 
 TO MRS. WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, August 28, 1871. 
 MY DEAREST PEASY, ... You agree with 
 me as to the desirability of having a house, and 
 I am delighted that you feel so. ... If it were 
 for no other reason, it seems to me that on 
 Nora's account we ought to have one. And I 
 am worrying all the time because my books are 
 

 
 I 
 
 H 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 281 
 
 slowly spoiling at Northampton: while the idea 
 of having to move at some time or other, is a 
 perpetual weight on my mind. 
 
 There is hardly anybody living who has such 
 a strong desire to quiddle in his own domicile 
 as I have, and yet for thirty years I have been 
 banged about from pillar to post, as if I were 
 lost railway freight. Nobody living so enjoys 
 being with his wife and family ; and yet I am 
 separated from mine almost half the time. I am 
 opposed to it ; I detest it ; I won't have it any 
 more ; I am going to stay with " my folks." I am 
 willing to admit that I am not happy away from 
 you. But you are not happy without my repu- 
 tation, and so I must work to keep it up and 
 increase it. ... 
 
 I am in favor of going at our house immedi- 
 ately, and putting a house of some kind up, 
 even if it be only a small one; or else of buying 
 one outright. . . . 
 
 There is an important matter which may af- 
 fect our coming out here next winter, and that 
 is the absence of rain. If it should not rain next 
 winter, it will be terrible for the state. Already 
 they have no water at Oakland. . . . The usual 
 supply has given out, and they have to dig wells 
 and get a kind of salt water. 
 
 I feel better to-day. 
 
 Thine as ever, Jo. 
 
282 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 There was by this time a new legislature ; and 
 a new Governor, Newton Booth, opposed to the 
 survey. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, March 9, 1872. 
 
 . . . Our survey bill has passed both Senate 
 and Assembly by large majorities (36 to 2 in 
 the Senate, and 54 to 1 1 in the Assembly). It 
 is not thought that we are likely to be vetoed. 
 The appropriation is $48,000 in all, or $2000 
 a month for two years. If we find that the Code 
 is all right, we shall stand better than we ever 
 before did, since the question was put fairly 
 and squarely to the Senate, whether the survey 
 should be wound up in two years, and decided 
 No, by a vote of 35 to 3. 
 
 That " Code business" I could not make you 
 understand without a long explanation. Suffice 
 it to say, that an attempt was made to " choke 
 me off " by means of an article syrupticiously 
 as Mrs. Partington would say introduced 
 into the new codification of the laws. Mr. 
 Tompkins assures me that he has blocked that 
 game ; and now, if I can get through a bill autho- 
 rizing the distribution of 250 copies of each vol- 
 ume, I am all right in spite of the Governor's 
 opposition, which will not be able to do me any 
 harm for the next two years certainly. 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 283 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, June 7, 1872. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, ... I had a very pleasant 
 trip, through Owen's Valley, the scenery of 
 which is stupendous! At Aurora my luck de- 
 serted me and we had five accidents in one 
 night ; but by none of them was I killed. The 
 high water impeded all our movements, and 
 made it necessary for me to change all my plans, 
 and return to San Francisco ; which was lucky, 
 since it turns out that there is to be no money 
 in the treasury this year, so that I am in a 
 regular fix with a bill on the way from Bien of 
 about $6000. . . . 
 
 I have decided to wind up the survey as soon 
 as I can ; that is, to close all the field work, 
 spend the rest of the money in publication 
 work, and to give up all idea of an indefinite 
 continuance of the undertaking. 
 
 We propose to travel for a couple of years, 
 and then to settle down in quiet, at Cambridge, 
 or somewhere else. 
 
 My observations on the Owen's Valley earth- 
 quake, I am writing out for publication in the 
 August number of the " Overland Monthly," if 
 they prove interesting enough to make a read- 
 able article. Louisa and Eleanor have gone to 
 the Big Trees. 
 
284 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, October 13, 1872. 
 
 ... I had a very flattering letter from the 
 Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, 
 saying that I had been nominated for Honorary 
 Membership, and calling attention to the huge 
 puffs of the survey in the President's annual 
 addresses of this year and the last. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, October 28, 1872. 
 
 . . . Petermann gives the survey a tremen- 
 dous puff in No. X of the " Mittheilungen" for 
 the current year. In a lithographed circular, he 
 informs me that he has immortalized the name 
 of Whitney by sticking it into a cove of the 
 island of Nova Zembla. Will divide with you 
 so that " honors shall be easy." Only let me 
 have a small fraction of the glory painted around 
 your head in the last " College Courant" ! Seri- 
 ously, I am glad that the survey is getting into 
 notice. It helps me fight the Governor: and 
 it is a desperate fight between us. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, June 19, 1873. 
 MY DEAR W. D., C. King has just been in 
 and says that he has completed an examination 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 285 
 
 of the Mine and finds that there is about $8000 
 worth of ore left in it. He made the examina- 
 tion on behalf of the Glasgow stockholders, who 
 hold a large amount of the highly valuable stock! 
 He confirms my statements, that the whole 
 swindle was engineered by the same persons 
 
 who put through the sale : A , B , C , 
 
 and D . Comment is superfluous. 
 
 I did not expect, however, that my state- 
 ments, made a year ago, would be so fully and 
 so rapidly confirmed. 
 
 The names in the following letter are all 
 those of assistants on the survey. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, September 25, 1873. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D., Goodyear writes that 
 some men have climbed Mt. Whitney on the 
 southwest side, going first to the bogus one 
 and then on to the genuine. Hunter, Rabe & 
 Co. have not been heard from, but the men 
 who made the ascent had Belshaw's aneroid 
 with them, which stood 1000 feet higher on 
 the real, than on the bogus summit. Belshaw's 
 previous trigonometrical measurements gave 
 900 feet difference. If King's barometric result 
 on the peaks he ascended be taken as correct, 
 and 900 feet added, we have 14,612 + 900 = 
 
286 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 15,512! Anyway Mt. Whitney is pretty safe 
 to be over 15,000. 
 
 The curious point is that the southwest is 
 the side from which King professed to have at- 
 tacked the mountain, and up which he could not 
 go quite to the summit. The party which went 
 up on that side, report the climb as hard, but 
 not dangerous. It is probable now that Hunter 
 and Rabe will get to the top, and they are pro- 
 vided with good barometers. Goodyear tele- 
 graphed for the elevation of Lone Pine, and 
 that was since his letter was written. Hunter 
 may have got to the top; or Goodyear, hearing 
 that this other party had succeeded, may have 
 thought it best to telegraph, so as to be in 
 readiness to give the result from the sea-level. 
 
 Show this to Brewer. 
 
 So Mt. Whitney was conquered at last, nine 
 years after King's first attempt. Its height turns 
 out to be considerably less than the first mea- 
 surements, and is 14,501 feet. Nevertheless, 
 outside Alaska, it is the loftiest peak in the 
 United States. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, January 27, 1874. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, ... I feel Agassiz's death 
 very much, for he was the warmest possible 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 287 
 
 friend to me, and he never took offense at my 
 friendship for Desor, nor at any of the saucy 
 things I said in my lectures. The night before 
 we left Cambridge, he spent the evening at our 
 house, and when Nora kissed him as he went 
 away, the tears came in his eyes, and in mine 
 too, for I had little expectation of ever seeing 
 him again. He looked like a doomed man. 
 
 Poor Mrs. too ; she was one of the two 
 
 R girls of whom Theodore Parker was so 
 
 fond, and whom he called his little " bits of 
 buds and mites of blossoms," when they lived 
 together in West Roxbury. 
 
 Another legislature was now in session ; and 
 the new president of the State University, Dan- 
 iel Coit Gilman, later of Johns Hopkins, made 
 common cause with Whitney against a com- 
 mon foe. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, February 16, 1874. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, . . . The survey looks 
 very bad. I have hardly a shadow of hope that 
 anything will be done for good ; and much fear 
 that some preposterous legislation may be 
 brought about. The legislature is terrible, 
 and they are " raising Cain" with the railroads, 
 the University, and everything else. Gilman is 
 
288 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 very much annoyed : but ... he has a certain 
 pride about going away from here, and perhaps 
 a faint hope that he may worry the thing 
 through. He has n't had thirteen years of worry 
 as I have ! . . . 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, March 3, 1874. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, . . . Oilman is engaged 
 in a hard fight to save the University from the 
 claws of the grangers who want to make a 
 manual-labor school of it. Oilman feels very 
 much discouraged, especially as he now real- 
 izes fully that a state institution must always 
 be in hot water. For each legislature can undo 
 the work of its predecessors, and they have full 
 power to pull down and alter as they please. 
 Already, by the New Code, all the Regents 
 are appointed by the Governor, and by the con- 
 stitution of the state, can hold office only for four 
 years, so that politics and change must ever be 
 the predominating elements in the concern. 
 
 The survey I look upon as defunct. The 
 Governor [Booth] is u too many " for me. With 
 state and federal patronage together, he con- 
 trols the legislature easily. The feeling in gen- 
 eral about the survey is good, but even my 
 best friends are paralyzed by the Governor. 
 It is much less of a trial to me to leave the 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 289 
 
 survey than it would be if I did not know that 
 there will be no more money in the treasury 
 this year any way. I have offered to finish up 
 a large amount of work with $60,000, having 
 formally withdrawn my first offer to finish all 
 for $100,000. The Committee are warmly in 
 favor of accepting my proposition; but the 
 Governor evidently holds them in check, and 
 they hesitate to report, waiting to see what 
 will turn up, I suppose. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, March 19, 1874. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, The survey has succumbed 
 to the stupidity and malignity of the legisla- 
 ture, backed by the same characteristics on the 
 part of the Governor. The Committee reported 
 in favor of continuing the work, putting it 
 under the supervision of a " Board of Survey," 
 as you may see from a copy of the bill proposed. 
 I would not have acted under this had it passed, 
 and had the place been offered to me; but the 
 discussion turned entirely on me and my work, 
 without any hint of the possibility of the em- 
 ployment of any one else. I was accused of 
 having given all the collections to Harvard ; 
 and it was stated over and over again, that the 
 survey had been run by me for the benefit of 
 Harvard University ! The question now arises, 
 
290 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 what will be done with the materials ? Possi- 
 bly some bill will yet be got through taking 
 them out of my hands entirely. I shall have 
 to wait until the end of the session to ascer- 
 tain what position I am in. At all events I am 
 pretty nearly square ^vvith the state in my ex- 
 penditures, so that my position is one of com- 
 parative financial ease ; and, of course, I shall 
 not, under any circumstances, involve myself 
 as I did before, when the work was left in my 
 hands, Haight being Governor, and giving me 
 the weight of his authority so far as it went. 
 Still I never should have got back a cent of 
 that money, had it not been for Mr. Tompkins. 
 And he is dead, and has left no successor. . . . 
 We propose to go to Europe in May or June, 
 if nothing unexpected happens. How long we 
 shall remain, I do not know ; but the idea is to 
 go on quite a tour, perhaps to India, or Aus- 
 tralia, or both, and possibly back this way. 
 Much depends on Louisa's health and how she 
 stands the journey. My own feelings are de- 
 cidedly those of relief at getting the survey off 
 my hands, with no fault or laches of my own, 
 for it is hard work making a creditable thing 
 of it on a small amount of money. I have 
 always got more curses than coppers out of it. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 Jo. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE RESULTS OF THE CALIFORNIA SURVEY 
 
 WHITNEY himself attributed the discontinuance 
 of his survey to four causes : the general ig- 
 norance and indifference of the public con- 
 cerning all scientific matters ; the intrigues of 
 various persons who foresaw advantage for 
 themselves if the survey should be reorganized 
 under another head ; the hostility of a powerful 
 group of speculators ; and finally, rather perhaps 
 an occasion than a cause, the personal enmity 
 of Governor Booth. 
 
 The ignorance of the public was inevitable 
 under the circumstances. There have been 
 times when America has led the world in con- 
 tempt for pure science, and California in the 
 sixties and seventies by no means lagged be- 
 hind her sister commonwealths. The survey 
 had been from the first the project of a small 
 group of enlightened persons, not the response 
 to any popular demand. Moreover, the great 
 mass of voters and legislators, when they ac- 
 quiesced in the scheme for a geological survey, 
 supposed that they were to get something 
 after the fashion of the California State Min- 
 ing Bureau, which was established later, in 
 
292 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 1 880. The survey, therefore, was in part stopped 
 by men who, had they known what they were 
 doing, would never have consented to let it 
 start. Possibly, if Whitney had been a great 
 teacher like Agassiz, he might have educated 
 his public and kept his survey alive ; but he 
 could hardly have done it without sacrificing 
 some other side of his work, and perhaps in 
 the end would have lost more than he gained. 
 Something of this, indeed, Whitney did attempt 
 in his addresses to the legislature, and in print. 
 Direct personal influence on individuals he 
 left largely to his subordinates. For Whitney 
 was never the man to employ language to 
 conceal thought, while so far from suffering 
 fools gladly, it was with some obvious effort 
 that he suffered fools at all. 
 
 As for his relations with the Governor, the 
 two men were predestined to dislike one an- 
 other. Whitney complained of the Governor's 
 " malignant hostility " ; Booth in turn declared 
 that by no other man had he ever been so in- 
 sulted in all his life as one may easily believe 
 if Whitney's words in California matched his 
 letters east. Nevertheless, Booth was a politi- 
 cian, who aspired to further honors, and indeed, 
 a year after the close of the survey, resigned 
 his office to become United States Senator. 
 He would hardly have risked a trial of strength 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 293 
 
 if he had not been pretty sure in advance that 
 he had the public on his side. 
 
 No small part of this general hostility 
 Whitney believed to be purely factitious, the 
 work of a few speculators, who, when they 
 found in the survey an obstacle to their 
 schemes, found also in the less scrupulous of 
 the Californian newspapers a ready tool to 
 employ against it. The survey did not trespass 
 on the field of the mining engineer, but the 
 first report of 1864 set forth with a good deal 
 of detail both the regions within which metals 
 and oil might be expected to occur, and the 
 facts with regard to their actual presence. 
 Moreover, it was Whitney's policy from the 
 beginning, to put all data in possession of the 
 survey at the command of any citizen who 
 cared to apply, to answer in person or by letter 
 all requests for information, and to have his 
 assistants give without fee any special aid 
 which did not interfere with their more im- 
 mediate duties. Under these circumstances, 
 the opportunity for fraudulent dealing became 
 inconveniently restricted. 
 
 The attempt was made during the later years 
 of the survey, and has been made since, to dis- 
 credit Whitney's judgment on the ground that 
 he denied the occurrence of petroleum in Cali- 
 fornia, though California has of late years 
 
294 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 t-'iYS-S, {>>t*^ ~ OK) 
 
 become the -fett-Ftti oil-producing state in the 
 Union. As a matter of fact, Whitney did no- 
 thing of the kind, as one may easily discover 
 by consulting the report of 1864. On the con- 
 trary, he investigated every reported discovery 
 of oil lands. In several instances he employed 
 special experts in addition to his regular staff, 
 and he advised the legislature to spend a reason- 
 able sum in experimenting with the commercial 
 possibilities of California oil. What he did do 
 was to point out that the actual state of affairs 
 on the property of certain companies did not 
 at all bear out the statements of their prospec- 
 tuses; that the geological conditions in Califor- 
 nia are essentially different from those in Penn- 
 sylvania; and that the eastern chemists to whom 
 he had referred the problem, reported that in 
 the existing state of chemical science the Cali- 
 fornia oil could not be made to yield an illumi- 
 nant on a commercial basis. Moreover, there 
 is no longer any doubt that Whitney was right 
 when he averred that certain auspicious re- 
 ports of other eastern chemists had been ob- 
 tained by the simple device of sending them 
 specimens of Pennsylvania oil. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that in the early 
 days of petroleum, the valuable constituent was 
 the kerosene; for by the middle fifties the sup- 
 ply of whale oil had practically come to an end, 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 295 
 
 and the public, in the absence of gas, had to 
 choose between candles and "camphene." The 
 wisest of state geologists could hardly be ex- 
 pected to anticipate asphalt paving, the oiling 
 of roadbeds, and the gasolene engine; or to 
 forecast battleships driven by crude oil, in a day 
 when locomotives were burning wood. The es- 
 sential point of Whitney's contention was that 
 Californian kerosene would not compete with 
 Pennsylvanian and it never has. As late as 
 1904, when California was producing more than 
 fifteen million barrels of crude oil, it was not 
 even supplying its own market for kerosene, for 
 an oil that will burn under a boiler is not neces- 
 sarily an oil that will burn in a lamp. It may 
 be that Whitney reiterated various unpalatable 
 truths with unnecessary emphasis. Neverthe- 
 less, the companies whose claims he contro- 
 verted did fail; it was not until after 1892 that 
 the oil industry of Ventura County began to 
 attain to anything beyond local importance; 
 and the petroleum of California, so far from 
 flowing on the surface in rivers, has come from 
 deep wells driven under peculiar difficulties. 
 Such are the facts ; facts which it has been easy 
 for interested persons to distort beyond recog- 
 nition. 
 
 It will probably strike most people that when 
 the State Geologist, in a period of unbridled 
 
296 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 speculation, advised caution and a due consid- 
 eration of practical difficulties, he did no more 
 than his duty. The way it struck his fellow- 
 citizens in California may be guessed from the 
 fact that, when one of the San Francisco news- 
 papers exposed a piece of unalloyed rascality 
 on the part of a group of promoters, the out- 
 raged public arose in its indignation and 
 wrecked the newspaper. In a very real sense, 
 therefore, Whitney sacrificed the survey to a 
 standard of conduct that had gone somewhat 
 out of fashion in the years which followed the 
 War. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that the period of 
 Whitney's work in California was also the pe- 
 riod of the Credit Mobilier and the Tweed 
 Ring, a period when college presidents and 
 clergymen lent their names to unsound busi- 
 ness enterprises, and the religious press, with 
 all its differences in matters of doctrine, was a 
 unit in accepting any advertisement that offered 
 itself. In a man like Whitney, sprung from a 
 race of honest merchants, such a condition of 
 affairs aroused a burning indignation that was 
 no respecter of persons. He himself, during 
 thirty years' connection with mining surveys, 
 never owned a single dollar's worth of mining 
 property ; he wrote " The Metallic Wealth of 
 the United States," in no small part, for the sake 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 297 
 
 of protecting the inexpert investor; and shortly 
 after he left California, he and his brother 
 William withdrew from the National Acad- 
 emy of Science because it would not main- 
 tain what they regarded as a proper standard 
 of professional honor among its members. 
 These things he did at a period when his scru- 
 ples were looked upon less as counsels of per- 
 fection than as signs of mental aberration. 
 Whitney has been called " an easy man to quar- 
 rel with " : his bitterest quarrel had at least the 
 justification of a good cause ; and he did his 
 part toward bringing about the era of compara- 
 tive decency which followed Grant's second 
 term. 
 
 Worth quoting here, as comment on this as- 
 pect of the situation, is a letter which Agassiz 
 wrote to an influential Californian, during 
 Whitney's controversy with the oil specu- 
 lators. 
 
 LOUIS AGASSIZ TO G. B. BLAKE 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, December 6, 1866. 
 
 DEAR SIR, In answer to your question con- 
 cerning Professor Whitney, I would say that 
 my personal knowledge of Mr. Whitney's scien- 
 tific attainments goes back for nearly 20 years. 
 When the Geological Survey of California was 
 organized, I proposed him for that position, 
 
298 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 because I was satisfied that he was the ablest 
 man in the country to fill it, and, of all the geo- 
 logists I knew, one of the few who would not 
 speculate upon his scientific information, but 
 honorably report what he knew to be true. I 
 have never had occasion to change my opinion 
 upon those two points, which cover your whole 
 inquiry. Allow me to add that the published 
 reports relating to the Geology of California 
 emanating from his pen, have only increased 
 his scientific standing, and his opposition to 
 mining schemes intended as speculations shows 
 that his character has not been lowered by the 
 great temptations which have surrounded him 
 for years. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 L. AGASSIZ. 
 
 These then are the chief causes for the failure 
 of the California Survey. There remain in ad- 
 dition certain minor elements which, though 
 no one was in itself especially important, prob- 
 ably had altogether a good deal of weight. 
 For one thing, it was unfortunate that the State 
 Geologist thought himself compelled to spend 
 so much of his time at the East. Good friends 
 of the survey felt that even if the printing 
 could not be done in California, Whitney might 
 have imported engravers, remained on the 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 299 
 
 ground, and handled his reports instead of his 
 field work at arm's length. Moreover, there was 
 a persistent rumor that the collections of the 
 survey were being given to Harvard College ; 
 while, at the same time, Whitney never quite 
 succeeded in making the public understand 
 that although he had been in the employ both of 
 Harvard and California, he had never taken pay 
 from both at the same time. Doubtless, too, a 
 change in the order of publication, to put the 
 economic volume early and the two on paleon- 
 tology later, would have helped. Oddly enough, 
 the appearance of the " Origin of Species " in 
 1859 hurt the survey. To the general position 
 of Darwin, Whitney was an early convert, but 
 his thoroughly scientific habit of mind as little 
 inclined him to follow Haeckel on the one hand 
 as Agassiz on the other. Like his old master 
 Lyell, he believed that the first task was to help 
 the new doctrine to a hearing on its merits. 
 For this reason, in his address to the legisla- 
 ture early in -1862, he went somewhat out of 
 his way to set forth the ideas of the " Origin." 
 Nothing could have been more moderate in 
 tone. Whitney dwelt upon Darwin's high re- 
 pute in the scientific world, assumed that the 
 matter was one in which an intelligent legisla- 
 ture would naturally take an interest, but com- 
 mitted himself only to the opinion that " the 
 
300 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 discussion of this interesting subject . . . will 
 be of essential service to the progress of 
 science." 
 
 Whitney promptly discovered that this by 
 no means radical conviction was very far from 
 being shared by the California clergy. The 
 life of the survey coincided almost precisely 
 with the controversy over Evolution, a contro- 
 versy whose bitterness we of these easy-going 
 days find it hard to realize. Inevitably, there- 
 fore, the church-going portion of the commu- 
 nity became still farther exacerbated against the 
 survey, when after the discovery of the Calave- 
 ras skull in 1866, Whitney became the foremost 
 American advocate of Tertiary man. 
 
 Evidently, then, the termination of the Cali- 
 fornia Survey was due less to any single cause 
 than to a variety of independent factors which 
 varied in importance from the floods of 1862 to 
 the persistent refusal of the State Geologist, in 
 a community essentially Southern in customs, 
 to drink whiskey in a saloon between meals. Yet 
 although the scientific world is in general agreed 
 that the last State Geologist of California was 
 hardly used, there remains, nevertheless, not a 
 little that can be justly urged from the side of 
 legislature, Governor, and public. The survey 
 cost, all told, a little less than $350,000; and 
 $25,000 a year seems a small sum compared 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 301 
 
 with Hayden's $95,000 for the Survey of the 
 Territories, or the $200,000 and more of the 
 United States Coast Survey. Still, Hayden in 
 1867 and 1868 laid the foundations of his sur- 
 vey on $5000 a year, and carried through his 
 reconnoissance of the Upper Missouri, depend- 
 ent for sustenance on the hospitality of ac- 
 quaintances and on what he could earn by the 
 way. California, in 1860 when the survey be- 
 gan, looked to a future of unlimited growth 
 and prosperity, and cut its coat according to 
 the cloth it expected to own. Its actual lot was 
 flood and drought, the competition of other 
 gold fields, and the Civil War. Under these 
 changed conditions, there were many well-in- 
 tentioned persons who felt that elaborate, hand- 
 colored monographs on birds and land shells 
 were not the things which the young state 
 needed most. As it turned out, the California 
 Survey, on the scale on which Whitney planned 
 it, was distinctly premature. 
 
 How large this scale was, one appreciates 
 only by comparing the California Survey with 
 the other state surveys which went before it. 
 If Whitney could have carried his work through 
 to the end which it nearly reached, it would 
 have cost in all some $450,000 and taken fif- 
 teen years. Jackson's survey of New Hampshire, 
 which gave Whitney his first training as a geo- 
 
302 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 logical surveyor, required three years and cost 
 each year $3000. The Lake Superior Survey 
 lasted four years. The original surveys of New 
 York and Pennsylvania, which between them 
 made the reputations of a half-dozen geologists, 
 each consumed a half decade. Even as late as 
 1 866, Swallow's survey of Kansas occupied only 
 a year and a half ; while at about the same time 
 the legislature of Nevada tried, vainly to be 
 sure, to find a reputable geologist who would 
 undertake the survey of the state at a total cost 
 of $6000, and finish his task in eight months. 
 By however much, therefore, California fell 
 short of her State Geologist's ideals, she sur- 
 passed in at least an equal measure anything 
 that her sister states had done. 
 
 Yet granting that the survey was more than 
 the state could reasonably afford, Governor 
 Booth chose an especially unfortunate time for 
 bringing it to a close. Another year and a half 
 would have carried the work to a convenient 
 stopping place; and in fact, Whitney had de- 
 cided finally that if the survey went on after 
 June of 1875, it should be in other hands than 
 his. But when he was " thus unceremoniously 
 ejected from the State of California, with no 
 other right or privilege left than that of paying 
 the debts of the survey out of his own pocket," 
 he not only had to leave matters hanging in the 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 303 
 
 air, but, in addition, to sacrifice a considerable 
 amount of important material that was nearly 
 ready for publication. 
 
 All this material, by act of the legislature, 
 passed into the control of the Regents of the 
 State University, a body, as a whole, thor- 
 oughly hostile to the State Geologist and the 
 survey. The Regents, however, could make no 
 use of it, and Whitney had a stanch friend at 
 court in the Secretary of the Board, Dr. Rob- 
 ert E. C. Stearns. In time, therefore, and in 
 one way and another, much of this data came 
 back into Whitney's control. 
 
 A private subscription of $5000, engineered 
 by Judge S. C. Hastings of San Francisco and 
 helped on by Gilman, Leland Stanford, and D. 
 O. Mills, enabled Brewer, with Whitney's help, 
 to bring out his Botany, though at a cost to 
 himself of two years' unpaid labor, $2000 out 
 of his pocket, and the accompanying loss of his 
 salary at Yale. There were printed also three 
 volumes on birds, largely at the expense of 
 Alexander Agassiz. In both cases, the dozen 
 or more specialists who had a hand in the 
 books, did their parts at considerable sacrifice, 
 Baird, for example, advancing a thousand dol- 
 lars on his portion of the " Birds." The geo- 
 logical material was absorbed by various scien- 
 tific journals, especially by the publications of 
 
304 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cam- 
 bridge. So far as anything that the State of 
 California did, at least half of the labor of the 
 survey would have gone for nothing. 
 
 Fortunately, the more important topograph- 
 ical maps were nearly all ready for printing be- 
 fore the end of 1873; and since these met with 
 a ready sale, they practically took care of them- 
 selves. There was still wanting, however, a few 
 months of field work to complete one of the 
 four sheets of the large scale map of Central 
 California; and only three of the sheets ever 
 appeared. Two more sheets also of this map 
 were under way, and the six together would 
 have included all the inhabited portions of the 
 state. These were a total loss. 
 
 The geological maps, less advanced than 
 the topographical, were still less fortunate. 
 The " Bay Map," which borrowed its triangu- 
 lation from the charts of the Coast Survey, was 
 farthest along and was preserved. The rest of 
 the geological maps, the printing of some of 
 the sheets actually begun, waited vainly year 
 after year, and were then, to quote their 
 author, " ground off the stones together with 
 $5000 of my money." 
 
 All this was most unfortunate for the repu- 
 tation of the California Survey. Any such 
 piece of scientific work is likely, in the long 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 305 
 
 run, to be judged by its printed documents. 
 A shelf full of well-printed reports, appearing 
 promptly on the completion of the work, makes 
 far more impression on the scientific world 
 than does the same material, however valuable, 
 when strung along over a decade and scattered 
 through the publications of half a dozen learned 
 societies and as many popular magazines. The 
 investigator, intent on a single aspect of a 
 multifarious work, needs continually to be re- 
 minded of the portions which he does not use. 
 The California Survey, moreover, coming as 
 it does between the era of the state surveys and 
 the beginnings of the United States Geologi- 
 cal Survey, has been in a sense devoured by 
 its own offspring. It inspired, to a degree which 
 has seldom been adequately recognized, the most 
 important piece of scientific work that has been 
 done in America, and the best piece of geolo- 
 gical surveying that has been done anywhere. 
 The traditions of the Government surveys go 
 back only to Clarence King, Hayden, Gardner, 
 Wilson, Emmons, and Gannett. Back of them, 
 however, stands the half-forgotten California 
 Survey which first worked out the problem of 
 handling great stretches of wild country, and 
 trained up a group of geologists and topogra- 
 phers, without whom the United States surveys 
 could hardly have been what they were. Fur- 
 
306 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 thermore, one of the early tasks of the United 
 States Geological Survey was to continue 
 Whitney's unfinished work. Inevitably, to the 
 builder of the superstructures is attributed the 
 foundation also. 
 
 That the Government surveyors themselves 
 recognized their debt, appears in a letter which 
 Gardner, then Chief Topographer of the Sur- 
 vey of the Fortieth Parallel, wrote to Whitney 
 from Washington in May of 1874, just after 
 the close of the California Survey. 
 
 " You must know without my saying it how 
 much I regret the action of the California legis- 
 lature. I think it one of the severest blows that 
 science has received in this country. We shall 
 feel it very much in our own work, as there is 
 so much that you were about to publish which 
 would throw light on our problems. Few will 
 feel it as we who are laboring in adjoining 
 parts of the Cordillera system. 
 
 "The thought that the seeds which you 
 planted in us young men are bearing fruit 
 while you are cut off from your harvest, is very 
 painful to me. For I feel that to your illuminat- 
 ing and fostering influence is due the starting 
 of improved topographical work in this country. 
 I acknowledge with pleasure and gratitude 
 that I received from you first those ideas of 
 what topography might acomplish for geology 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 307 
 
 which I have ever since been endeavoring to 
 systematize, develop, and put into practical 
 execution over large areas. 
 
 " I wish you would come on and visit me, 
 and see the last fruit that your little plant has 
 borne. It is the best thing that I have done 
 yet. . . . We have lots of plunder here in the 
 way of photographs and publications, and you 
 better load up before going to Europe. But 
 better than all plunder will it be for your 
 fatherly eyes to see the licking that we are 
 going to give those arrogant and grasping 
 [army] engineers." 
 
 The significance of this letter of Gardner's 
 becomes more clear if we review briefly certain 
 points in the history of modern cartography. 
 
 When Whitney commenced work in Cali- 
 fornia, three government boards at Washing- 
 ton were issuing three different kinds of maps. 
 These were the charts of the United States 
 Coast Survey, the areal maps of the General 
 Land Office for the distribution of the public 
 lands, and the maps based on the linear sur- 
 veys of various government exploring expedi- 
 tions. The Coast Survey maps were made by 
 elaborate triangulation, which sometimes in- 
 volved a whole season's work at a single station; 
 they were accurate to a few inches in a hundred 
 miles and were correspondingly expensive. 
 
308 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 The public lands were mapped by an ordinary 
 chain and compass survey, at the hands of all 
 sorts of unskilled and casual surveyors. They 
 answered their purpose adequately enough, 
 so long as transfers of property were based 
 upon the boundary stone and other actual 
 monuments of the first survey, and no attempt 
 was made to repeat any determination. This 
 method has the merit of cheapness ; its obvious 
 limitations are that it takes no account of to- 
 pography, and that it is impossible except in a 
 flat country. The linear surveys of the army 
 were worst of all. These started from a base 
 more or less accurately located, twisted and 
 turned with the progress of the expedition, and 
 the farther they progressed, the more confused 
 they became. Whitney, in California, found 
 these army maps absolutely unusable. Obser- 
 vations of longitude were not uncommonly two 
 miles out of the way ; even mountain ridges 
 could not be identified, because the error in 
 locating any one was greater than the distance 
 to the next. It was accounted a great victory 
 for science when in 1874 the civilian geogra- 
 phers at last succeeded in getting the Govern- 
 ment map-making out of the hands of the 
 army ; a victory, moreover, in which the former 
 Californians did most of the fighting and Whit- 
 ney himself had no small part. 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 309 
 
 Obviously, California could never afford 
 maps triangulated on signal stations after the 
 manner of the Coast Survey. Neither, on the 
 other hand, could a country, so largely moun- 
 tainous, be mapped by the ordinary methods 
 of a land survey. And yet it was Whitney's 
 doctrine, an idea which he as much as any one 
 man brought into universal practice in this 
 country, that there can be no proper geological 
 work that is not based on accurate topography. 
 In this dilemma, Whitney fell back on a method 
 with which he had experimented somewhat in 
 his Lake Superior days. He used no special 
 signal stations ; but with an ordinary surveyor's 
 transit he triangulated on the sharp mountain 
 peaks. Then, from convenient elevations, he 
 mapped in the intervening country by the eye. 
 
 The device sounds crude enough. It has 
 turned out in practice to be so much more pre- 
 cise than any other method which can be ap- 
 plied at anything like the cost, that for ordinary 
 topographical work over considerable areas, it 
 has now superseded all other systems through- 
 out the civilized world. It is several times more 
 rapid than a less accurate survey with chain, 
 staff, and level. For small scale maps it is a 
 hundred times less expensive than a geodetic 
 survey that is often practically no better. 
 
 This general plan, then, was Whitney's. He 
 
310 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 was lucky enough to find in Hoffmann a thor- 
 oughly trained draughtsman and surveyor, ca- 
 pable of working out its practical details. The 
 map which accompanied the " Yosemite Guide- 
 book" was the first triangulated map, and there- 
 fore the first decently accurate topographical 
 map of a rough country ever printed in the 
 Western Hemisphere. 
 
 Hoffmann, after 1864, taught the new 
 method to the topographers of the California 
 Survey. When King took charge of the Forti- 
 eth Parallel Survey, in 1867, he made Gardner 
 his chief topographer, and took also from the 
 California Survey Wilson and Emmons. 
 
 In the meantime, Hayden, on the United 
 States Survey of the Territories, was doing no 
 topographical work at all. To the remonstrance 
 of Whitney, who met him in 1869, he replied 
 that he simply could not find men to do the 
 work. As soon, however, as King's survey came 
 to an end, Hayden took on Gardner and Wil- 
 son, and thereafter mapped after Whitney's 
 method. Powell did little topographical map- 
 ping on his earliest surveys. Lieutenant 
 Wheeler clung to the obsolete methods of the 
 army. 
 
 King became the first head of the United 
 States Geological Survey in 1879, and at once 
 absorbed all the available topographers of Hay- 
 
CALIFORNIA SURVEY 311 
 
 den's and Whitney's surveys, and the men whom 
 they had trained in their turn. Of these, Em- 
 mons has been connected with the United 
 States Geological Survey ever since; and Gan- 
 nett, who, before he went on Hayden's survey, 
 was one of the four students from the Harvard 
 Mining School whom Hoffmann taught sur- 
 veying in the Colorado mountains, has had his 
 name on the border of some hundreds of thou- 
 sands of sheets of the great topographical map 
 of the United States which has been under way 
 for a generation and is not yet half done. 
 
 Since Whitney's time the plane table has 
 come into more general use, so that the topo- 
 grapher depends less on his "eye for country " 
 than he once did. The United States Geologi- 
 cal Survey, having more money to spend than 
 the California Survey ever dreamed of, can 
 afford to employ in its primary triangulation 
 some of the expensive devices of the Coast Sur- 
 vey; moreover, it has educated the public to the 
 familiar atlas sheet and, to some extent, to the 
 contour line in place of the older hachure which 
 Whitney used. Aside, nevertheless, from such 
 minor improvements, Gannett has. been map- 
 ping the United States by the method which he 
 learned from Hoffmann in 1869. 
 
 In a sense, of course, all these happenings 
 were inevitable. Any one of a dozen men con- 
 
312 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 fronted with Whitney's problem would have hit 
 upon his solution of it. Still, it did happen to 
 be Whitney, and not somebody else, who im- 
 pressed a group of able disciples with certain 
 ideas and standards and methods just at the 
 particular time when the world was ready for 
 them. In the same way, in 1863, Whitney hap- 
 pened to be experimenting with photography 
 in a waterless country when the first dry plates 
 were coming on the market, and thus was the 
 first to employ systematically this important 
 adjunct to a modern geological survey. For the 
 most part, the scientific world knows American 
 geological surveying through the publications 
 of the Government; the present generation of 
 geologists and topographers has come up since 
 the beginnings of the United States surveys, 
 and knows little of its scientific ancestry. Never- 
 theless, the California Survey first shook the 
 tree of which the United States Geological 
 Survey has gathered up most of the fruit. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE STURGIS-HOOPER PROFESSORSHIP. 
 1874-1879 
 
 AFTER fourteen years of California, Whitney 
 had fairly earned a vacation, while his wife, al- 
 ways insatiate for new experiences, had long set 
 her heart on a year of travel. The family sailed 
 for Germany early in June of 1874; and while 
 the daughter remained with German friends in 
 Hanover, Whitney himself visited scientific ac- 
 quaintances, and attended scientific meetings. 
 The chief attraction was an important congress 
 at Stockholm. After that, the plan was to travel 
 east as the spirit moved and Mrs. Whitney's 
 health permitted, to visit Australia, and come 
 home around the world. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 DRESDEN, July 15, 1874. 
 
 DEAR W. D., . . . In Berlin we did all the 
 usual sights, and I was greatly attracted by the 
 Egyptian collection. I saw Weber [the great 
 Sanskrit scholar] a few minutes; his wife and 
 family were "gone to the Bad " where all the 
 Germans go. ... I went with Richthofen to 
 meetings of the Geological and Geographical 
 
314 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 Societies, and heard some of the African trav- 
 elers hold forth namentlich Rohlfs and 
 Schweinfurth. Had a ticket to the Leibnitz 
 anniversary of the Academy, but found it too 
 hot and crowded, and so gave it up. 
 
 Richthofen has secured the publication of 
 his work by the Prussian Government. It will 
 comprise four quarto volumes and an atlas 
 of 40-50 maps. His work effects a complete 
 revolution in the topography of China. New- 
 berry's and Pumpelly's discovery of the Trias- 
 sic age of the coal is all set to o. R. found fos- 
 sils in the greatest abundance and especially 
 Silurian and Carboniferous. It is strange that 
 Pumpelly missed them so entirely. 
 
 We go to Tharandt to-morrow and thence 
 to Freiberg and into Thuringia, to some quiet 
 spot where we will spend a week ; then to Berlin, 
 Copenhagen, where we meet Desor, and Stock- 
 holm by the first of August, if nothing unex- 
 pected happens. In Dresden we have done 
 the big sights and some of the side shows . . . 
 seen a lot of Californians . . . and various and 
 sundry others. I do not find Germany so very 
 much changed prices are higher, and highest 
 of all here, but still even here not extortionate. 
 ... In one respect I notice a marked change 
 and that is the disappearance of the French 
 language. We hardly hear a word of French 
 
STURGIS-HOOPER PROFESSORSHIP 315 
 
 spoken; while I remember distinctly thirty (!) 
 years ago, that French was much spoken at 
 the hotels. I do not find many Germans who 
 speak English fluently; the universal know- 
 ledge of that language said to prevail here is 
 "nicht vorhanden." . . . 
 
 Since leaving home I have heard very little 
 of what is going on. . . . The new edition of 
 the " Guidebook " is out and so is the " Baro- 
 metric Hypsometry." ... I am fat and lazy 
 so lazy that I feel only fit to be put in a pig 
 show! 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 NEUFCHATEL, August 22, 1874. 
 MY DEAR WILL, We have had hard times 
 in our family for the last month, for Louisa has 
 been very sick ; and in fact, I thought it very 
 doubtful if she would get back home again. 
 We went to Hamburg partly because it was on 
 the way to Stockholm, and partly because it was 
 a good point from which to start for home, in 
 case of necessity. Just when the case looked 
 darkest, and we had telegraphed to Nora to 
 come to Hamburg, Louisa's disease took a 
 favorable turn, and ever since she has been im- 
 proving, although at a rate which could only 
 be measured by a micrometer screw. She lives 
 entirely on oatmeal gruel and bouillon, the 
 
316 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 only things for sick folks that we have been 
 able to scare up in this country. We have spent 
 the last ten days at Glion, 1 500 feet or so above 
 Lake Geneva, a place unrivaled in beauty of 
 scenery and healthiness of atmosphere. On ar- 
 riving here, we met Desor, who had just re- 
 turned from Stockholm, and who has changed 
 very little in appearance from what he was 
 when we were together on Lake Superior 
 now twenty-four years ago ! We go up to his 
 Chalet in the Jura to-morrow to spend a few 
 days, if it suits Louisa's health. 
 
 TO PROFESSOR JEFFRIES WYMAN 
 
 NEUFCHATEL, August 22, 1874. 
 
 MY DEAR DR. WYMAN, Circumstances 
 made it impossible for me to go to Stockholm 
 after all, for which I was very sorry. My wife was 
 taken seriously ill, and we could get no farther 
 than Hamburg; and when she was able to 
 travel, it was too late for the meeting. . . . 
 
 Desor gives most glowing accounts of the 
 meeting, and is highly impressed with the good 
 work the Swedes are doing in science their 
 painstaking accuracy without brag, He seems 
 to have lost confidence in the French, and has 
 not been to Paris since the war. 
 
 I feel now more inclined to publish my Cali- 
 fornia results (in regard to prehistoric man) 
 
STURGIS-HOOPER PROFESSORSHIP 317 
 
 in a special volume, with a full account of the 
 geology connected with the work ; for without 
 a full setting forth of the geological structure 
 of the country, it will be impossible for any one 
 to appreciate the character of the evidence . . . 
 from the anthropological point of view. At all 
 events, it is well that I did not bring these mat- 
 ters up at Stockholm; for in the crowd (of 1400 
 persons) and the pressure of business, the most 
 that I could have got was an hour, and that 
 would n't answer the purpose for laying the 
 facts before the public in such a way that they 
 could be comprehended and believed in. ... 
 
 So in the end, because of Mrs. Whitney's 
 illness, the plans for travel round the world 
 came to naught, and the middle of November 
 saw the Whitneys back at 1 2 Oxford Street. 
 
 The many-sided activity of the California 
 days continued throughout Whitney's profes- 
 sorship at Harvard. His old ally, Oilman, con- 
 sulted him with regard to the development of 
 Johns Hopkins; Boyd Dawkins besought his 
 advice for Owens College at Manchester. He 
 drafted the petition to Congress, in which the 
 learned men of the United States asked the 
 removal of the tariff on books ; he had a hand 
 in preparing the bill for reorganizing the man- 
 agement of the Yosemite grant. He wrote pop- 
 
3 i8 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 ular accounts of his own work for the " North 
 American Review," and reviews of other men's 
 books for the "Nation"; and he went down 
 to New Haven and lectured to the Scientific 
 School on the Egyptian pyramids. 
 
 The academic duties of the years which fol- 
 lowed proved to be of the most congenial sort. 
 The short-lived Mining School of which Whit- 
 ney had been the head was merged, in 1875, 
 with the Lawrence Scientific School; there 
 was, in consequence, a short period of uncer- 
 tainty as to Whitney's status, and then, on 
 April 14, 1875, he was reappointed to his old 
 chair, the Sturgis-Hooper Professorship of Ge- 
 ology, which had been founded ten years before 
 for the special purpose of keeping him in the 
 East. A month later he entered the Faculty of 
 the Museum of Comparative Zoology, in the 
 place left vacant by Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
 Both positions he retained until his death. 
 
 The Sturgis-Hooper Professorship is among 
 the best endowed chairs in the University; and 
 its occupant is, by the terms of the foundation, 
 absolved from that particular bane of college 
 work in America, the routine instruction of be- 
 ginners. It still remains one of the few profes- 
 sorships in this country after the German plan 
 the feast for the great scholar, for the under- 
 graduate the incidental crumb. Freed thus from 
 
STURGIS-HOOPER PROFESSORSHIP 319 
 
 the drudgery of administrative duties and of 
 elementary teaching, and largely cut off by his 
 wife's ill health from social life, Whitney spent 
 himself without stint on the professional train- 
 ing of mature men, on his private studies, and 
 on the salvage of the California Survey. His 
 lectures were carefully prepared, were generally 
 delivered from note-book outlines, and were 
 abundantly illustrated from his extensive li- 
 brary. He took pride in placing the best books 
 and maps before his classes, although he some- 
 times had occasion to lament heedless injury to 
 his choice possessions. 
 
 At no other American institution could 
 Whitney have been either so contented or so 
 useful as at Harvard. He was untrammeled 
 either by trustee or young person ; he was en- 
 couraged to apply the methods and standards 
 under which he had himself been trained. 
 " Here," he affirmed, " I could and did lecture 
 as freely as I could have done in Germany." 
 On the other hand, only the Agassiz Museum, 
 with its ample funds for publication and its su- 
 perb opportunity for work, could utilize to the 
 full a man with so few special gifts as a teacher. 
 
 For Whitney, in spite of unusual skill in set- 
 ting forth ideas in print, had but moderate suc- 
 cess as an instructor. His somewhat thin and 
 high-pitched voice was ill suited to large audi- 
 
320 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 ences ; and he had, besides, the misfortune to 
 come to his teaching so late in life that he had 
 forgotten his own student days, and never quite 
 understood the workings of the adolescent 
 mind. His popular lectures, open to the general 
 public as well as to members of the University, 
 were successful, but not conspicuously so. A 
 popular reputation is apt to be conditioned on 
 the absence of certain qualities that are highly 
 essential to a man of science. 
 
 Doubtless, in the course of time, Whitney 
 would have attained in the teaching art to the 
 standard, by no means exacting, of the average 
 college instructor, if it had not been for the pe- 
 culiar organization of his department. He be- 
 longed -rather to the Museum than to the Col- 
 lege ; and it is the policy of the Museum to 
 subordinate teaching to research. Only by his 
 own choice does the Sturgis-Hooper Professor 
 of Geology do any teaching at all. Moreover, 
 the department had in Nathaniel Southgate 
 Shaler a man of extraordinary gifts for interest- 
 ing and inspiring boys. Naturally, then, the or- 
 ganization of the department and the elemen- 
 tary instruction within it, fell to Shaler and his 
 subordinates. Only after a student had become 
 pretty well advanced in his subject, and had 
 pretty definitely committed himself to a scien- 
 tific career, did he come under Whitney. 
 
STURGIS-HOOPER PROFESSORSHIP 321 
 
 Whitney usually offered one or two courses 
 of lectures, amounting altogether to no more 
 than three or four hours a week ; and portions 
 of even this small amount he sometimes turned 
 over to an assistant. He did almost no field 
 work either with his pupils or privately. He had 
 no laboratory, and seldom so much as exhibited 
 a specimen to his pupils. His classes were small, 
 usually no more than a dozen or twenty; and 
 he rarely gave any instruction outside his for- 
 mal lectures. He had, therefore, no special 
 group of disciples to disseminate his opinions 
 or assist him in his private work. 
 
 Nevertheless, Whitney's influence on geologic 
 progress in America has been very considerable. 
 His students were few, but they were picked men. 
 Lane of the Michigan Survey was his pupil, and 
 Landes of the Washington Survey. He gave to 
 the United States Geological Survey Gannett, 
 Marvine, Brooks, Diller, Keith, Schrader, and 
 Spurr; and to the educational institutions of 
 the country, Davis, Wolff, Jackson, Eastman, 
 Daly, Jagger, Collie, Dodge, Tarr, Cobb, West- 
 gate, Ladd, Foerste. He trained, therefore, not 
 only a considerable body of working geologists 
 and mining engineers, but that whole group of 
 teachers who have of late years been revolution- 
 izing geographical instruction in America from 
 the universities down to the primary schools. 
 
322 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 Whitney's work at Harvard, then, was by no 
 means unlike his work in California. He did 
 his routine teaching as he did his routine sur- 
 veying. In addition, at Harvard as in Califor- 
 nia, he set .a standard for other men to follow. 
 He was fundamentally a critic and a productive 
 scholar. He took men already well trained, to 
 whom his encyclopedic knowledge was at once 
 a revelation and a challenge, and he showed 
 them mercilessly their limitations and their 
 faults. They went to him to be taught economic 
 geology, and they learned accuracy, caution, 
 the wealth of information already in print, and 
 the admixture of confusion which accompanies 
 it. While he placed his books at their service 
 and taught them the sources of knowledge, he 
 taught them also the sources of error. Whitney 
 was not a popular teacher, nor even an inspir- 
 ing one. He was an accurate and painstak- 
 ing scholar, who set for his pupils an ideal of 
 scholarship, and taught them not to make mis- 
 takes. 
 
 FROM THOMAS S. BAYNES, EDITOR OF THE " ENCY- 
 
 CLOPEDIA BRITANNICA" 
 
 EDINBURGH, May 24, 1875. 
 
 DEAR SIR, Your brother, Dr. Whitney 
 (whom I had the pleasure of welcoming here 
 lately), tells me that you are willing to give us 
 
STURGIS-HOOPER PROFESSORSHIP 323 
 
 your valuable help in the American depart- 
 ment of the new edition of the " Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica." 
 
 The first heading of importance in advance 
 is California. I am most anxious to have a 
 good article on this subject and hope you will 
 be able to undertake it. The country has ad- 
 vanced so rapidly since the publication of the 
 last edition that the^old article will require to 
 be largely added to, and perhaps altogether 
 rewritten. You will be the best judge as to 
 this. . . . 
 
 The new article might, I think, extend to 
 nearly double the length of the old say ten 
 to twelve pages. With regard to time, I should 
 be glad to have it as soon as you can conve- 
 niently prepare the pages within the next 
 three or four months if possible. 
 
 I may add that the rate of payment for origi- 
 nal articles is two guineas a page. . . . 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, July 15, 1875. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., Louisa is no better, 
 and she feels pretty blue. She is at Prout's 
 Neck now, . . . and I am cleaning house and get- 
 ting things in order generally; also writing an 
 article on Geological Surveys for the October 
 1 number of the " North American Review." 
 
324 JOSIAH D WIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 This, with the one in the July number on 
 Geographical Surveys, will make a libellum, 
 which I hope will be of value to some. I am 
 just taking possession of quarters in the Mu- 
 seum building, and hesitating about buying a 
 lot of land adjacent, on which to build a house. 
 The uncertain condition of Louisa's health 
 takes away all my force, and keeps me de- 
 pressed and anxious. 
 
 Hayden was here the other day, and Gabb 
 has just gone away, having brought many in- 
 teresting things from Central America for me 
 to see. Among other things, he has worked up 
 several of the Indian languages there with a 
 great deal of care and skill. 
 
 . . . You have heard, I suppose, of the very 
 sudden death of Winlock, to whom I was much 
 attached. His illness, for which the doctors 
 could find no name, lasted only six or eight 
 hours. He never knew that his end was near. 
 He just stopped work, and laid down and died, 
 having exhausted his resources in the way of 
 vitality. His poor wife found herself, instantly, 
 not only robbed of a husband whom she adored, 
 but with six children on her hands. ... A 
 house has been bought for her, not far from 
 North Avenue, and she will soon leave the 
 place where the poor Apothecary had done so 
 much and bragged so little. . . . 
 
STURGIS-HOOPER PROFESSORSHIP 325 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, October 20, 1875. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., . . . In a few days, 
 I will send you and Brewer copies of a little 
 work entitled "California Multum in Parvo." 
 It is my "Encyclopaedia Britannica" article on 
 that subject, which the editor had set up and 
 printed here to secure copyright. They allowed 
 me to have twelve copies ; of course not to be 
 made public in any way. I flatter myself that 
 it has got about as much reliable information 
 crammed into it as could well be packed into 
 the allotted space. 
 
 Later, Whitney brought together all his 
 "Britannica" articles into a two-volume work 
 entitled "The United States: Facts and Fig- 
 ures illustrating the Physical Geography of the 
 Country and its Natural Resources." First, how- 
 ever, he made a beginning with the materials 
 left over from the California Survey, two vol- 
 umes of the Botany, one of the Economic 
 Geology, and a work in two parts on the Au- 
 riferous Gravels. It was not, however, until 
 September of 1877, after a month in California, 
 that Whitney obtained permission to use these 
 materials " without expense to the State." 
 
 The work on Tertiary gravels led naturally 
 
326 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 to a study of Preglacial and of Glacial climate ; 
 and this in turn not only became one of the 
 chief interests of Whitney's Cambridge days, 
 but in addition resulted in one of his most 
 important contributions to geological theory. 
 " The Auriferous Gravels " had for its sequel 
 " The Climatic Changes of Later Geologic 
 Time." In this Whitney maintained, contrary to 
 the prevailing opinion among extreme glacial- 
 ists, that the Great Ice Age was a time neither 
 of high elevation of land surface nor of espe- 
 cial cold. He opposed the theory of a single 
 continental ice sheet, emphasized the impor- 
 tance of local glaciers, and explained Preglacial 
 climate, the Ice Age, and the present desicca- 
 tion of the interior of the larger continents as 
 stages in a continuous process. The question 
 is still one of the unsolved problems of science. 
 The most that one can say is that general 
 opinion is now considerably nearer to Whit- 
 ney's position than it was when he wrote. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, March 24, 1876. 
 
 MY DEAR WILLIAM, . . . I have been re- 
 miss in writing ; but I have had little that was 
 agreeable to say on any subject. The disgusting 
 revelations at Washington . . . are enough to 
 make one sad down to the very bottom of his 
 
STURGIS-HOOPER PROFESSORSHIP 327 
 
 boots if one's soul extends so far. And 
 Louisa's state of health takes away all my elas- 
 ticity. I feel it as a weight ever bearing me 
 down. She has days when she is, comparatively, 
 so comfortable that she keeps on the appearance 
 of being somewhat as others; but she is never 
 free from pain, and often it is a great deal more 
 than she can bear. ... I have not been away 
 from the house over night since Thanksgiving, 
 but would go to New York now, if I did not 
 feel unwilling to leave home unless it were ab- 
 solutely necessary. 
 
 ... I have read with interest all that has 
 come to my hands, in regard to the Miiller con- 
 troversy. You certainly have come out " all 
 right," in every respect. But the English will 
 uphold him " quand meme." There is no help- 
 ing that ! His notice of the [W. D. W.'s Ger- 
 man] dictionary I felt to be Jesuitical in the 
 highest degree. The answer in the "Jenaer 
 Literatur Zeitung" I wish I could see, but 
 they do not take that periodical in our benighted 
 library. Van Name's article is excellent, bring- 
 ing out some points more clearly than they 
 have been before, and " rubbing it " in, so to 
 speak. . . . 
 
 My course of lectures closes next week. 
 After that, I shall take hold of the Geology 
 (Auriferous Gravels) in earnest. The plates are 
 
328 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 just finished and are quite satisfactorily done. 
 Whether the volume will be published uniform 
 with the rest of the series, or as one of the 
 series of the Memoirs of the Museum of Com- 
 parative Zoology, I have not yet positively 
 decided. 
 
 I have given three dozen lectures on eco- 
 nomical geology, which have v cost me a large 
 amount of labor to prepare, having been illus- 
 trated with innumerable diagrams on the black- 
 board and otherwise. Now, I could give such 
 lectures again with comparatively little trouble. 
 I needed the practice in lecturing, and rather 
 like it, but it takes a fearful amount of time. I 
 have worked a good deal on the subject of vein 
 phenomena, with a view to the publication of 
 a work on that subject. It is one which has 
 always had a special interest for me. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, June 23, 1876. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D., Corporation wants to 
 give you the degree of LL. D. this Commence- 
 ment, and Mr. Eliot desires that you should be 
 present to receive it. Can you ? Will you ? If 
 not, why not? I won't say anything about how 
 much it would gratify me and Goodwin and 
 Child to have you here. But if you won't come, 
 tell me what I must tell Mr. Eliot. Do think 
 
STURGIS-HOOPER PROFESSORSHIP 329 
 
 about it and not refuse unless for some par- 
 ticularly good reason. 
 
 If you don't come, I shall tie my head up in 
 my gown and sit in the cellar. ... Of course 
 nothing is to be said about the LL.D. matter. 
 
 ..." Botany of California," Vol. I, the first 
 of the posthumous volumes of the survey, is 
 now ready. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, July 18, 1876. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., Moved by this ver- 
 flucht wetter, I have written an article for the 
 "[American] Naturalist" entitled "Are We 
 Drying up?" and have another in hand on a 
 cognate subject. . . . Isn't the heat atrocious? 
 . . . Cambridge is quite deserted. . . . 
 
 . . . I have just heard of Ehrenberg's death. 
 He and old Heinrich Rose were two of the 
 best men God ever made ! 
 
 P wouldn't come to see me because I 
 
 criticised his North American map, I suppose. 
 He has never written me since that. He is 
 about the most unpopular man in Germany. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, September 11, 1876. 
 
 MY DEAR WILLIAM, . . . My own summer's 
 work has been nearly nil. Physically I am strong 
 
330 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 and well, but mentally a failure. So much 
 anxiety about Louisa has quite upset me. I 
 wrote two or three articles for the " Natural- 
 ist," in which publication I have a small pe- 
 cuniary interest. One, I send you; another one, 
 much longer, which will follow in the October 
 and November numbers, will, I hope, interest 
 you. It is on the prairies. My plans for pub- 
 lication of the survey matters have, after much 
 pondering, taken pretty nearly their final shape. 
 One volume uniform with the survey vol- 
 umes I propose to push ahead at once. It 
 will be as much economical in its character as 
 possible. Another one, on the auriferous gravel 
 deposits of the Pacific slopes, will appear in 
 the Museum publications, quarto form. One 
 hundred fifty pages of the economical vol- 
 umes are in type, and the lithographing of the 
 illustrations for the other volume is nearly 
 done. I shall have an elective this winter in 
 economical geology, and also give a course of 
 popular (University) lectures on the physical 
 geography of North America. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, January^, 1877. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., . . . I have begun 
 taking lessons in Russian of an individual 
 named Panin. . Am curious to see if I have 
 
J. D. Whitney. Aetat. about 58 
 
IUbiJ :i H JLHY - { : . 
 
 and 'well, but . mental jy a h :ui:. 
 anxiety about Louisa has .quite npse 
 wrote two or three articles for the ".Niii 
 ist," in which publication I have a small p^ 
 cimiary interest One, I send you; another one, 
 much longer, which will follow in the October 
 and November numbers, will, I hope, interest 
 you. It is on the prairies. My plans for pub- 
 cation of the survey matters have, after much 
 pondering, taken pretty nearly their final shape. 
 One volume -uniform with the survey vol- 
 umes I propose to push ahead at once, It 
 will be as much economical in it* character as 
 possible. Another on%<$f>fog \-riter0u$ gravel 
 deposits of th-- ' ..'ufx. '*;.- '.-,.. *>*! Appear in 
 the Museum :-..-..* .^MJ-IU (ar^h One 
 
 hundred fifty;-,,, >:** ^ccnonyc^. ^^ 
 
 nines are in UP - t ana Ibc lithograpliiog^ $ 
 :1 lustrations 'ifyv. the other" ?olbii\^ *& r Utisalyi 
 i shall, have an elective U4^.^^er^- 
 economical geology, and also giv,s '-a ''Crotirse ,. : i>f 
 ilar (Ufiiversity) lectures 
 North America. 
 
 TO 'WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 ; ^ A M BRIDGE, jfonbar< 
 
 MY mAR W. D, , w.,^v '; I 
 ing. t essoas b - Russuia ' ot - 
 . /T '. Am ct 
 
STURGIS-HOOPER PROFESSORSHIP 331 
 
 grown too old to learn anything! August 
 Fries [a son of the celebrated violinist] asked 
 me, yesterday, if I did n't want to take lessons 
 on the violin ! ! He comes out now and fiddles 
 to Nora's accompaniment, once a week. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, April 23, 1877. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D., . . . You ask what I 
 have been doing this winter. Chiefly learning 
 to lecture. I have given two courses extending 
 through the whole year, speaking without notes 
 almost entirely, and trying to get the habit of 
 it. It seemed to me that if I put off doing this 
 much longer, I should never be able to do it at 
 all, and that it was a desirable thing to be able 
 to do it ; to have one's information so arranged 
 in his noddle that he could bring it forth flu- 
 ently and without making a muddle of it. I 
 use also a great many diagrams, etc., most of 
 which I have to prepare myself and many of 
 which are good for future use. I am preparing to 
 giveacourse next year on " Mountain Form and 
 Structure." My physical geography of North 
 America course ends May 5, and then I am 
 going at the gravel volume, hammer and tongs. 
 
 I am making some progress in Russian and 
 find my old love of "language and the study 
 of language " to have been only dormant these 
 
332 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 last twenty years. Have read a short novel, and 
 some fairy tales. 
 
 TO BARON F. VON RICHTHOFEN 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, June i, 1877. 
 
 MY DEAR BARON, Your welcome letter was 
 all the more welcome because it brought the 
 news that a volume of your great work was 
 finished. I am sure that no one will study it 
 with greater zeal and interest than I shall, and 
 I congratulate you most heartily on the aus- 
 picious event. It is all the more interesting to 
 me because of late I have been working on the 
 physical geography and geology of Asia, and 
 as a proof of my desire to learn (even at my 
 age ! ) I have, three months ago, commenced 
 the study of Russian, in which I hope I am 
 making some progress. I have heard of you 
 occasionally through the papers, and noticed 
 the frequently repeated statement that you had 
 accepted a professorship at Bonn. When I saw 
 you last, I was in great trouble ; my wife seemed 
 to be near the end of her life. I had hardly any 
 hope that she would live through the winter 
 when she reached home. After a year or more 
 of much suffering from a sort of nervous fever, 
 she began to get better, and now is much bet- 
 ter, although invalided. . . . 
 
 The legislature of California has done no- 
 
STURGIS-HOOPER PROFESSORSHIP 333 
 
 thing for the survey since I saw you. What I am 
 publishing is at my own risk and expense, and 
 I have not the support but the opposition of 
 the Regents of the University. The first vol- 
 ume of the Botany was paid for, in part, by 
 private subscription. The gravel volume will 
 form one of the Memoirs of the Zoological Mu- 
 seum I paying a considerable portion of the 
 expense. 
 
 Hayden's work is of much greater value than 
 Wheeler's, as the former has excellent assist- 
 ants, Wilson of the California Survey having 
 succeeded Gardner as chief topographer. Some 
 of his other leading men are my pupils. . . . 
 Hoffmann is in Virginia City. . . . Gabb is in 
 Santo Domingo, always hard at work. Gardner 
 is head of the topographical survey of New 
 York. King's work is nearly done and will be 
 all out this year. No doubt it will be a fine 
 contribution to science. Pumpelly is at his 
 home in Owego, N. Y. . . . I rarely hear from 
 him, for he is a detester of letter-writing. I 
 have been much interested in your contribu- 
 tions to the second edition of Yule's Marco Polo. 
 
 TO F. VON RICHTHOFEN 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, February 24, 1878. 
 
 . . . Last summer I spent a month in Ne- 
 vada, part of the time at Eureka, and a few 
 
334 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 days at Virginia City. I went down into the 
 "Hot Mines" and observed as high as 156*4 
 Fahrenheit at the bottom of one (the water), 
 the air from 130 to 140 Fahrenheit. I was 
 intensely interested in the physiological results 
 of this working in much higher temperatures 
 than ever before known, and would gladly have 
 spent the whole summer there. . . . 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, June 3, 1878. 
 
 ... I was just going myself this week to 
 Philadelphia, to see Gabb once more, but I 
 have just seen a letter from Baird to Allen, 
 stating that he died on the 3oth. On that very 
 day he wrote quite a long letter with a firm 
 hand to Louisa. I am glad he has not lingered 
 in pain and sorrow. . . . 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, September 22, 1878. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D., ... Take it easy, young 
 man ! don't be in a hurry to get back to work 
 again. Have at least a summer's vacation. I 
 wish that we had arranged to go up the Nile 
 together, this coming winter! As for me, I 
 start for the Himalaya to-morrow, via photo- 
 graphic line ; that is, [William Morris] Davis 
 arrives from India with 83 selected photographs 
 
STURGIS-HOOPER PROFESSORSHIP 335 
 
 of mountain scenery, which he says are fine. I 
 also rejoice in a picture (in oil) by [William] 
 Keith, of California mountain scenery, which 
 adorns the hall of our house, and which was, 
 so to speak, a present from Goodyear, who has 
 come on from California with a lot of Keith's 
 pictures, on speculation. They are now on ex- 
 hibition in New York. Last night I returned 
 from Trenton, N. J., where I have been look- 
 ing up flint implements in the "drift," of which 
 something in my gravel volume. The summer 
 has slipped away and I have hardly done more 
 than "clean house," including repapering the 
 lower part and fixing up generally. Cleanliness is 
 next to godliness, they say (who says ? ) ; that is 
 my only chance, I fear. Now for hard work on the 
 gravel volume! Meantime I have, with [Wil- 
 liam Henry] Pettee's help, prepared a supple- 
 ment to the " Barometric Hypsometry," setting 
 forth results obtained in California; and have, 
 I hope, concluded the negotiations for com- 
 pleting the "Water-birds" in two magnificent 
 volumes. Governor Stanford called on me yes- 
 terday (with $1,000,000 in his pocket for the 
 survey), but unluckily I missed him. The Bot- 
 any (II), for which the funds are provided, is 
 stuck on Engelmann. How long he will con- 
 tinue to let us stick, I cannot tell. I am almost 
 out of patience. . . . 
 
336 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 Louisa's little book [a story of her life in 
 England, entitled "Peasy's Childhood"] is 
 done, and is lovely to look at. It is to be dis- 
 tributed to particular friends at Christmas ; 
 only fifty copies printed from which you may 
 infer that she (Louisa) has not more than that 
 number of particular friends. Three hundred 
 will be the number I shall have to dispose of, 
 of my gravel volume; which I shall not give 
 away to particular friends, but only to those 
 on the big exchange list. The rest at $10 per 
 copy (with a cast of Jo Bowers 's [i. e. Cala- 
 veras] skull thrown in). 
 
 The enclosed extract fell under my eye in 
 last evening's paper, after this was written. I 
 never knew before what my religious faith was, 
 but see now that I am a Unitarian. 
 
 The period of independent geological sur- 
 veys by the several states was now drawing to 
 a close : the United States Geological Survey 
 was about to be born. The bill before Congress 
 provided for a consolidation of the various gov- 
 ernment surveys under King, Hayden, Wheeler, 
 and Powell ; and for the directorship of the 
 new organization, King and Hayden were the 
 foremost candidates. 
 
 Whitney, appealed to for aid by both men, 
 in spite of his personal feeling for his old friend 
 
FAMILY GROUP 
 
 J. D. Whitney, Sr.'s, children and grandchildren under the Jonathan Edwards Elm in 
 
 Northampton, 1878 
 
STURGIS-HOOPER PROFESSORSHIP 337 
 
 and assistant, sided with Hayden on the ground 
 that Hayden was the better man. 
 
 Hayden wrote from Washington, March 13, 
 1879, that he had learned that Whitney had 
 been seriously considered for the position " as 
 the first geologist of the age," offered his 
 support in case Whitney were a candidate, 
 and expressed his desire to serve under him 
 should he be successful. To this Whitney an- 
 swered : 
 
 TO FERDINAND V. HAYDEN 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, March 15, 1879. 
 
 MY DEAR DOCTOR, Your letter of the thir- 
 teenth was duly received. It was not exactly 
 from the motives you suggest that I declined 
 to endorse King, as requested by his friends, 
 "as being the best man in the United States 
 for the place." King has been my friend and 
 pupil, it is true; but you have worked hard and 
 indefatigably, and I did not feel called on to 
 put myself in opposition to you. I remembered 
 how much my brother (Professor W. D. of 
 Yale) thought of you and your work, and what 
 a good report he brought of his summer's 
 campaign with your party [in 1873], 
 
 Moreover, I did not wish to do anything 
 which should give any one a right to say that 
 I myself would not accept the place if it were 
 
338 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 offered to me in such a way that I should have 
 a right to feel that competent authority had ad- 
 judged me the most suitable person for the 
 place. I say again, what I said two months ago 
 to King, that I do not want the position, and 
 that I would not put myself forward in order to 
 obtain it. It does seem to me, however, that it 
 is a place that almost any working geologist in 
 the country would be glad to have, if he could 
 get it on the square; and that such as did not 
 want it might, very likely, feel it a duty to take 
 it, if they had a chance. Remembering how 
 hard you have worked in early days, and under 
 what disadvantages and in regard to this I 
 have already expressed myself most clearly in 
 print I cannot but sympathize with you in 
 your efforts to keep possession of the work you 
 have managed with so much ability. And I 
 may add that I have felt chagrined at the at- 
 tacks made on your private character by those 
 [i. e. the army engineers] who were seeking 
 to oust you. 
 
 If you succeed in getting the appointment, 
 I shall be one of the first to congratulate you, 
 and to offer you a lot of good advice as to the 
 way I think the work ought to be done ; and I 
 hope you will not blame me for believing that 
 in everything there is always room for improve- 
 ment. What I would particularly urge would 
 
STURGIS-HOOPER PROFESSORSHIP 339 
 
 be that the geological work should be made 
 more practical. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 J. D. WHITNEY. 
 
 King took his former chief's decision in good 
 part. " I do not doubt," he wrote at once, " that 
 your reasons are sound and good. ... I have 
 no blame for you in the matter. I believe you 
 always act fearlessly and as you think strictly 
 right. No man can do more." Thereupon King 
 turned the tables on his rival by getting Brewer 
 to see President Hayes, and convince him that 
 King and not Hayden had been the heir of 
 Whitney's topographical method, and had in- 
 troduced it into the Government surveys. So 
 the unpaid volunteer whom Whitney broke in 
 on the trip to Lassen's Peak, in 1863, became 
 in 1879, in spite of Whitney, head of the 
 United States Geological Survey. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 THE LAST OF THE CALIFORNIA REPORTS. 
 
 1879 TO 1882 
 
 WITH the spring of 1879, Mrs. Whitney's 
 health was so far restored that she could ven- 
 ture once more on a journey, not this time 
 around the world, but to the familiar ground of 
 Europe. Some account of this trip appears in 
 a letter, written after the return to Cambridge. 
 
 TO F. VON RICHTHOFEN 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, February 9, 1880. 
 
 MY DEAR BARON, Your favor ... is just 
 received and I will try to earn again the title 
 of "faithful correspondent," to which I have 
 certainly not maintained any claim of late. On 
 my way to Europe last spring I was taken sick 
 with a malarious attack (relic of the Wisconsin 
 Survey); trying to make it out to be nothing, 
 I kept moving, although really sick and un- 
 able to do anything, while a week of rest and 
 nursing at home would have easily cured me. 
 At Vienna I was still only able to get about 
 a little. I did get your letter, and saw Hoch- 
 stetter, as well as many others of the scientific 
 men. Of Posepny [" the only one besides my- 
 
CALIFORNIA REPORTS 341 
 
 self who is a specialist in mineral veins "] and 
 Steindacher both of whom had been our 
 guests either at Cambridge or San Francisco 
 we saw a good deal ; and they were exceed- 
 ingly kind and hospitable. 
 
 The great event at Vienna while we were 
 there, was the production of the " Niebelungen 
 Ring," which I managed to sit through and 
 enjoy, by dint of staying in bed most of the 
 daytime. In Trieste I was sick for three days ; 
 in Venice I began to feel a little like myself, and 
 after six weeks in the Upper Engadine, was all 
 right again, although it was fearfully cold. My 
 wife improved in health all the time we were 
 abroad, and my daughter gained somewhat 
 We went down the Rhine and passed Bonn 
 the latter part of August, when I knew that 
 you would not be there. 
 
 From the Rhine we went to Paris, where 
 we stayed some time, and my daughter became 
 engaged (verlobt) to an American artist, liv- 
 ing for the time at Ecouen, a few miles away. 
 He is the son of a prominent and wealthy 
 man, born in Massachusetts, and now of St. 
 Louis, name Allen. The marriage is expected 
 to be here next June, and the young couple to 
 return to Ecouen in the Autumn. I ought to 
 have written you from Paris ; my excuse must 
 be that we were head over heels in excitement. 
 
342 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 My brother (William) and all his family were 
 there; and previously at the Axenstein (on 
 Lake Lucerne) we gathered ten members of 
 our family around the table. My brother, dur- 
 ing the year he was abroad, completed and 
 published, in English and in German, his San- 
 skrit grammar, and he is now at home at work 
 on his long since promised second volume of 
 the " Atharva-Veda." I am just sending to 
 press the first pages of the concluding part 
 of the gravel volume, two having been already 
 published. . . . King is figuring at Washing- 
 ton for enormous appropriations, intending to 
 monopolize the geology of the entire country. 
 Should he succeed, I shall probably abandon 
 Californian geological work, as I cannot com- 
 pete with the United States. I have a large 
 quantity of material on hand ; but it won't pay 
 to publish it ; there will be no sale, as all the 
 geology of the country will be distributed from 
 Washington gratis. 
 
 In the meantime there was need of more 
 facts on the California gravels, and Whitney 
 sent his assistant, William Henry Pettee, into 
 the Sierra Nevada; while another assistant, 
 Marshman Edward Wadsworth, went into north- 
 ern Michigan, to secure ammunition where- 
 with to repel certain new attacks on the 
 
CALIFORNIA REPORTS 343 
 
 conclusion of Foster and Whitney's old Lake 
 Superior reports. The results of Wadsworth's 
 work appeared in 1880 as " Notes on the Geo- 
 logy of the Iron and Copper Districts of Lake 
 Superior." 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, December 24, 1879. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., . . . Ice on the brain 
 is the trouble with me at present, for I am 
 in a very inflamed condition on the so-called 
 " Great Ice Age," about which I am trying to 
 work my ideas into shape. 
 
 My fellow graveler has returned from Cali- 
 fornia, and I expect him here in a few days, to 
 go on with writing up his notes. As soon as 
 possible thereafter, I shall begin printing the 
 final part of the gravel volume. Mr. Wads- 
 worth is going over the whole ground of our 
 Lake Superior work in the light of the new 
 lithological methods, having spent the summer 
 on the Lake. I hope he will be able to show up 
 the iniquities of Sterry Hunt & Co. and rub up 
 the tarnished glory of F. & W., till the old 
 pewter plates shine as good as new. I feel the 
 greatest confidence that we were right on every 
 one of our main points. 
 
 King's operations are becoming a source of 
 a good deal of interest to some geologists, in- 
 
344 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 eluding your humble servant. I hope you read 
 Dana's article on the subject in the last A. J. S. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, March 13, 1880. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D., I believe I never was so 
 driven as I am this winter. The devil (printer's) 
 is after me every day to the tune of three quarto 
 pages of proof and three of revise besides 
 lecturing and looking after all the odds and 
 ends of Pettee's and Wadsworth's work, etc. 
 When you come on, I mean to take a vacation. 
 Before that time, I mean to have the most diffi- 
 cult part of my present work in type and can 
 rest before beginning on the remainder. Dress- 
 goods, outfits, and the wedding [of his daugh- 
 ter] are the prominent topics discussed in the 
 house outside my sanctum. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 May 9, 1880. 
 
 I send the " Climatic Changes," and is n't 
 this one of them? And aren't you glad you are 
 back home and haven't got to go to Solomon's 
 to-night; and uberhaupt, what is the world 
 coming to with the mercury at 91 early in May, 
 and is it the sun-spots, after all ? Dies irae, dies 
 ilia, solvet saeclum infavilla, no wonder Sy- 
 billa was testy about it ! 
 
CALIFORNIA REPORTS 345 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, July 3, 1880. 
 
 ... I did arrive just in time to welcome 
 several batches of proof-sheets and maps, and 
 to give my blessing (?) to [Sereno] Watson, 
 who starts for the far West to-day . . . leaving 
 the Botany for me to finish up and publish. I 
 also learned on my arrival that Pettee, whom I 
 had counted on for a month's help in July, was 
 about to fail me, having had a " loud call " to go 
 to Colorado for the summer. So here I am tied 
 down, for six weeks at least. If I can get a 
 couple of days ahead of the printer, I will surely 
 run up and get a breath of (Horse) mountain 
 air. . . . 
 
 This weather will, I fear, cast a damper on 
 the bridal pair. . . . Let us hope that the rain 
 will last long enough to put out the fire- 
 crackers and the small boys of the Fourth. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, August 6, 1880. 
 
 Yours of the fourth from Bethlehem after 
 which you could not properly write "jewed 
 here," to judge from the price you pay for a 
 letter-box has arrived. As now is a good op- 
 portunity to read up what you otherwise might 
 neglect, I send you Wadsworth's article on Lake 
 
346 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 Superior. I don't feel so much the necessity of 
 going there as I did, as you will naturally infer 
 when you have read the article. Still I would 
 like to have another look at the country, and to 
 strike a few stronger blows in favor of the old 
 firm of F. & W. to rivet the bolts that Wads- 
 worth has stuck in. Seems to me that meta- 
 phor is getting a little mixed. It is all owing to 
 my having just been writing about a steam 
 boiler carried down a ravine by a cloud-bust in 
 California. 
 
 I shan't make any plans for travel until the 
 gr. vol. is done. Botany II goes on to the press 
 next week, as well as a second edition of I. Then 
 the " Gravels " will be ready to follow. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, October 8, 1880. 
 
 . . . The last page of my works at present 
 to be printed left the press to-day. All will 
 be in the binder's hands by Wednesday next. 
 My edition is differently put together from 
 that of the Museum, and will form two quarto 
 volumes of about equal size, of which only one 
 appears now, entirely devoted to the gravels. 
 The other contains the fossil plants and the 
 " Climatic Changes." Only the Museum copies 
 of Part I of " Climatic Changes " are now to be 
 issued. 
 
CALIFORNIA REPORTS 347 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, December 31, 1880. 
 
 . . . Our recess ends on Monday and I be- 
 gin lecturing that day. I have two courses now: 
 one on dynamical, and the other on economical 
 geology. Both take much time in the way of 
 preparing diagrams, etc. I expect soon to 
 begin putting the second part of " Climatic 
 Changes " in type. The work on the birds 
 ("Water Birds of North America") is now 
 fairly begun, the cuts being all done and deliv- 
 ered, as well as the MS., 520 odd cuts and a pile 
 of MS. three feet high. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, March 30, 1881. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., The Mirza Johann Ar- 
 senias, a Persian, . . . called yesterday . . . and 
 seemed to have a good deal confused me with 
 you, as you are aware others have done before 
 him. He wants to teach Syriac and Turkish, 
 and seemed to be desirous, when he found out 
 that W. D. and J. D. were two distinct entities, 
 of having me write to you and ask if he might 
 perhaps get any pupils in New Haven, he hav- 
 ing an idea that he might divide his valuable 
 services between the two institutions to which 
 we respectively (and respectably, I trust) belong. 
 
348 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 Do you need any Syriac at your place? This 
 man with the poisonous name has lived in 
 Constantinople, St. Petersburg, and London, 
 and at each place done translating work for 
 some governmental concern. 
 
 I sent on A. Gr. and Bot. II this morning. 
 Tell Brewer, if you see him, that I don't feel 
 very happy at Eaton's having omitted all no- 
 tice of the California Geological Survey in 
 connection with his praise of the Botany 
 which one would imagine, from the way Eaton 
 puts it, had grown to maturity without any 
 connection with the Geological Survey or with 
 your humble servant, who took the risk and 
 advanced a large part of the needed money, 
 paying Watson and Gray respectively for their 
 work, and doing most of the drudgery himself 
 without remuneration. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 INNSBRUCK, July i, 1881. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., This is to certify that 
 we are alive and well and so far on our travels. 
 We went directly from Paris to Turin, thence 
 to Genoa, Florence, Bologna, Venice, Villach, 
 Toblach, Cortina d' Ampezzo, and Innsbruck, 
 having been just about a month on the round. 
 From here to the Salzkammergut, thence to 
 Munich, and to join Eleanor ... at Ecouen 
 
CALIFORNIA REPORTS 349 
 
 [where the Aliens made their home] August 
 first for a month more somewhere. We sail from 
 Liverpool for Boston, September fourteenth. 
 . . . Louisa is well and enjoying the journey 
 very much. . . . 
 
 Nothing has been heard directly from you 
 as yet; but the papers inform us that you were 
 at the Greek play at Harvard. They omit to 
 say how you enjoyed it. According to Pettee's 
 account it was a great success. . . . 
 
 Travel has hardly begun yet in these parts, 
 so that we can have all the accommodations 
 we need without scrambling for them. I never 
 knew before how beautiful Italy is in summer, 
 that is, in the beginning of summer. The Dolo- 
 mites I revisited after an absence of nearly forty 
 years. They are still there ! And grander than 
 ever. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 LEIPZIG, July 23, 1881. 
 
 MY DEAR WILLIAM, ... The glaciers are 
 " going, going, gone " in the parts of the Alps 
 where I have been this year. The Ortler Spitz 
 looks very different from what it did forty years 
 ago, as I can testify, and I have secured some 
 fine photographs which show the thing in great 
 perfection. ... I have put in a few "good 
 licks " in the geological way, and got some 
 
350 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 valuable documents and information, as well 
 as a few fine photographs. One place we have 
 visited this time which was new to me, Ratis- 
 bon. The " Walhalla" is most superb ! and the 
 Cathedral not to be sneezed at. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, October 2., 1881. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., We arrived on Wednes- 
 day . . . and in good health and spirits after a 
 very rough and disagreeable trip. . . . 
 
 Of course there is the usual mountain of work 
 to be climbed, although I have as yet done 
 nothing but run round and attend to miscel- 
 laneous business. The principal task of the 
 coming year will be to finish the " Climatic 
 Changes." An elaborate paper on another sub- 
 ject has been in hand for a year or more, and 
 will probably be published this year as a joint 
 Arbeit of Wadsworth and myself. ... Of lec- 
 turing I shall have little to do this year. Last 
 year I devoted almost entirely to it. When I do 
 resume lectures, I shall give the second part 
 of my course on dynamic geology, or that re- 
 lating to volcanicity and mountain building 
 say fifty lectures for which, however, a large 
 amount of work, as preparatory, will have to be 
 done, both in study and in preparation of dia- 
 grams. When this is done, I shall have the 
 
CALIFORNIA REPORTS 351 
 
 "stock and fixtures" of two courses of lectures 
 say two hundred in all. 
 
 When shall we meet again ? I do not foresee 
 being called to New York this year, but mean 
 to go to Northampton soon. Could n't you 
 come up and spend a day at Northampton ? 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, March 12, 1882. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D., Since you were so kind 
 as to say that you would read over the electro- 
 typed pages of the " Climatic Changes "II be- 
 fore the printing was done, I now send on a 
 package, by express, containing all the remain- 
 der of chapter two and all of chapter three ex- 
 cept, perhaps, fifteen pages not yet all in type. 
 I have decided to issue this at once, leaving 
 chapter four, which forms so to speak a 
 distinct division of the work, to follow about 
 three or four months later. People are beginning 
 to edge over on to my ground, and I would like 
 to secure as much priority as possible for my 
 ideas ; besides I shall not feel so much hurried 
 with chapter four if this on hand is issued. 
 
 I flatter myself that reading this stuff I send 
 you will be rather easy, and hope that I may 
 hear that you even smole a smile occasionally, 
 in perusing it. No one has read it except Mr. 
 [Alexander] Agassiz, who was kind enough 
 
352 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 to express high approval ; but I want from you 
 some criticism, and especially of any slips in 
 style, which may have escaped my notice, and 
 which it may be worth while to correct at 
 60 cents an hour ! 
 
 The letter, or perhaps the telegram, to which 
 the following is a reply is no longer extant: 
 its nature, however, is not hard to guess. Rev. 
 Nathan Birdseye is a maternal great-great- 
 grandfather who preached his last sermon a 
 year or two before his death at one hundred 
 and three. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, April 24, 1882. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., The aged grandfather 
 totters to his writing-table to address you a line 
 of thanks for your congratulations. I always 
 felt curious to know how Nathan Birdseye felt 
 as he drew toward the eighties after his gradua- 
 tion ; now I know how it is myself. We have 
 as yet only the bare cable message, and await 
 the details of the great event with no little 
 anxiety. The " hen with one chicken," you will 
 naturally exclaim. When we hear farther we 
 will communicate the news to you ; meantime 
 we trust that la petite Fran$aise is all right, as 
 well as Madame la Mere. 
 
CALIFORNIA REPORTS 353 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, May 10, 1882. 
 
 MY DEAR WILL, When one has bad news 
 to communicate, it is best to plunge in at once. 
 This has been a week of heavy trouble. Louisa 
 was operated on, Tuesday, for strangulated 
 hernia. The doctor will give no satisfactory 
 assurance that she will recover; although to 
 me, knowing her constitution so well, her 
 symptoms do not seem so very unfavorable. 
 
 Tom telegraphed on the very day after the 
 operation, that Eleanor was dangerously ill 
 from the results of an abscess. Another tele- 
 gram yesterday was not favorable; indeed it 
 was very much the other way. 
 
 TO F. VON RICHTHOFEN 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, June 9, 1882. 
 
 MY DEAR BARON, Your letters of May tenth 
 and twentieth were duly received, that of latter 
 date this day. The card which was sent you some 
 three weeks ago has, no doubt, reached you, 
 and told you how at one blow I was left alone 
 in the world. You saw enough of us in Cali- 
 fornia to know how happily we lived together 
 my wife, my only child, and I. In 1874 we 
 again met you in Berlin, my wife then a sad 
 invalid, my daughter a blooming girl of seven- 
 
354 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 teen, whom we had left at Hannover, that she 
 might learn to love Germany and German ways 
 which she did, becoming a child of the house, 
 in the family of dear friends there. When we 
 left Europe to return, in 1874, I fully believed 
 that my wife had but few weeks to live ; and 
 she thought only of reaching home, so that she 
 might die among friends, and in her own coun- 
 try. But after months of suffering, during which 
 she wrote two volumes (which were afterwards 
 published for distribution among her friends), 
 she rallied, and for most of the time after that, 
 seemed to enjoy a tolerable measure of health. 
 In 1879 we again went to Europe, but did not 
 see you. Most of that summer we spent in 
 the Engadine, my daughter not being strong, 
 although well enough to enjoy life. The next 
 year she was married to a man, whom we all 
 soon learned to love, a young artist, son of a 
 very noble and influential man, Thomas Allen 
 of St. Louis, one of the finest types of an 
 American. In the autumn of 1880, my daugh- 
 ter and her husband returned to Europe and 
 took up their residence at Ecouen, near Paris, 
 a favorite resort of landscape painters. Here 
 last summer, just a year ago, we found them 
 living in idyllic happiness, every possible bless- 
 ing seeming to have been showered upon them'. 
 Together we visited the Channel Islands, where 
 
CALIFORNIA REPORTS 355 
 
 they spent July and August ; and thence went 
 to London, where mother and daughter parted, 
 never again to meet in this world. . . . 
 
 June eighth, however, my wife was seized with 
 a sudden and violent illness, which proved to be 
 the result of a strangulated hernia. She was 
 operated on for it at once ; but sank away after 
 the operation, and died on the thirteenth, with- 
 out having suffered much pain or having had 
 any clear idea that her end was so near. The 
 day after the operation, came a telegram that 
 my daughter was in the greatest danger ; and 
 she, dear, lovely girl, followed her mother only 
 a few hours later neither having known any- 
 thing of the other's condition. Only two days 
 before her death, my wife told the doctor how 
 happy she was in feeling that Eleanor had 
 everything that could be asked for, and that 
 her cup of happiness was full to overflowing. 
 
 My wife was buried at Northampton one 
 of the loveliest spots in the world where 
 Eleanor and I were born ; and there the dear 
 child will be laid to rest, beside her mother, 
 probably on the second anniversary of her mar- 
 riage. And I am alone nothing left of my 
 own family but a little granddaughter, six weeks 
 old. ... In about a week they will start to 
 bring back the living child and the dead mother. 
 Such is my sad story. I have told it to you in 
 
356 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 brief, because I felt that you saw enough of us 
 in our happiness in California, to wish to know 
 something of me in my sorrows. . . . 
 
 TO F. VON RICHTHOFEN 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, June 21, 1882. 
 
 MY DEAR BARON, I thank you most sin- 
 cerely for your kind and sympathising letter of 
 the third, just received. A few days ago I did 
 write you something of myself and my sorrows. 
 My son-in-law, Mr. Allen, is now on his way 
 home with the baby and all that is left of his 
 dear wife and my beloved daughter, of whom, 
 as you say, I was so proud. I shall wait with 
 anxiety to know where he intends to live and 
 what he means to do, before making any change 
 myself. In the meantime, I am trying to finish 
 the " Climatic Changes," of which about a hun- 
 dred pages remain to be put in type. As my 
 strength may not hold out to do it, or as delay 
 may arise, I send you by mail a copy of the 
 work, so far as completed. You will see from 
 the circular enclosed, what my plans are; or 
 rather what they were at the beginning of last 
 month, when everything looked so bright to me. 
 
 Please present my sincerest regards to your 
 wife and thank her for her expressions of sym- 
 pathy and accept the same for yourself, from 
 your very sincere friend, J. D. WHITNEY. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE CENTURY DICTIONARY 
 
 WHITNEY had always been a solitary man, who 
 found his happiness in his family and in his 
 work, rather than in his friends. For several 
 years after his great sorrow he lived in retire- 
 ment, and from this seclusion he slowly and 
 only partly emerged. In time, nevertheless, his 
 wonted cheerfulness came back; if he was not 
 happy, he was at least content. 
 
 Whitney was now, for the first time in his 
 life, established in a permanent abiding place 
 under his own roof. In 1885, he gave up the 
 dwelling on Oxford Street, which for fifteen 
 years he had rented of B. A. Gould ; and bought 
 No. 2 Divinity Avenue, on the same street with 
 the Agassiz Museum, and only a hundred or 
 two yards away. It is a dignified old house, and 
 the library, which takes up the entire street 
 front, is counted one of the most beautiful 
 rooms in Cambridge. This house soon became 
 the family centre, in place of Northampton ; 
 for J.D.Whitney, senior, had died in 1869 and 
 his wife in 1876, and the sons and daughters 
 were resorting less and less to their old home. 
 
 But though sisters and nieces made long visits 
 
358 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 and filled in some measure the place of wife 
 and daughter, the Sturgis-Hooper Professor of 
 Geology remained his own housekeeper. His 
 is by no means the only case in which a success- 
 ful administrator has taken on the care of a 
 household, and found the task easy to his prac- 
 ticed hand. Mrs. Whitney's uncertain health 
 had from the first made her husband familiar 
 with domestic matters ; a lifelong interest in all 
 beautiful things had given him a discriminat- 
 ing taste in household furniture, and he took 
 a real pride in his " new old " house. His home- 
 making methods were characteristic. He picked 
 his maids carefully, paid them well, worked 
 them lightly, judged them by results, specified 
 that they should be called Mary for the con- 
 venience of Mrs. Whitney's parrot, and kept 
 them for years. Every day he walked to Har- 
 vard Square and did his marketing. 
 
 His beloved books came also to rest, the less 
 technical portion at his house, the working li- 
 brary in two ample rooms in the Museum build- 
 ing, where it still remains, the property of the 
 University. Here, after 1882, was his work- 
 room, on the second floor, in the sunny corner 
 of the north wing, where he could look out 
 across the quadrangle to the Divinity School 
 and his own house. 
 
 The life of a university professor, long estab- 
 
THE CENTURY DICTIONARY 359 
 
 lished in his chair, is apt to be an uneventful one, 
 happy indeed if it has no history. For Whit- 
 ney it was a life of steady and pleasant toil, 
 diversified by daily walks about Cambridge or 
 into the country, and by summers spent with 
 his relatives, usually at Lake Placid in the Adi- 
 rondacks, on the South Shore of Long Island, 
 or at Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire. 
 
 One special solace he had during the com- 
 parative leisure of his later years his love for 
 music. Several of his nieces were skilled mu- 
 sicians ; and during their long visits especially, 
 there was much musical company. He played 
 no more on any of the eight musical instruments 
 of his youth, but he had made to order the best 
 piano that could be built, and he belonged to 
 a small club of musically minded people, who 
 imported new music, and met regularly to study 
 the works of new composers. His special joy 
 was the concerts of the Boston Symphony Or- 
 chestra. For these he had always two tickets ; 
 and he was accustomed to secure the programs 
 in advance, and to send to Europe for the 
 scores of unfamiliar works. Thus his musical 
 library became in time no less remarkable than 
 his other collections of books. It is related 
 that Professor Paine, head of the department 
 of music in the University, once called on the 
 professor of geology to see whether, by any 
 
360 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 chance, Whitney possessed a certain musical 
 work not owned by the college library ; and 
 when this was promptly brought forth, prof- 
 fered with equal success a second and then a 
 third like request. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, September 16, 1883. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., We returned from 
 our little trip to the White Mountains on Friday, 
 having been immensely favored by the weather, 
 during all the nine days of our absence. It was 
 cool enough to make walking a pleasure, and a 
 fire in the house a comfort. It always rained a 
 little just before we had to ride in any direction, 
 so as to lay the dust; and greatest favor of all 
 by far we had an exhibition of the "frost- 
 work phenomenon," or frost feathers, as some 
 call it, gotten up on Mt. Washington for our 
 special benefit. I was quite unaware that it had 
 ever been seen in summer; or rather, at any 
 time except midwinter, and could not find out 
 from any one on the summit, that it ever had 
 been. I saw a good deal of the country, as- 
 cended Kearsage, Mt. Washington, Sugar Hill, 
 and Bald Mountain points just suited to give 
 me an idea of the glacial conditions. Never was 
 a greater absurdity broached, than that Mt. 
 Washington has been passed over by an ice- 
 
THE CENTURY DICTIONARY 361 
 
 sheet. I could not find anywhere in the White 
 Mountains any proofs of anything other than 
 local glaciation, and not much of that. I also 
 examined the " Flume," through which the 
 "avalanche" went last June, and saw that the 
 famous "boulder," which had been put up in the 
 Flume by ice, according to the glacialists, had 
 been carried away by water, and carried a thou- 
 sand feet, although more than 10 feet long. 
 Also other things too numerous to mention. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, September 19, 1883. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., In regard to Brother 
 B.'s dictum touching the "Continental Ice 
 Sheet," I think that he will find that he does 
 not know as much about it as he thinks he 
 does, when he reads Vol. IV of the "Contri- 
 butions to American Geology." (Volume III 
 is well under way now.) I have studied the 
 subject more thoroughly than he has, and 
 have had better opportunities than any one 
 so far as I can judge for observing. I have 
 studied every glaciated region of importance, 
 except the polar, over and over again. 
 
 The only professional geologist who has 
 ever visited Greenland, Laube, writes me that 
 my views entirely coincide with his. Nordens- 
 kjold has just discovered what I published 
 
362 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 two years ago that Greenland is much less 
 accessible than it was five or six hundred 
 years ago. Richthofen, now Professor of Phys- 
 ical Geology in Peschel's place at Leipzig, 
 writes that although my views are hard to 
 swallow, yet he does not see how the evidence 
 I offer can be overcome, etc. As for Mt. 
 Washington, I can bring positive evidence 
 that no ice-sheet ever passed over that point. 
 It is very likely that I shall, before long, issue 
 a sort of forerunner of my glacial ideas. . . . 
 All I claim at present is that I know very 
 little about the causes and conditions of the 
 glacial phenomena in northeastern North 
 America; while lots of young fellows, who 
 never saw a glacier in their lives, " know all 
 about it" as the servants in Goodwin's 
 kitchen about God. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY , 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, October 7, 1884. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., I am glad that you 
 think that we have been temperate in the tone 
 of our " Azoic System." Nobody can tell what 
 an amount of work on my part and on that of 
 Mr. Wadsworth has been put into that volume. 
 Time will settle the question whether we are 
 right or not; if we are, we deserve some credit, 
 I think. Dana hates to give up his name 
 
THE CENTURY DICTIONARY 363 
 
 Archaean, but he has to admit that we have 
 settled the question of the subdivisions of the 
 Azoic or Archaean. Quite a number of the 
 younger geologists have written, expressing 
 adherence to our views. We do not expect 
 much from the older ones. ... 
 
 C. A. White of the United States Geological 
 Survey was here to-day, just back from Cali- 
 fornia, where he has been going over my 
 ground, with my books in his hand. He was 
 gracious enough to admit that he had not 
 been able to find that we had not done our 
 work well. In fact, he expressed surprise that 
 we had been able to accomplish so much. 
 
 Benjamin E. Smith was managing editor of 
 the Century Dictionary and William Whit- 
 ney its editor-in-chief. By 1883, the original 
 project for a revision of the old Imperial 
 had grown into the plan for the great work 
 which finally appeared in 1889. Not unnatu- 
 rally, the chief editor turned to his brother for 
 assistance with the mining terms. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, May 15, 1883. 
 
 DEAR W. D. W., . . . As for the diction- 
 ary work, it is astonishing with what skill 
 the mining words are defined in the Imperial 
 
364 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 Dictionary. I mean, skill in missing the point. 
 If I am to do the mining terms, I must have 
 the metallurgical and geological, for they can- 
 not be separate. In the selection of words in- 
 cluded under mining, the Imperial is as bad 
 as or worse than any other dictionary there 
 has been neither rhyme nor reason about it. 
 It is evidently the work of one entirely un- 
 acquainted with the subject, as I feel sure I 
 could demonstrate, if you won't take my word 
 for it. Many important words are omitted, and 
 some introduced which are defunct and have 
 been for centuries if ever alive. What shall 
 I do? 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, May 16, 1883. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., I am sorry that you 
 did not tell me at first, that the subjects of 
 geology, mineralogy, and metallurgy had been 
 assigned. . . . Had I known this, I should 
 never have dreamed of offering to undertake 
 the mining terms. . . . Anyway I could not 
 do justice to the subject without a great deal 
 of labor and some space to display the results. 
 A separate polyglot work, embracing geolo- 
 gical, mining, ore-dressing, and metallurgical 
 terms, is what is needed, and the especial in- 
 terest would be in tracing the history of the 
 mining art in its progress from one country to 
 
THE CENTURY DICTIONARY 365 
 
 another. In no dictionary that I have exam- 
 ined, has there been any evidence found that 
 the author of the definitions of the mining 
 terms has had any practical acquaintance with 
 the subject. 
 
 The Imperial illustrates this statement 
 better than any dictionary I have met with. I 
 cannot understand why there should be this 
 fatality with regard to the mining words es- 
 pecially. 
 
 William Whitney's solution of the difficulty 
 was simple enough: Josiah kept the mining 
 terms, and became responsible in addition for 
 metals and metallurgy, lithology, geology, phy- 
 sical geography, and for want of a better man, 
 of fossil botany besides. It was largely a labor 
 of love on his part, for he took vastly more 
 pains than he was paid for, sent abroad at his 
 own expense for books to prove usage, and in 
 addition to his own work, kept an eye on all 
 the scientific definitions, and revised the entire 
 proof. A by-product of this labor was " Names 
 and Places," which appeared in limited edition 
 in 1888, a curious little book full of strange 
 lore concerning the terms of geography. 
 
 In the meanwhile, Whitney kept on with 
 his geological publications and his teaching. 
 
3 66 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, August 25, 1885. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., . . . The sail to 
 Rockland, where we only stopped five minutes, 
 and from there to Boston, was still, calm, and 
 comfortable, and the sunrise, as we approached 
 Boston Harbor and all the Smiths (i. e. genus 
 humanum) of Boston, was lovely. I never 
 sailed up the harbor before under favorable 
 circumstances, and hardly ever before was in 
 the business part of the city on Sunday morn- 
 ing. It was a curious sensation. I should men- 
 tion that we arrived at seven o'clock exactly. 
 On the boat I picked up a piece of a Bar 
 Harbor newspaper, in which it was stated that 
 the Island of Mount Desert was named in 
 honor of De Mons, a French officer. I knew 
 this was absurd, and so looked up the name in 
 Champlain, and here copy what he says of it 
 in the edition of 1632. (The earlier one has 
 nearly the same thing in a little more antique 
 spelling.) ". . . Je 1'ay nommee 1'isle des Monts- 
 deserts" (island of the barren mountains, or 
 barren-mountain island for "desert" really 
 means a mixture of barren and uninhabited, 
 or that which is uninhabited because it is 
 barren). You see that the theories that the 
 mountains have been laid bare by fire, will 
 
THE CENTURY DICTIONARY 367 
 
 not hold water, that is, unless it was done 
 before 1607. . . . 
 
 This rain is splendid for washing off new 
 paint! It will clear the outside of my house off 
 as slick as a whistle. 
 
 must 
 
 Them peaches win not be forgotten! 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, December 28, 1885. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., I have received a 
 package addressed in the most legible manner: 
 " Professor C. D. Whitney 
 
 Yale College 
 
 Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A." 
 Is it for you, or me, or for neither of us? 
 P. S. On opening the same, at a venture, I 
 found it to be a German-English grammar, by 
 one Meissner, evidently intended for me, since 
 to send a German grammar to you, would be 
 expressing coals to Newcastle. However, if 
 you desire it, you can have it for fifteen cents, 
 the amount U. S. demanded of me, in the 
 way of duty. Should this grammar fall into 
 your hands, I would like you to read an exer- 
 cise on "Climate," near the end, as a remark- 
 able specimen of the kind of stuff in common 
 circulation and believed in by many, in refer- 
 ence to historic changes of climate. 
 
368 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, March 27, 1887. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., Will you give in- 
 structions to B. E. Smith that my definition 
 of the word Archaean be put in the place of 
 that in the C. D. (see galley-slip enclosed)? I 
 have written it with care, following very closely 
 A. Geikie, and sacrificing myself, inasmuch as 
 I have admitted that Dana's name has in gen- 
 eral use replaced mine. Not that I believe at all 
 that his is philosophically correct, since I feel 
 sure that, in the future, they will come back 
 to mine (i. e. F. & W.'s). Furthermore: I will 
 now say, once for all, that I will do no more 
 work on the C. D., until I receive assurance 
 that my definitions will not be tinkered, and 
 that alterations will not be made in them with- 
 out my consent, and that all words of which 
 my definitions form an important part shall be 
 submitted to me for approval, before being put 
 in type. Only on these conditions, which are 
 substantially those which I was originally given 
 to understand would be those prevailing with 
 the experts, will I proceed with the work, which 
 is one of great labor, and one from which I 
 shall get only worry and disgust, if my care- 
 fully written definitions are to be tinkered by 
 one entirely unacquainted with the subjects to 
 
Josiah Divight Whitney and William Divight Whitney 
 
 The Two Brothers 
 

 TO WILLIAM DYVIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, March 27, 
 
 MY DEAR W. D.W., Will you give 
 ^ructions to B. E. Smith that my definition 
 the word Archaean be put in the place of 
 :hat in the C D. (see galley-slip enclosed)? I 
 have written it with care, following very closely 
 A. Geikie, and sacrificing myself" inasrnucl 
 I have admitted that Dana's name has in gen- 
 eral use replaced mine. Not that I believe at all 
 that his is philosophically correct, since I 
 sure that, in the future, they will 
 to mine (i. e. F & W.'sj. F 
 now say, once fnr all, &t J 
 work on th*. C U,, ytmi [ assiirs- 
 
 that my c ,$ will not be tinken 
 
 that alterations will not be made in them w 
 out my consent, and that all words of wl 
 my definitions form an importau- part sh 
 submitted to me for approval, before beii 
 in type. Only on these conditions, 'wh: 
 substantially those which I was original] v 
 to understand would be those prevailii 
 the experts, will I proceed with the work 
 is one of great labor, and one frorr 
 shall get only worry and disgust, i 
 
 iu 4^4^8aw^ ,^- 
 
 me entirely u :3 to 
 
 \ 
 
THE CENTURY DICTIONARY 369 
 
 which they belong. I must also add that, if 
 things go on as they have gone, I shall be 
 obliged in self-defence to disclaim all responsi- 
 bility for anything in the C. D., and to publish 
 a glossary of words in my department, in which 
 the Smithian interpolated portions are left out. 
 I await an answer before proceeding any 
 farther. 
 
 You have probably not heard that I have 
 been elected Foreign Member of the Geolo- 
 gical Society of London, an honor which I 
 share with three Americans: J. D. Dana, Jas. 
 Hall, and Newberry. So far as I can judge, it 
 is chiefly in recognition of the value of the 
 "Azoic System," which treads pretty heavy 
 on some of the older geologists' toes, but the 
 newer school is in office in the Society now. 
 Lis sub judice est, i. e. Judd is president, and 
 Murchison and Carpenter defunct. Les absents 
 ont toujours tort. 
 
 P. S. I would not wish you to infer that I 
 am not willing to receive hints and informa- 
 tion and new words, even if they be not to be 
 found in my glossary in 37 languages say, 
 as has been the case in Tartar. But I will not 
 consent to any words being admitted on which 
 no light can be thrown, save that they are in 
 another dictionary. I am continually trying to 
 impress it on the Smithian mind, that diction- 
 
370 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 aries are no authorities. You have already got 
 some "gimcracks" in the C. D., and very seedy 
 they look! 
 
 This sputter on the part of the editorial 
 contributor, it is only fair to say, is merely a 
 bit of the inevitable friction between the two 
 sides of every publishing enterprise. Whitney 
 and his managing editor remained excellent 
 friends. On "azoic," however, Whitney was 
 fairly beaten; for the era proves to be by no 
 means lifeless. Aside, nevertheless, from mere 
 names, to Foster and Whitney's old report be- 
 longs the credit of first recognizing distinctly 
 the importance of this formation in North 
 America. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, July i (almost), 1889. 
 Ther. 85, will be 95 to-morrow. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., . . . I think I shall 
 stick by this village until the summery, sim- 
 mery school has sizzled out. Please give me 
 one more item of information, viz., where you 
 recover your express matter. I might want to 
 send a package of novels in case the children 
 should cry for the same. 
 
 I am not of the same mind as you, in regard 
 to the criticisms of Newcomb. I think they 
 
THE CENTURY DICTIONARY 371 
 
 were just, and argue that he had a good 
 opinion of the dictionary in general, or he 
 would not have condescended to spend his 
 time on it. I distinctly remember my surprise 
 at the definition of "alidade," and wondered 
 who could have been responsible for it. A 
 very considerable number of definitions of this 
 kind I have already rewritten. I never re- 
 ceived any thanks for this; and in fact, I 
 rather inferred from the tone of the letters re- 
 ceived, that such criticisms were unwelcome. 
 Sometimes I have said that such and such a 
 word was absurdly defined, and offered to re- 
 write it; but have received no response. Some- 
 times I have rewritten, and my word has (I 
 suppose) been adopted. I recollect particularly 
 "horizon" and "artificial horizon," the former 
 of which words was incorrectly and incom- 
 pletely defined, and the latter absurdly. I re- 
 wrote both from beginning to end, and sup- 
 pose that my words were accepted. Almost 
 all the definitions of surveying instruments 
 have been bad. When they were very bad, I 
 have sometimes called attention to the fact, 
 sometimes rewritten them, and sometimes (I 
 guess) let them go ; partly, because it was none 
 of my business, and partly, because (in some 
 cases, at least) I had not the time to hunt up 
 the information needed. 
 
372 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, September 5, 1889. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., ... I find some 
 pretty bad things . . . but not many. A good 
 illustration of the old proverb, "A little know- 
 ledge is a dangerous thing," is afforded by the 
 word "lapilli," which I have tried three times 
 to have so printed, but which they persist in 
 making into "capilli." I tried, also in vain, to 
 have what is said about " Bavarian bronze " 
 stricken out, on the ground that there is no 
 more any Bavarian bronze than there is Ber- 
 lin, Parisian, or Chicopee bronze. There is no 
 peculiar kind of bronze made in Bavaria. On 
 the contrary, there, as everywhere else, the com- 
 position of the bronze varies with the time and 
 the maker. 
 
 The worst thing ... is the definition of 
 "astrolabe," which is all wrong; and the fig- 
 ure given is not that of an astrolabe, although 
 some one may ignorantly have called it so. In 
 fact, as a general rule all through the C. D., 
 the definitions and descriptions of mathemati- 
 cal and surveying instruments have been bad 
 and sometimes ludicrously so. I have rewritten 
 a good many of them, but it seems rather hard 
 to put this additional work on me. 
 
 In weights and measures I have much to 
 
THE CENTURY DICTIONARY 373 
 
 find fault with ; for instance under " arschin " 
 . . . the expert evidently has no idea what 
 an "arschin" is, nor that the Russian and Eng- 
 lish measures of length are identical. An ar- 
 schin is not a measure "formerly in use," and 
 it is not "about 28 inches," it is exactly 28 
 inches. In fact all that relates to weights and 
 measures is almost always bad. What is to be 
 done? 
 
 The twenty-third of November, 1889, was 
 Josiah Whitney's seventieth birthday, and his 
 brother William, thinking "the anniversary too 
 important and interesting to be passed without 
 notice," proposed to despatch one of his daugh- 
 ters to Cambridge, "to bear the congratulations 
 and good wishes of this branch of the family 
 to the head of the family." His birthday gift 
 was appropriately a copy of the "Septuagint." 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, November 21, 1889. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., What is the use of 
 making such a fuss because a fellow has got 
 
 to be 60 years old ! Don't let M come on 
 
 Friday, but wait until Tuesday next. Then 
 she can hear a Sarasate-D'Albert concert on 
 Wednesday, and another on Saturday, and two 
 symphony concerts into the bargain. I have 
 
374 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 already given away my tickets for this week's 
 concert, for I was thinking of running down 
 to New Haven on Saturday, to spend a part 
 of Sunday with you, if you don't object; and 
 then you can congratulate me on my having 
 reached my 5oth birthday, if you think there is 
 any great merit in that. Besides M - must 
 
 come with M and hear her great rival on 
 
 the fiddle ! Answer at once, by telegraph, if you 
 agree to all this, for I must make arrange- 
 ments for getting the tickets, which there will 
 be a scramble for. 
 
 Your 4<>year-old brother, 
 
 J. D. W. 
 
 FROM WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 NEW HAVEN, November 22, 1889. 
 
 DEAR Jo., We are much more than satis- 
 fied to have you come here instead. Bring a 
 Boston Glee-book, if convenient. Pity that the 
 girls can't go as you kindly propose; but 
 
 M has a friend coming. . . . Otherwise 
 
 we should send them, spite of Th'ksg'ng. 
 
 It was lucky that you did not have to write 
 a longer note, or by the end of it you would n't 
 have been born yet. 
 
 Come as early as you can. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 W. D. W. 
 
THE CENTURY DICTIONARY 375 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, November 24, 1889. 
 
 Hall ! 
 
 Hall ! 
 
 What you sent me as the LXX ver- 
 sion of the Old Testament is, in fact, the LX- 
 andrian! Please N take off ten years from that 
 account. Be that as it may, I had n't had the 
 book ten minutes before I had utilized it in 
 my dictionary work. (See maltha.) In fact, 
 strange as the coincidence may seem, I was 
 just going over to the College Library to get 
 the second volume, and see how the Greek 
 stood in reference to the cement used in the 
 Tower of Babel (not by Rubinstein), and which 
 the authorized version calls "slime." So you 
 see your book was cold water to a thirsty soul 
 in spite of the attempted and easily detected 
 falsification of the age of the donee. . . . 
 Yours with a 
 
 Nathan Birdseye view 
 
 into futurity, 
 
 J. D. W. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, December 21, 1889. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., . . . What do you 
 say? Shall I come down . . . and spend 
 Wednesday evening with you . . . ? I could 
 
376 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 not inflict myself on you for longer than until 
 Thursday morning. 
 
 If you don't answer this, I shall conclude that 
 you don't want any more Whitneys around 
 have got enough of 'em of your own. If you 
 telegraph on Monday morning ... why then 
 all right. I will come unless influenz'd to the 
 contrary. . . . 
 
 H called my attention to a review of 
 
 the C. D. in the ... " Atlantic." The first 
 thing I noticed was that I had misspelled the 
 name of Skeats all the way through " Names 
 and Places." I sent . . . down town at once 
 for a carriage, and rushed upstairs to pack up, 
 ready to be taken to the idiot asylum. Just 
 after finishing the job, and while waiting for the 
 carriage, I went to the closet and took out 
 Skeats's book, intending to kick it in revenge 
 for the woe it had brought upon me. When (Lo 
 and Behold !) his name was Skeat after all ! Now 
 don't you think a man who all through a critical 
 review of a Dixonary misspells the name of the 
 author he quotes most, ought to be hung ? 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, December 28, 1889. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., . . . Have they 
 written a decent definition of " Atwood's Ma- 
 chine"? I called attention to the fact that, as 
 
THE CENTURY DICTIONARY 377 
 
 set in the galley proof, it was simply awful, and 
 it did not come changed in the page proof. 
 Look sharp after that word. I have also sent 
 messages to various great bolt and screw manu- 
 facturers, to find out exactly what a "machine 
 bolt " and a " machine screw " is. Answers 
 have come, but not satisfactory more are 
 expected. I have n't yet found any bolt manu- 
 facturer who knows what a " lewis-bolt " is. 
 Your satellite, 
 
 J. D. W. 
 
 With this, ends the episode of the Century 
 Dictionary, much, it is said, to the relief of 
 President Eliot, who begrudged eight years' 
 distraction from Whitney's scientific work. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, February 9, 1892. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., . . . There is a re- 
 cess or absence of lectures just now, on ac- 
 count of the mid-year examinations ; but I 
 think it would be prudent for me to refrain 
 from leaving home at present, while we are 
 likely to have very sudden changes of the 
 weather; because I am trying to get over an 
 attack of the grippe, and riding on the cars in 
 very cold weather is trying to me, chiefly be- 
 cause they keep them so hot. If you please, I 
 
378 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 will save your invitation for later, when the 
 snow and the grippe shall have gone off 
 together. 
 
 I have already reported on your Max-Mul- 
 lertary 1 opus or opuscule, if that designa- 
 tion seems to you more suitable. 
 
 Yours as ever, 
 
 J. D. W. 
 
 1 That is: What Smax of War. 2 Almost a 
 " Thirty Years' War," I should say, by this time. 
 
 2 To this you may remark, and, with propri- 
 ety, that you have heard of "sloops of war" 
 but never of " smacks of war " ! 
 
 And you have not forgotten, I hope, that in 
 the unrevised Century, a severe kiss, or one of 
 hostile character, was said to be always " ac- 
 companied by a smack." Whereupon the un- 
 regenerate commentator added, "smacktions 
 speak louder than words." 
 
 TO WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, August 10, 1892. 
 
 MY DEAR W. D. W., I am much obliged 
 to you for your kind invitation to come down 
 and cool off at your hospitable place of sum- 
 mer abode. Nothing would be more agreeable, 
 but it does not seem possible just at this pre- 
 sent time. ... I will try to make . . . plans 
 
THE CENTURY DICTIONARY 379 
 
 for our future movements and submit them to 
 you . . . for your approval. 
 
 For some reason or other - - perhaps be- 
 cause I have taken up the subject of Climatic 
 Changes again for investigation the weather 
 has been playing us scurvy tricks this sum- 
 mer. To be up in the nineties is the regular 
 thing nowadays. It is all right when you have a 
 place of your own by the seaside in the surf 
 as it were where you can stay all the time. 
 But to run away for a few days, and sponge on 
 your relatives, instead of sponging yourself at 
 home, while bankrupt of brains and going into 
 perpetual liquidation of body, does not seem 
 to do much good. The weather is sure to take 
 advantage of your absence, and there will be a 
 drop of the mercury of 30 or so as there was 
 after the last hot spell, when the clerk of the 
 weather was resting merely to take a fresh hold 
 again; and that is just the time you select for 
 your coastal, cooling-off convalescence ! . . . 
 
 Do you remember when we were camped on 
 a branch of the Ontonagon, near " Cushman's 
 Location," how it was so hot that we went and 
 sat in a shady pool of the river not by it, 
 but in it ; and how the thermometer dropped 
 40 that afternoon in one hour ! These are the 
 kind of memories that haunt my soul at the 
 present time. 
 
38o JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 FROM F. VON RICHTHOFEN 
 
 BERLIN, August 8, 1895. 
 
 MY DEAR PROFESSOR, An age has passed 
 since our last correspondence. I heard of you 
 occasionally . . . and you have put me under 
 obligations by sending me your masterly book 
 on the United States, and the Supplement to 
 it. It gave me pleasure to infer therefrom that 
 you are well up and busy at work as it has 
 always been your custom. 
 
 You had formerly the pleasant custom to 
 come over to Europe occasionally and to pay 
 a visit to Berlin. I was in hopes that you 
 would do so again at the occasion of some 
 geological or geographical congress, but since 
 that woeful day now about thirteen years 
 ago which bereft you of all that was most 
 endeared to you, our continent appears to 
 have lost its charm for you, and I must be pre- 
 pared not to see you again. If, however, you 
 should at any time allow your traveling spirits 
 to revive, I hope to get news from you and 
 the extent of your plans long before, that I 
 may arrange to meet you. I should be so de- 
 lighted, that I would make up my own plans 
 accordingly. I never forget what you have 
 been to me in California, and I recall with par- 
 ticular pleasure our joint trip to Lassen's Peak. 
 
THE CENTURY DICTIONARY 381 
 
 This is long ago; we have grown in age 
 both of us, and many events have happened in 
 the lives of each of us. I suppose you are busy 
 at work in your exquisite library which cer- 
 tainly has not ceased to increase following 
 up with unabated zeal all events in political 
 and scientific life. And to these the " tempora 
 mutantur" is no less sure than the "et nos 
 mutamur in illis " applies to us. New problems 
 have arisen politically, socially, and in the 
 whole realm of science. I have admired your 
 faculty to follow these changes, and your book 
 on the United States fully proves that the 
 universal character of your interests is un- 
 abated. . . . 
 
 My wife sends you her kind regards. I am 
 glad you made her acquaintance in Bonn, but 
 I ever regret that I was then absent. That was 
 your last visit. I hardly think that we shall 
 ever come to your country, our vacations being 
 too- short ; and I missed the only good oppor- 
 tunity, which was given by the Geological 
 Congress. 
 
 I remain in ever grateful memory, 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 F. VON RlCHTHOFEN. 
 
 Here we too may well take leave of Pro- 
 fessor Whitney, busy in his exquisite library, 
 
382 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 following with unabated zeal the best that was 
 being thought and done in the world. Thirty- 
 one years he taught at Harvard, and died at 
 Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire, August 19, 
 1896, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. 
 "Although he suffered great afflictions during 
 his residence in Cambridge," wrote the great 
 President under whom he served, " I cannot 
 but hope that he also had great satisfactions 
 and much happiness." 
 
 Fortunate on the whole in his life, he was 
 fortunate also in his death. He survived but 
 two years his beloved brother; and he kept 
 at his work almost to the end. In spite of 
 some apparent feebleness of body during the 
 last winter of his life, he finished his year's 
 teaching: at no time was he confined to his 
 bed. Thus was he spared the sad infirmities 
 of old age; and he died, of sclerosis of the 
 cerebral arteries, without pain and without 
 fear. 
 
 He is buried at Northampton beside his 
 wife and daughter. His gravestone, emblem- 
 atic alike of his early work and of the interest 
 of his later years, is a glacial boulder of rose 
 quartzite of the geologic age of the lead dis- 
 trict about Galena and the rocks of Upper 
 Michigan which border the " Azoic System." 
 
 There are two kinds of scientific men, The 
 
THE BOULDER 
 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY, 1819-1896 
 
THE CENTURY DICTIONARY 383 
 
 one, like Agassiz, Liebig, Jackson, through 
 their personal qualities or their gifts of ex- 
 pression or their connection with some con- 
 spicuous discovery, achieve a popular reputa- 
 tion, not indeed beyond their desert, but in 
 some degree commensurate with it. The other 
 sort, Hall, Henry, Wolcott Gibbs, careless of 
 the amateur and the undergraduate, influence 
 profoundly the opinions of their highly trained 
 associates, and remain without honor save in 
 their own country. To few is it given to choose 
 to which group they shall belong. 
 
 Whitney, though he belongs on the whole 
 to the second group, has certain affiliations 
 with the first. The Calaveras skull was a 
 famous matter in its day; his magazine articles 
 gave him a popular audience, which he might 
 easily have increased, for no reader of the fore- 
 going letters or of the Yosemite guidebook 
 can question his command over his mother 
 tongue. He had an interesting mind, and he 
 lived through one of the great periods of his 
 science. He might have written a successful 
 text-book, for he had much of Dana's learning 
 and all of Le Conte's skill, while in actual field 
 experience he surpassed them both together. 
 
 More or less deliberately, he chose the 
 narrow way. He filled a long lifetime with 
 sound professional work: his monument is 
 
384 JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 the unrivaled collection of books which he 
 gave Harvard University, his reports on the 
 natural resources of six states, a topographical 
 method which will in time map the whole of 
 North America, and two generations of pro- 
 fessional geologists and topographers whom 
 he trained. 
 
 No other time than our own has produced 
 the type of men with whom Whitney belongs, 
 the highly trained specialists, men of science 
 and engineers, who go about their daily tasks, 
 knowing that their work shall abide, built into 
 the fabric of our civilization. When all is said, 
 it is upon men like these that our civilization 
 rests. 
 
TITLES, APPOINTMENTS, AND MEMBERSHIPS 
 
 IN LEARNED SOCIETIES OF JOSIAH 
 
 DWIGHT WHITNEY 
 
 Assistant Geologist, New Hampshire State Geological 
 Survey. 1840. 
 
 Boston Society of Natural History; Resident Member. 
 1841. 
 
 United States Geologist for the Lake Superior District. 
 1849. 
 
 American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Honorary 
 Member. 1850. 
 
 Albany Institute ; Corresponding Member. 1851. 
 
 Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia; Corre- 
 sponding Member. 1852. 
 
 State Chemist of Iowa. 1855. 
 
 Societe geologique de France; Honorary Member. 
 
 1855- 
 
 Chicago Academy of Sciences; Corresponding Mem- 
 ber. 1859. 
 
 State Geologist of California. 1860. 
 
 California Academy of Sciences; Resident Member. 
 1861. 
 
 Philalethic Literary Society of Santa Clara; Honorary 
 Member. 1863. 
 
 American Philosophical Society ; Life Member. 1863. 
 
 National Academy of Sciences; Life Member. 1863. 
 
 Harvard University; Sturgis-Hooper Professor of Geo- 
 logy. 1865. 
 
 Essex Institute ; Corresponding Member. 1866. 
 
 Societas Naturae Scrutatorum Helvetorum ; Honorary 
 Member. 1866. 
 
 Yale University; Honorary LL. D. 1870. 
 
386 TITLES, APPOINTMENTS, ETC. 
 
 Mercantile Library Association of San Francisco; 
 
 Honorary Life Member. 1871. 
 Royal Geographical Society of London; Honorary 
 
 Corresponding Member. 1872. 
 Geological Society of London; Life Member. 1873. 
 Royal Scientific Society of Batavia; Corresponding 
 
 Member. 1873. 
 Societe royale des sciences de Liege; Corresponding 
 
 Member. 1873. 
 Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde zu Berlin ; Honorary Member. 
 
 1874. 
 Sociedade de Geographia de Lisboa; Corresponding 
 
 Member. 1877. 
 Geological Society of London; Foreign Member. 1887. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 I 
 
 BOOKS AND ARTICLES WRITTEN, EDITED, OR TRANS- 
 LATED BY J. D. WHITNEY 
 
 Berzelius, Jons Jacob. The use of the blowpipe in 
 chemistry and mineralogy. Translated from the fourth 
 enlarged edition, by J. D. Whitney. Boston. Ticknor & 
 Co. 1845. Plates. 
 
 Description and analyses of three minerals from Lake 
 Superior. Bost. Jour. Nat. Hist. 5 : 486. 1847. 
 
 Chemische Untersuchung einiger Silicate, die Kohlen- 
 saure, Chlor und Schwefelsaure enthalten. Annalen der 
 Physik und Chemie (Poggendorff), 70 (146): 431. 1847. 
 
 Analyse des Rothzinkerzes aus Sterling in New-Jersey. 
 Annalen der Physik und Chemie (Poggendorff), 71 (147) : 
 169. 1847. 
 
 Report on the mineral lands of Lake Superior. [Re- 
 ports by Locke, Channing, McNair, and Whitney.] U. S. 
 3oth Congress, ist session. Senate. Ex. Docs. vol. 2, no. 
 2 : 175. Washington. 1848. 
 
 Jacksonite, a new mineral from the Lake Superior re- 
 gion. Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. 3:5. 1848. 
 
 Chlorastrolite from Isle Royale, Lake Superior. Proc. 
 Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. 3 : 12. 1848. 
 
 On the composition of Chloritoid and Masonite. Proc. 
 Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. 3 : 100. 1849. 
 
 The Lake Superior copper and iron district. Proc. 
 Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. 3 : 210. 1849. 
 
 Rain-drop and air-bubble impressions. By Edward 
 
388 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Desor and J. D. Whitney. Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. 3 : 
 200 ; 4 : 131. 1849, 1851 ; also in Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. 
 Sci. 5 : 74. 1851. 
 
 Mineral lands of Lake Superior. [Reports by Foster 
 and Whitney.] U. S. 3Oth Congress. 2d session. Senate. 
 Ex. Docs. vol. 2, no. 2 : 153. Washington. 1849. 
 
 Report on the geological and mineralogical survey of 
 the mineral lands of the U. S. in Michigan. 6 maps. 
 [Reports by Jackson, Foster, Whitney, etc.] U. S. 3ist 
 Congress, ist session. Senate. Ex. Docs. vol. 3, no. i, pt. 
 3 : 371. Washington. 1849. 
 
 Synopsis of the explorations of the geological corps in 
 the Lake Superior land district, under the direction of 
 J. W. Foster and J. D. Whitney. 4 maps. U. S. 3ist Con- 
 gress, ist session. Senate. Ex. Doc. no. i, part 3 : 605. 
 Washington. 1849. 
 
 Chemical examination of some American minerals. 
 Bost. Jour. Nat. Hist. 6 : 36. 1850. 
 
 Examination of three new mineralogical species pro- 
 posed by C. U. Shepard. Bost. Jour. Nat. Hist. 6 : 42. 
 1850. 
 
 Lettre de J. W. Foster et J. D. Whitney sur les terrains 
 siluriens du lac Superieur. Bull. Soc. geol. de France. 
 SeV. 2, t. 8 : 89. 1850. 
 
 Report on the geology and topography of a portion of 
 the Lake Superior land district, in the State of Michigan. 
 By J. W. Foster and J. D. Whitney. Washington. 1850, 
 1851. 2 v. Plates. Maps. 
 
 Contents. i. The copper lands. 2. The iron region 
 together with the general geology. 
 
 On the Azoic system as developed in the Lake Supe- 
 rior land district. By J. W. Foster and J. D. Whitney. [Ab- 
 stract only.] Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci. 5 : 4. 1851. 
 
 On the age of the sandstone of Lake Superior with a 
 description of the phenomena of the association of igne- 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 389 
 
 ous rocks. By J. W. Foster and J. D. Whitney. Proc. Am. 
 Ass. Adv. Sci. 5: 22. 1851. 
 
 On the different systems of elevation which have given 
 configuration to North America, with an attempt to iden- 
 tify them with those of Europe. By J. W. Foster and 
 J. D. Whitney. Proc. Am. Ass. Adv. Sci. 5 : 136. 1851. 
 
 [Report on the iron district of Lake Superior. By Fos- 
 ter and Whitney.] U. S. 3ist Congress. 2d session. Sen- 
 ate. Ex. Docs. vol. 2, no. 2 : 147. Washington. 1851. 
 
 [Review of J. D. Dana's] The United States exploring 
 expedition: Geology. North Amer. Rev. 74: 301. Apr. 
 1852. 
 
 [Review of P. T. Tyson's] Geology and industrial re- 
 sources of California. North Amer. Rev. 75 : 277. Oc- 
 tober, 1852. 
 
 Report on the mineral tract of the Cherokee Copper 
 Mining Company, also of the East Tennessee tract, 
 known as the Beaver property, situated in Polk County, 
 East Tennessee. New York. 1853. Plan. Diagrams. 
 
 St. Louis and Birmingham Iron Mining Co. Charter 
 and by-laws, together with reports on an examination of 
 the estate. N. Y. 1853. 
 
 Contains geological reports by Dr. H. King and 
 J. D. Whitney ; analyses of ores by C. T. Jackson. 
 
 Testimony [in regard to C. T. Jackson and the ether 
 controversy, including three letters written by Mr. Jack- 
 son. Washington. 1853], 
 
 The metallic wealth of the United States, described 
 and compared with that of other countries. Philadelphia. 
 1854. 
 
 Extracts from the Report on the geology of the Lake 
 Superior Land District (Part II) by J. W. Foster and J. 
 D. Whitney. Am. Jour. Sci. 2d ser. 17 (67): n. May, 
 1854. 
 
 On the chemical composition of the minerals Algerite 
 
390 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 and Apatite. Am. Jour. Sci. 2d ser. 17 (67): 206. May, 
 1854- 
 
 Remarks on some points connected with the geology 
 of the north shore of Lake Superior. Proc. Am. Assoc. 
 Adv. Sci. 9 : 204. 1855. 
 
 Report of an examination of the Bristol Copper Mine, 
 in Bristol, Conn., August, 1855. [With Charter of the 
 Bristol Mining Company.] By Benjamin Silliman, Jr., 
 and J. D. Whitney. New Haven. 1855. Illus. 
 
 On the occurrence of the ores of iron in the Azoic 
 system. Proc: Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci. 9 : 209. 1855. 
 
 Review of Murchison's Siluria. Am. Jour. Sci. 2d ser. 
 
 i9 (69): 37i- M ay, 1855. 
 
 Catalogue of the rocks, minerals, etc., collected on the 
 district between Portage and Montreal River, during the 
 years 1847 and 1848, by J. D. Whitney. Smithsonian In- 
 stitution. Annual report for 1854 : 387. Washington. 1855. 
 
 Remarks on the Huronian and Laurentian systems of 
 the Canada Geological Survey. Am. Jour. Sci. 2d ser. 
 
 23 (73) : 305- May, l8 57 ; 
 
 Report on the Geological Survey of the State of Iowa ; 
 embracing the results of investigations made during por- 
 tions of the years 1855, I ^5^, and 1857. By James Hall, 
 State Geologist ; J. D. Whitney, chemist and mineralogist. 
 Vol. i, part 1,2. Published by authority of the Legisla- 
 ture. 1858. 2 v. 
 
 Contents. Part i. Geology. Part 2. Palaeontology. 
 
 Notice of new localities, and interesting varieties of 
 minerals, in the Lake Superior region : supplementary to 
 the chapter on this subject, in Part II of the Report of 
 Foster and Whitney. Am. Jour. Sci. 2d ser. 28 (78) : 8. 
 Nov. 1859. 
 
 On the chemical composition of Pectolite. Am. Jour. 
 Sci. 2d ser. 29 (79) : 205. May, 1860. 
 
 The Geological Survey of California. An address be- 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 391 
 
 fore the Legislature of California, at Sacramento, March 
 1 2th, 1 86 1. Appended, a copy of the Act authorizing the 
 Survey. San Francisco. 1861. 
 
 Report on the Geological Survey of the State of Wis- 
 consin. Vol. i. [By] James Hall and J. D. Whitney. 
 Printed by authority of the Legislature of Wisconsin. 
 1862. 10 plates. 2 maps. 
 
 Contents. Physical geography and general geo- 
 logy, by James Hall. Report on the lead region, 
 on Upper Mississippi, by J. D. Whitney. Catalogue 
 of palaeozoic fossils, by James Hall. The second vol- 
 ume was prepared but never published. 
 
 Report of a geological survey of the upper Mississippi 
 lead region. Albany. 1862. 
 
 Letter relative to the progress of the State Geological 
 Survey. San Francisco. 1862. 
 
 Lecture on geology, delivered before the Legislature of 
 California, at San Francisco, Feb. 27, 1862. San Fran- 
 cisco. 1862. 
 
 Annual report of the State Geologist of California 
 [J. D. Whitney] for the year 1862-63. Sacramento. 1862, 
 1863. 
 
 Which is the highest mountain in the United States, 
 and which in North America ? Proc. Cal. Acad. Nat. Sci. 
 2 (1858-62) : 219 ; 3 (1863-67) : 325. 
 
 Lecture on geology, delivered before the Legislature 
 of California, March 19, 1863. Sacramento. 1863. 
 
 On the height of Mt. Shasta, California. Am. Jour. 
 Sci. 2d ser. 36 (86) : 123. Nov. 1863. 
 
 On the inaccuracy of the Eighth Census, so far as it re- 
 lates to the metallic and mineral statistics of the United 
 States. Proc. Cal. Acad. Nat. Sci. 3 (1863-67): 6. 
 
 [Account of a collection of Japanese minerals and fos- 
 sils owned by J. H. Van Reed.] Proc. Cal. Acad. Nat. 
 Sci. 3 (1863-67) : 15. 
 
392 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 [Communication in regard to the progress of the State 
 Geological Survey of California.] Proc. Cal. Acad. Nat. 
 Sci. 3 (1863-67) : 23. 
 
 [Communication of letter from G. J. Brush regarding 
 his analysis of meteoric iron from Tucson, and remarks 
 thereon.] Proc. Cal. Acad. Sci. 3 (1863-67) : 30. 
 
 [Remarks on meteoric iron from Arizona.] Proc. Cal. 
 Acad. Nat. Sci. 3 (1863-67) : 48. 
 
 [Remarks on the nature and distribution of meteorites 
 which have been discovered on the Pacific Coast and in 
 Mexico.] Proc. Cal. Acad. Nat. Sci. 3 (1863-67) : 240. 
 
 [Abstract of results obtained by M. Remond in his 
 geological explorations of Northern Mexico, 1863-65.] 
 Proc. Cal. Acad. Nat. Sci. 3 (1863-67) : 243. 
 
 [Remarks on the geology of the State of Nevada.] Proc. 
 Cal. Acad. Nat. Sci. 3 (1863-67) : 266. 
 
 [Remarks on the absence of the Northern Drift forma- 
 tion from the western coast of North America.] Proc. 
 Cal. Acad. Nat. Sci. 3 (1863-67): 271. 
 
 Notice of a human skull, recently taken from a shaft 
 near Angel's, Calaveras County. Proc. Cal. Acad. Nat. 
 Sci. 3 (1863-67) : 277. 
 
 Notice of the occurrence of a tungstate of lime and 
 copper in Lower California. Proc. Cal. Acad. Nat. Sci. 3 
 (1863-67): 287. 
 
 Notice of the occurrence of the Silurian Series in Ne- 
 vada. Proc. Cal. Acad. Nat. Sci. 3 (1863-67) : 307. 
 
 On the fresh water infusorial deposits of the Pacific 
 coast, and their connection with the volcanic rocks. Proc. 
 Cal. Acad. Nat. Sci. 3 (1863-67) : 319. 
 
 [Remarks on the mineral species occurring in Califor- 
 nia and on the Pacific coast.] Proc. Cal. Acad. Nat. Sci. 
 3 (1863-67) : 372, 374. 
 
 [On the depression of Death Valley.] Proc. Cal. Acad. 
 Nat. Sci. 3 (1863-67) : 376. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 393 
 
 Report relative to establishing a State University, made 
 in accordance with a concurrent resolution passed at the 
 1 4th session of the Legislature. [By J. D. Whitney and 
 others.] Sacramento. 1864. 
 
 Extract from communication to the California Academy, 
 exhibiting what has already been accomplished [regarding 
 maps proposed in connection with the Geological Survey 
 of California]. Am. Jour. Sci. 2d ser. 37 (87) : 82. 
 May, 1864. 
 
 Brief report on the progress of the Geological Survey 
 to his Excellency Leland Stanford, Governor of the State, 
 dated Nov. 26, 1861. Am. Jour. Sci. 2d ser. 37 (87) : 
 427. May, 1864. 
 
 Progress of the Geological Survey of California. Am. 
 Jour. Sci. 2d ser. 38 (88) : 256. Sept., 1864. 
 
 Note supplementary to the above on p. 298 of the same 
 issue. 
 
 Letter relative to the progress of the State Geological 
 Survey during the years 1864-65. San Francisco [etc.]. 
 1865. 
 
 Notice of the explorations of the Geological Survey of 
 California, in the Sierra Nevada, during the summer of 
 1864. Am. Jour. Sci. 2d ser. 39 (89) : 10. May, 1865. 
 
 Geology, vol. i, 2 [and] appendix. Cambridge. 1865, 
 1882. 2 v. Illus. 
 
 Vol. i was published by the California Geological 
 Survey. The remainder of this work was published 
 privately by Professor Whitney, " uniform with the 
 publications of the Survey." 
 
 On borax in California. Am. Jour. Sci. 2d ser. 41 (91): 
 255. March, 1866. 
 
 Geology of the lead region of Northwestern Illinois. 2 
 maps. Illinois Geological Survey. Vol. i, pp. 153-207. 
 Springfield, 1866. 
 
 Extrait d'une lettre de M. J. W. [sic] Whitney, a M. 
 
394 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Desor [sur les amas detritiques de la California]. Bull. 
 Soc. geol. de France. Ser. 2, t. 24 : 624. 1867. 
 
 Letter relative to the progress of the State Geological 
 Survey during the years 1866-67. Sacramento. 1867. 
 
 An address on the propriety of continuing the State 
 Geological Survey of California, delivered before the 
 Legislature at Sacramento, Jan. 3oth, 1868. Appended : 
 two letters to the Governor relative to the progress of the 
 Geological Survey, communicated to the Legislatures of 
 1865-6 and 1867-8 ; also, the Report of the Commis- 
 sioners to manage the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa 
 big tree grove, for the years 1867-8. San Francisco. 
 1868. 
 
 Cave in Calaveras County, California. Smithsonian In- 
 stitution. Annual report for 1867 : 406. Washington. 1868. 
 
 Notice of explorations in the Rocky Mountains. Proc. 
 Cal. Acad. Nat. Sci. 4 (1868-72) : 90. 
 
 Report on the condition of the Geological Survey of 
 California. Sacramento. 1869. 
 
 Ueber die in Californien und an der Westkiiste Ameri- 
 kas iiberhaupt vorkommenden Mineralien und Grund- 
 stoffe. Uebersetzt von Herrn F. v. Richthofen. Zeit- 
 schrift der deutschen geologischen Gesellschaft, 21 : 741. 
 1869. 
 
 Ornithology. Vol. i : Land birds. Edited by S. F. Baird, 
 from the manuscript and notes of J. G. Cooper. [Cam- 
 bridge.] 1870. [California Geological Survey.] 
 
 Issued under Whitney's supervision as State Geo- 
 logist. 
 
 Letter relative to the progress of the Geological Survey 
 during the years 1870-71. Sacramento. 1871. 
 
 Earthquakes, volcanoes and mountain-building. Cam- 
 bridge. 1871. 
 
 A reprint of the following articles: Earthquakes. 
 North Am. Rev. 108 : 578. 1869 ; Volcanoes. Same. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 395 
 
 109: 231. 1869 ; Volcanoes and mountain-building. 
 Same. 113 : 235. 1871. 
 
 [Review of] United States Geological Exploration of 
 the fortieth parallel. By Clarence King. Mining industry 
 by James D. Hague ; with geological contributions by 
 Clarence King. North Amer. Rev. 113 : 203. July, 1871. 
 
 Die californischen Bacillarien-Gebirge. Monatsbericht 
 der K. preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin. 1872 : 124. 
 
 State Geological Survey. Overland Monthly, 8 : 79. Jan., 
 1872. 
 
 Note on the occurrence of the " primordial fauna" in 
 Nevada. Am. Jour. Sci. 3d ser. 3 (103) : 84. Feb. 1872. 
 
 The Owen's Valley earthquake. Overland Month. 9 : 
 130, 266. Aug., Sept., 1872. 
 
 Abstract in Am. Jour. Sci. 3d ser. 4 (104) : 316. 
 
 Statement of the progress of the State Geological Sur- 
 vey of California during the years 1872-73. Sacramento, 
 
 1873- 
 
 Note on the occurrence of the Trias in British Columbia. 
 Am. Jour. Sci. 3d ser. 5 (105) : 473. June, 1873. 
 
 Contributions to barometric hypsometry : with tables for 
 use in California. [Cambridge.] 1874. [California Geo- 
 logical Survey.] 
 
 Pp. 89-112 form a Supplement added in 1878. 
 Physical features of the United States. Walker's Sta- 
 tistical atlas of the United States. Pp. 1-4. N. Y. 1874. 
 California. Boston. 1875. 
 
 Written for the gth edition of the Encyclopaedia Bri- 
 tannica. Ten copies only were printed to secure copy- 
 right in the United States. 
 
 Geographical and geological surveys. Cambridge. 1875. 
 Reprinted from the North Amer. Rev., 121:37, 270. July, 
 Oct., 1875. 
 
 Are we drying up ? Cambridge. 1876. Reprinted from 
 the Am. Naturalist, 10 : 513. Sept., 1876. 
 
396 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Plain, prairie and forest. Cambridge, 1876. Reprinted 
 from the Am. Naturalist, 10:577,656. Oct., Nov., 1876. 
 
 The Chinese loess puzzle. Am. Naturalist, n : 705. 
 Dec., 1877. 
 
 Report to the Board of Regents of the University of 
 California. Biennial report of the Regents for 1877-79 : 82. 
 Sacramento. 1879. 
 
 The Auriferous gravels of the Sierra Nevada of Califor- 
 nia. Cambridge. 1880. Plates. Maps. [Harvard College. 
 Museum of Comparative Zoology. Contributions to Amer- 
 ican Geology. Vol. i.] 
 
 Also forms vol. 6, no. i, of the Memoirs of the Mu- 
 seum. 
 
 Notes on the geology of the iron and copper districts of 
 Lake Superior. By M. E. Wadsworth. Cambridge. 1880. 
 [Harvard College. Museum of Comparative Zoology. 
 Bulletin. Vol. 7, no. i.] 
 
 The California Geological Survey. Harvard Register, 3 : 
 202. Apr., 1881. 
 
 List of American authors in geology and palaeontology. 
 Cambridge. 1882. [Harvard College Library. Biblio- 
 graphical contributions, 15.] 
 
 Republished from the Bulletin of Harvard University, 
 vol. 2. 
 
 The climatic changes of later geological times : a dis- 
 cussion based on observations made in the Cordilleras of 
 North America. Cambridge. 1882. [Harvard College. 
 Museum of Comparative Zoology. Contributions to Amer- 
 ican geology. Vol. 2.] 
 
 Also forms vol. 7, no. 2, of the Memoirs of the Mu- 
 seum. 
 
 The earth's treeless regions. Brown, Robert, editor. 
 Science for all. [Vol. 5 :] 124. London. [1882.] 
 
 The Azoic system and its proposed subdivisions. By 
 J. D. Whitney and M. E. Wadsworth. Cambridge. 1884. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 397 
 
 [Harvard College. Museum of Comparative Zoology. 
 Bulletin. Vol. 7.] 
 
 The water birds of North America. By S. F. Baird, T. 
 M. Brewer and R. Ridgway. Vol. i, 2. [Edited by J. D. 
 Whitney.] Issued in continuation of the Geological Sur- 
 vey of California. Boston. 1884. [Harvard College. Mu- 
 seum of Comparative Zoology. Memoirs. Vol. 12, 13.] 
 
 Names and places. Studies in geographical and topo- 
 graphical nomenclature. Cambridge. 1888. 
 100 copies printed. 
 
 The United States : facts and figures illustrating the 
 physical geography of the country, and its material re- 
 sources. [With Supplement: Population, immigration, 
 irrigation.] Boston. 1889, 94. 
 
 Written for, and published in part in the Encyclo- 
 paedia Britannica, gth edition. 
 
 The Yosemite book : a description of the Yosemite Val- 
 ley and the adjacent region of the Sierra Nevada, and of 
 the big trees of California. Published by authority of the 
 Legislature. New York. 1868. Maps. Photographs. [Cal- 
 ifornia Geological Survey.] 
 
 The Yosemite guide-book. [Cambridge.] 1869. 2 maps. 
 
 Same. 1871. 
 
 Same. [With new maps.] 1872. 
 
 Same. New edition . . . corrected. 1874. 4 maps. 
 These are smaller and less finely illustrated editions of 
 the Yosemite book. 
 
 II 
 
 MAPS 
 
 * Geological map of the Lake Superior land districts in 
 the State of Michigan. By J. W. Foster and J. D. Whit- 
 
 * Maps so marked accompany Part 2 of the Report on the geology 
 ... of the Lake Superior land district. 
 
398 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 ney, U. S. geologists. N. Y. [1847?] Scale, iiyV miles to 
 i inch. 
 
 * Geological map of the district between Ke ween aw 
 Bay and Chocolate River, Lake Superior, Michigan. J. W. 
 Foster and J. D. Whitney, U. S. geologists. [N. Y. ? 1847 ?] 
 Scale, 2/5 miles to i inch. 
 
 * Section and diagram illustrating the geology of the 
 region between the northern shores of Lakes Superior and 
 Michigan. 
 
 No name of authors on the map, but certainly by Fos- 
 ter and Whitney. 
 
 t Geological map of Isle Royale, Lake Superior, Mich- 
 igan. By J. W. Foster & J. D. Whitney, U. S. geologists : 
 assisted by S. W. Hill and W. Schlatter. New York. 
 Ackerman. 1847. Scale, 2 miles to i inch. 
 
 t Geological map of Keweenaw Point, Lake Superior, 
 Michigan. By J. W. Foster and J. D. Whitney, U. S. geo- 
 logists : S. W. Hill and W. Schlatter, assistants. Phila- 
 delphia. Duval. [1850 ?] Scale, 2.7 miles to i inch. 
 
 t Geological map of the district between Portage Lake 
 and Montreal River, Lake Superior, Michigan. J. W. 
 Foster and J. D. Whitney, U. S. geologists : S. W. Hill and 
 W. Schlatter, assistants. Philadelphia, Duval. [1847?] 
 Scale, 2.7 miles to i inch. 
 
 Geological map of Keweenaw Point, Lake Superior, 
 Michigan. New York, 1850. Scale 12 miles to i inch. 
 
 Same. 1853. 
 
 Mr. Whitney 'Was assisted by S. W. Hill and W. S. 
 Stephens. 
 
 ft Geological map of the lead region in the States of 
 Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa. [Albany. 1862.] No scale. 
 
 * Maps so marked accompany Part 2 of the Report on the geology 
 ... of the Lake Superior land district. 
 
 t Maps so marked accompany Part i of the Report on the geology 
 ... of the Lake Superior land district. 
 
 ft Maps so marked accompany Report on the Geological Survey 
 of the Upper Mississippi lead region. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 399 
 
 tt Diagram of the lead-bearing crevices, in that portion 
 of the Upper Mississippi lead region which lies between 
 Dubuque, Galena and Shullsbury. [Albany. 1862.] No 
 scale. 
 
 Geological map of the northwest corner of Illinois. 
 [Springfield, 111. 1866.] No scale. 
 
 Accompanying Geological Survey of Illinois. Vol. i, 
 p. 154. Springfield, 1866. Called in the list of illustra- 
 tions : Geological map of the Galena lead region. Map 
 contains no name of author, no date, and no scale. 
 Geological map of the eastern half of the State of Iowa ; 
 by legislative authority. [Albany. 1858.] No scale. 
 
 James Hall and A. H. Worthen were associated with 
 Mr. Whitney. 
 
 Accompanying Report on the Geological Survey of 
 the State of Iowa, Vol. i, part i. 
 
 Map of the Yosemite Valley, from surveys made by order 
 of the Commissioners to manage the Yosemite Valley and 
 Mariposa big tree grove, by C. F. King and J. T. Gardner. 
 1865. [New York. Bien.] Scale, \ mile to i inch. 
 
 Map of a portion of the Sierra Nevada adjacent to the 
 Yosemite Valley, from surveys made by C. F. Hoffmann 
 and J. T. Gardner. 1863-67. [New York. Bien. 1868.] 
 Scale, 2 miles to i inch. 
 
 Map of the Yosemite Valley, from surveys made by the 
 Geological Survey of California. San Francisco. 1871. 
 Scale, ^ m il e to J i ncri . 
 Same. 1872. 
 
 Map of the region adjacent to the Bay of San Francisco. 
 2d edition, with local revisions. New York. Bien. 1868. 
 2 sheets. Scale, 2 miles to i inch. [California. Geological 
 Survey.] 
 Same. 1873. 
 
 tt Maps so marked accompany Report on the Geological Survey 
 of the Upper Mississippi lead region. 
 
400 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Map of California and Nevada. 1873. [California. Ge- 
 ological Survey.] Drawn by F.von Leicht and A. Craven. 
 Scale, 18 miles to i inch. 
 
 Same. 2d edition. Revised by Hoffmann and Crane, and 
 issued by authority of the Regents of the University of 
 California, May 12, 1874. 
 
 Same. 3d edition. Published by W. D. Walkup & Co. 
 San Francisco. 1878. 
 
 Same. New edition. 1887. 
 
 Topographical map of central California, together with 
 a part of Nevada. C. F. Hoffmann, principal topographer. 
 [New York.] J. Bien engr. 1873. 4 sheets. Scale, 6 miles 
 to i inch. [California. Geological Survey.] 
 
 ** Sketch map showing the distribution of the volcanic 
 and gravel formations over a portion of Placer and El 
 Dorado Counties, California. [Cambridge. 1880.] No scale. 
 
 ** Distribution of the volcanic formations and gravel 
 near Placerville. [Cambridge. 1880.] Scale, i mile to i^ 
 inches. 
 
 ** Section and plan of Spanish Peak gravel deposit. 
 [Cambridge. 1880.] Scale, 160 feet to i inch. 
 
 ** Map of the mining district adjacent to Forest City. 
 [Cambridge. 1880.] Scale, i mile to i inch. 
 
 ** Map to accompany the description of a portion of 
 the region drained by Slate, Canon and Goodyear Creeks 
 in Sierra and Plumas Counties. [Cambridge. 1880.] Scale, 
 2 miles to i inch. 
 
 ** Maps so marked accompany The Auriferous gravels of the Sierra 
 Nevada of California. 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 AGASSIZ, Alexander, 303, 351. 
 
 Agassiz, Louis, 108; explores 
 Lake Superior region, 95 ; suit 
 against, 115-116; his glacial 
 theory, 118; at meeting of A. 
 A. A. S., 167, 168; aids Cali- 
 fornia Survey, 270; letters 
 concerning Whitney, 186-187, 
 297-298 ; death, 286-287. 
 
 Alaska, 248. 
 
 American Academy, 113, 115. 
 
 American Association, Albany 
 meeting, 167-169; Montreal 
 meeting, 171 ; indorses Whit- 
 ney for California Geological 
 Survey, 186. 
 
 Ancestry, Whitney's, 1-3. 
 
 Arsenias, Johann, 347. 
 
 Ash burner, William, 190, 193, 
 200, 213, 245, 256. 
 
 "Auriferous Gravels," 325, 327, 
 33. 333 335 33$, 342, 346, 
 348. 
 
 Averill, Chester, 190, 193, 214, 
 215; climbs Mt. Shasta, 226. 
 
 " Azoic," 368, 370. 
 
 Azoic System, 171, 342-343* 346, 
 362, 369. 
 
 Bache, A. D., 168, 186. 
 
 Baird, S. F., 265, 334 ; work on 
 
 " Birds," 303. 
 
 Baynes, T. S., letter from, 322. 
 Beaumont, Elie de, 39, 41, 42, 61. 
 Berlin, 61, 70, 78 et seq. 
 
 Berzelius, 47, 73, 81 ; Whitney's 
 
 translation of, 67, 76, 77. 
 Big Trees, 229, 231, 261. 
 " Birds, Water, of North Amer- 
 ica," 271, 276, 277, 335, 347. 
 Birdseye, Rev. Nathan, 352, 375. 
 Birthday, Whitney's seventieth, 
 
 373-375- 
 
 Blagden, Rev. Dr., 142. 
 
 Blake, G. B., 216; Agassiz's let- 
 ter to, 297-298. 
 
 Blake, William Phipps, 167, 168, 
 183, 1 86, 187, 192. 
 
 Bolander, H. N., 254. 
 
 Books, Whitney's, 73-74, 188; 
 at Museum, 358. 
 
 Booth, Gov. Newton, 282, 284, 
 288, 289, 291, 292 et seq. 
 
 Bopp, Franz, 74, 113, 114, 250. 
 
 Boston, 39-40, 47 et seq., 49-50, 
 53 et seq., 79, 101 et seq., 1 14 et 
 seq., 243 et seq. ; Sunday morn- 
 ing in, 366. 
 
 " Botany of California," 271, 325, 
 329. 333. 335. 346, 348. 
 
 Bowen, Francis, 75, 115. 
 
 Brewer, W. H., 212, 234; joins 
 California Survey, 190-191 ; 
 season's work of, 200, 206; 
 field parties under, 193, 214, 
 215, 217; climbs Mt. Shasta, 
 226; explores Mt. Dana dis- 
 trict, 229-231 ; meets Gardner 
 and King, 236 ; rescues Hoff- 
 mann, 237 ; leaves California 
 
404 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Survey, 248; in Colorado, 268 
 et seq. ; " Botany of Califor- 
 nia," 271, 303 ; supports King 
 for United States Geological 
 Survey, 339. 
 
 " Britannica," Whitney's articles 
 in, 322-323, 325. 
 
 Brookline, 113 et seq. 
 
 Brush, G. J., 186, 191 ; work for 
 California Geological Survey, 
 213, 220; letters to, 145, 219- 
 223, 230-231, 233-234. 
 
 Burke, Dr. M. J., 254. 
 
 Burlingame, Anson, 142. 
 
 Calaveras Skull, 253, 255, 336, 
 
 383- 
 
 California, 101, 122, 182 et seq.; 
 addresses to legislature of, 201, 
 263; floods in, 208; Whit- 
 ney's activities in, 241-242; 
 oil in, 293-295 ; " Britannica " 
 article on, 323, 325. 
 
 California Academy of Sciences, 
 241, 249, 255. 
 
 California Geological Survey, 
 103-104, 182 et seq. ; act creat- 
 ing, 184-185; personnel, 189- 
 191, 205, 214; life on, 192-197, 
 214 et seq., 2^-2^0, 272; plan 
 for, 197-199; finances of, 185, 
 204, 210-213, 2I 9> 2 5 2 > 2 54> 2 57, 
 265, 271, 282, 283, 289, 300 et 
 seq. ; first year's work of, 204- 
 207; reports of, 209, 218, 267, 
 3 2 5> 33> 333> 34 2 ; second 
 year's work of, 214 et seq. ; re- 
 organized, 234 et seq. ; conflict 
 with legislature, 263 et seq., 287 
 et seq. ; suspended, 265-267 ; 
 
 resumed, 269 et seq. ; recogni- 
 tion of, 284 ; discontinued, 289- 
 290, 291 et seq. ; results of, 304 
 et seq. ; relation to United 
 States Geological Survey, 305 
 et seq.; introduces photography, 
 312. 
 
 Cambridge, 123, 127 et seq.; 
 Whitneys settle in, 267, 270, 
 272; land in, 276; house in, 
 2 8i, 357- 
 
 Carr, Ezra S., 152, 176. 
 
 " Century Dictionary," 363-377; 
 mining terms in, 364 ; Whit- 
 ney's part in, 365 ; Whitney's 
 criticism of, 368-370, 371-373, 
 376; reviews of, 370, 376. 
 
 Channing, Dr. W. F., 91. 
 
 Characteristics of Whitney, 5, 8, 
 9, u, 14, 20, 27, 38-39, 49, 66, 
 103, 105, 180, 256, 281, 292, 
 300, 357. 381. 
 
 Child, Francis, 123, 328. 
 
 Church, F. E., his " Heart of the 
 Andes," 178. 
 
 " Climatic Changes," 326, 344, 
 
 346, 347> 35 35 i. 35 6 > 379- 
 Clover Den, 123, 128, 131, 137, 
 
 146, 154 ; life at, 138 et seq. 
 Coast Survey, 307 et seq. 
 Coat of Arms, 179. 
 Cogswell, Joseph Green, 8. 
 Cologne Cathedral, 119. 
 Colorado, explorations in, 268 
 
 et seq., 311. 
 
 Columbia University, 251. 
 Conness, John, 184. 
 Conrad, T. A., 186. 
 Cooper, J. G., 205, 207, 216, 
 
 249, 254 ; work suspended, 
 
INDEX 
 
 405 
 
 213; names Lingula Gabbii, 
 
 239- 
 Cotter, 236-237. 
 
 Dana, J. D., 116, 155, 171, 176, 
 
 182, 186, 270, 277; "Azoic 
 
 System," 362 ; Mt. Dana, 230 
 
 et seq. 
 
 Daniels, Edward, 152, 176. 
 Dartmouth College, 45. 
 Darwinism, 299. 
 Davis, W. M., 321, 334. 
 Dawkins, Boyd, 317. 
 Death of Whitney, 382. 
 Desor, Edouard, 108, 109, no, 
 
 114, 117, 118, 120, 155, 287 ; 
 
 in Europe, 314, 316; letter to, 
 
 164-169. 
 
 Downey, Gov. J. G., 184, 191, 192. 
 Drawing, u, 14, 25, 54, 60, 117, 
 
 148. 
 
 Dwight family, 1-2. 
 Dwight, Clarissa, 2. 
 Dwight, John, I. 
 Dwight, Josiah, 2. 
 
 Eagan, Michael, 190, 193, 215. 
 Edwards, Rev. Jonathan, 3. 
 Edwards, Rhoda, 3. 
 Eliot, C. W., 276, 328, 377; 
 
 quoted, 382. 
 
 Emmons, S. F., 305, 310, 311. 
 Engelmann, George, 335. 
 Europe, plans for trip to, 54, 56 
 
 et seq. ; journeys in, 61 et seq., 
 
 78 et seq., 313 et seq., 340 et 
 
 seq., 348 et seq. 
 
 Field, Stephen J., 184. 
 
 Foster, John Wells, 114, 116, 121, 
 
 133, 144, 1 86; Lake Superior 
 
 Survey, 91, 92, 97, 100, 107. 
 Foster & Whitney's report, 118, 
 
 343, 346, 368, 370. 
 Foster, J. T., his geological chart, 
 
 115-116. 
 
 Fowler, Samuel, 53, 61. 
 Fremont, Col., 182, 193. 
 French, Stiles, 8, 12; letter to, 
 
 9-1 1. 
 
 Gabb, W. M., 254, 256, 333; 
 joins California Survey, 205 ; 
 qualities of, 214; explores 
 Sierra Nevada, 229-231 ; in 
 Nevada, 261-262; in Central 
 America, 324 ; death, 334. Z. 
 Gabbii, 239. 
 
 Gannett, Henry, 305, 311, 321. 
 
 Gardner, J. T., 249, 254, 305; 
 joins California Survey, 236- 
 237 ; quoted, 306-307 ; on For- 
 tieth Parallel Survey, 310; on 
 Hayden's Survey, 333. 
 
 Gay Lussac, 64. 
 
 Genth, F. A., 172. 
 
 Geological Society of London, 
 Whitney's election to, 369. 
 
 Gibbs, O. W., 1 1 8, 133, 186; at 
 Giessen, 80, 82 ; on Lake Su- 
 perior Survey, 91, 97, 100. 
 
 Giessen, study at, 80 et seq. 
 
 Gilman, Daniel Coit, 317; in 
 California, 287, 288, 303. 
 
 Goodyear, W. A., 271, 279, 285, 
 286, 335. 
 
 Gould, B. A., 123, 139, 142, 146, 
 1 86; Whitneys in house of, 
 270, 357- 
 
 Gray, Asa, lets house, 267, 270 ; 
 
406 
 
 INDEX 
 
 work on " Botany of Califor- 
 nia," 271, 348. 
 
 Grimes, Gov. James W., 151. 
 
 Guyot, Arnold, 270. 
 
 Haight, Gov. H. H., 264, 267, 
 270, 290. 
 
 Hall, James, 126, 127, 140, 144, 
 1 86; and Lake Superior Sur- 
 vey, 108-112, 117 ; suit against, 
 115-116; his geological map, 
 129; and State Survey, 150- 
 152, 159-160, 165, 176; and A. 
 A. A. S M 168, 171 ; advice of, 
 
 . .8 9 . 
 
 Hallock, Rev. Moses, 6. 
 
 Hallock, Martha, 6, 7. 
 
 Hamilton, Rev. L., 238. 
 
 Hare, Dr. Robert, 30, 31, 40, 
 52. 
 
 Hartwig, 254. 
 
 Harvard, 51, 52, 132; study at, 
 74 et seq.; School of Mines, 
 242, 250, 251, 267 etseq., 276, 
 318 ; duties at, 318 et seq., 328, 
 
 330, 33i 350- 
 Hastings, S. C., 303. 
 Hayden, F. V., 301, 305, 310, 
 
 3 2 4> 3335 an d United States 
 
 Geological Survey, 336 etseq. ; 
 
 letter to, 337-339- 
 Health, Whitney's, 102, 143, 172, 
 
 202, 250, 280, 340, 341. 
 Henry, Joseph, 168, 186, 270. 
 Highwaymen, 262. 
 Hill, Sam W., 125, 134, 147. 
 Hitchcock, Edward, 186. 
 Hoag, J. N., letter to, 245-247. 
 Hoffmann, Charles F., 212, 214, 
 
 229, 237, 333; joins California 
 
 Survey, 205; at Mt. Shasta, 
 225 ; climbs Mt. Lyell, 230; to- 
 pographical surveys, 232, 254, 
 310 et seq.; photographs near 
 Mt. Dana, 262 ; in oil region, 
 265 ; in charge of collections, 
 267 ; in Colorado, 268 et seq. ; 
 field parties under, 271. 
 
 Holmes, O. W., Whitney suc- 
 ceeds at Museum, 318. 
 
 Horsford, E. N., 186. 
 
 Houghton, Dr. Douglass, 89. 
 
 Housekeeping, Whitney man- 
 ages, 358. 
 
 Humboldt, 71 ; Whitney lectures 
 on, 172. 
 
 Hunt, T. Sterry, 343. 
 
 Huntington, C. P., 51. 
 
 Ice Age, Whitney's views on, 
 326, 360-362. 
 
 " Imperial " Dictionary, Whit- 
 ney's opinion of, 364, 365. 
 
 Iowa, Geological Survey, 150 et 
 seq., 159-160, 164 et seq. 
 
 Iowa State University, 150, 153- 
 
 154- 
 Ives, Lieut. J. C., 183, 204. 
 
 Jackson, C. T., 39, 42, 52, 53, 
 115; aids Whitney, 40, 56, 67 ; 
 New Hampshire Geological 
 Survey, 39-40, 47, 51, 54, 55; 
 Lake Superior Survey, 77-78, 
 89, 92, 106, 107, 109, 118; 
 ether, 107, 129; instructions 
 of, 41, 90 ; and California Sur- 
 vey, 187. 
 
 James, Capt. Malachi, 4. 
 
 James, Clarissa. See Whitney. 
 
INDEX 
 
 407 
 
 Joy, Prof. C. A., 172, 186; on 
 Lake Superior Survey, 91, 97, 
 100; at Union, 153, 156, 164; 
 remarks of, on California Geo- 
 logical Survey, 188. 
 
 Julian, George W., letter to, 243- 
 244. 
 
 Keith, William, painting of, 335. 
 
 Kimball, J. P., 176. 
 
 King, Clarence, 249, 254, 257, 
 277, 278, 284, 305 ; joins Cali- 
 fornia Survey, 236-237 ; climbs 
 Mt. Tyndall, 237, 274, 275 ; 
 attempts Mt. Whitney, 279, 
 286 ; on Fortieth Parallel Sur- 
 vey, 310, 333; and United 
 States Geological Survey, 310, 
 
 336-339. 342, 343- 
 King, Rev. T. S., 196, 216, 217. 
 
 Lake Superior, 77, 122, 125, 132, 
 
 133, 134, 146-149. ISO- 
 Lake Superior Geological Sur- 
 vey, 88 et seq., 104, 106-108, 
 114; life on, 92-100, 108-112 ; 
 objects, 88-89, 9; organiza- 
 tion, 90-92; reports, 117-118, 
 
 I20-I2I. 
 
 Lane, G. M., 123, 137, 139, 142. 
 Lapham, I. A., 126, 141. 
 Lasserv's Butte, 231, 234, 380. 
 Law, Whitney's study of, 51, 52, 
 
 55- 
 Lead Region, 122, 126-127, T 34> 
 
 1 50, 1 52 et seq. 
 Learned Societies, Whitney's 
 
 election to, 113, 155, 242, 369. 
 Leidy, Joseph, 186. 
 Lieber, O. M., 187. 
 
 Liebig, 73, 79 et seq., 83, 89. 
 Locke, John, 91. 
 Levering, Joseph, 186. 
 Low, Gov., 246, 247. 
 Lyell, Sir Charles, 38, 53, 118, 
 126, 129, 248; Mt. Lyell, 229. 
 
 Man, prehistoric, 248, 272, 276, 
 
 300, 316-317, 335. 
 Maps of California, 199, 233, 271, 
 
 278, 304 et seq. ; Bay Map, 203, 
 
 233 263, 304- 
 March, O. C., 186. 
 Marriage, Whitney's, 145. 
 Meek, F. B., 186. 
 "Metallic Wealth," 130, 135, 137, 
 
 141, 142, 144-145. 296. 
 Michigan Geological Survey, 172, 
 
 '73- 
 
 Mills, D. O., 303. 
 
 Missouri Geological Survey, 131. 
 
 Mountains, Whitney's measure- 
 ments of, 227-228 ; discovery 
 of new, 229-232, 237-238; of 
 Oregon and Washington, 259 
 et seq. ; of Colorado, 268 et seq. 
 
 Mount Desert, origin of name, 
 366. 
 
 Miiller, Prof. Max, 278, 327, 378. 
 
 Music, 14, 24, 25, 29, 32, 68 et 
 seq.> 143; in California, 255; 
 "Niebelungen Ring," 341 ; in 
 later life, 359. 
 
 " Names and Places," 365, 376. 
 National Academy, 242, 243 ; 
 
 Whitneys withdraw from, 297. 
 Nevada, 197 ; geological work in, 
 
 203-204, 221-223, 261-262; 
 
 last visit to, 333. 
 
408 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Newberry, J. S., 167, 183, 186; in 
 China, 314. 
 
 Newcomb, Simon, reviews " Cen- 
 tury Dictionary," 370. 
 
 Newcomb, Dr. Wesley, 217. 
 
 New Hampshire Geological Sur- 
 vey, 40, 41-47, 51, 54, 59-60, 
 91,301. 
 
 New York City, 79, 130, 149. 
 
 Northampton, 3, 5, 28, 39, 51, 73, 
 87, 154, 177, 242 et seq., 355, 
 
 357- 
 
 Nott, Rev. Eliphalet, 155, 156 et 
 seq., 186; Mrs. Whitney's opin- 
 ion of, 161 ; letter from, 169- 
 170. 
 
 Oregon, trip to, and Washington, 
 
 258-261. 
 Owen, D. D., 165, 167. 
 
 Page, Gov. John, 40, 43, 44. 
 Paine, Prof., and Whitney's li- 
 
 brai 7' 359- 
 
 Painting, 22, 23, 25. 
 
 Panin, Ivan, 330. 
 
 Paris, 61, 64-65, 72. 
 
 Parker, Rev. Theodore, 141, 155, 
 287. 
 
 Peirce, Benjamin, 186. 
 
 Pettee, W. H., 335, 345 ; in Cali- 
 fornia, 342-343- 
 
 Philadelphia, 50, 51, 120 et seq., 
 144; J. D. Whitney's life at, 
 
 3-39- 
 
 Phillips Academy, 15. 
 Porter, C. B., 252. 
 Profession, Whitney's attempt to 
 
 choose, 10, 14, 51, 52, 54 et seq., 
 
 89. 
 
 Pumpelly, Raphael, 333; book 
 of travels, 274-275; in China, 
 
 SI* 
 
 Pupils, Whitney's eminent, 321. 
 Putnam, S. Osgood, 87, 183- 
 
 184, 191, 2 56; suffers by floods, 
 
 210. 
 
 Rammelsberg, 61, 71, 73. 
 
 Religion, 34-35, 38-39, 336. 
 
 Remond, 214, 215, 249, 257. 
 
 Richthofen, F. von, 240, 267 ; his 
 survey of China, 240, 314, 332 ; 
 in Berlin, 313; on Ice Age, 
 362 ; letters to, 270-272, 332- 
 
 334, 340-342, 353-3S 6 ; las * tet- 
 ter from, 380-381. 
 
 Rogers, H. D., 120-121, 167, 171. 
 
 Rose, Heinrich, 47, 71, 73, 78, 
 
 329- 
 
 Round Hill School, 8. 
 Russian, Whitney's study of, 330, 
 
 33i 332. 
 
 Shaler, N. S., 320. 
 
 " Shanty," 188. 
 
 Shasta, Mt., ascent of, 223-227, 
 
 230; height of, 227-228. 
 Silliman, Benjamin, 14, 40, 50, 
 
 52, 186. 
 
 Skeat misspelled, 376. 
 Smith, Benjamin E., 363, 368, 
 
 3 6 9. 37. 
 
 Speculators, troubles with, in 
 California, 244-245, 251, 256, 
 265-267, 285, 293 et seq. 
 
 Stanford, Leland, 204, 213, 270, 
 
 33> 335- 
 
 Stearns, R. E. C., 303. 
 Storer, F. H., 245. 
 
INDEX 
 
 409 
 
 Sturgis- Hooper Professorship, 
 318 et seq. 
 
 Todd, Rev. Mr., 31, 37. 
 Tompkins, Edward, 216, 270, 
 
 282, 290. 
 Topographical Surveying, 90, 
 
 306 et seq., 339. 
 Trask, J. B., 182, 186, 191; 
 
 founds California Academy, 
 
 241. 
 Tyrol, 61, 124, 128. 
 
 United States Geological Survey, 
 Whitney's relation to, 305 et 
 seq,; Whitney for head of, 337- 
 
 339- 
 
 Union College, 153-154, 155 et 
 seq., 1 60 et seq., 164. 
 
 Wackenreuder, V., 254, 271. 
 Wadsworth, M. E., in Michigan, 
 
 342-343 ; report on Michigan, 
 
 345-346, 350, 362. 
 Watson, Sereno, 345, 348. 
 White, C. A., 363. 
 White Mountains, trip to, 360. 
 Whitney family, 2, 28, 30. 
 Whitney, Rev. Aaron, 2. 
 Whitney, Abel, 2-3. 
 Whitney, Clarissa [James], 4-5, 
 
 23> UO, 357- 
 
 Whitney, Eleanor Goddard, 163, 
 255, 280, 287, 331 ; engage- 
 ment of, 341 ; marriage of, 
 344, 345 ; visit of parents to, 
 348, 354 ; death, 353-356 ; Lake 
 Eleanor, 239, 274. 
 
 Whitney, Elizabeth, 15, 17, 28, 
 39, 62, 72, 75, 87; letter from, 
 
 33-35; letters to, 15-17, 18-25, 
 
 3i-33 35-37, 42-47, 48-51, 
 68-72, 163-^64 ; connection 
 with California Geological Sur- 
 vey, 183. 
 
 Whitney, John, 2. 
 
 Whitney, J. D., family, 1-5, 28- 
 30 ; birth, 5 ; boyhood, 5-27 ; 
 School at Plainfield, 6-8; 
 Round Hill, 8 ; New Haven, 
 8-15; Andover, 15-17; Yale 
 College, 17-27; study at Phil- 
 adelphia, 30-37 ; under Jack- 
 son, 39-55 ; New Hampshire 
 Geological Survey, 40-51 ; un- 
 certain as to profession, 51- 
 59; first trip abroad, 61-74; 
 Cambridge and translation of 
 Berzelius, 74-77; Lake Supe- 
 rior mines, 77-78 ; second trip 
 abroad, 78-86; assistant on 
 Lake Superior Survey, 88- 
 106; head of Lake Superior 
 Survey, 106-112; Lake Supe- 
 rior reports, 113-121; mining 
 expert, 122-127, I 3- I 3 2 , T 33~ 
 136, 146-149; "Metallic 
 Wealth," 144-145 ; marriage, 
 145; Lead District, 150-153, 
 158-160, . 164-166, 174-177; 
 Union College, 153-154, 155- 
 157, 160-162; birth of daugh- 
 ter, 163 ; State Geologist of 
 California, 184-188; organizes 
 survey, 189-192; begins field 
 work, 192 ; second year, 197 ; 
 financial difficulties, 208-213, 
 219-220; the Sierra Nevada, 
 223-232, 237-238; survey cur- 
 tailed, 235 ; year at East, 242 ; 
 
INDEX 
 
 survey opposed, 244 ; return 
 to California, 248; Calaveras 
 skull, 253; Oregon and Wash- 
 ington, 258-261 ; survey sus- 
 pended, 264-266 ; Mining 
 School at Harvard, 267-268; 
 Colorado, 268-269 ; survey 
 resumed, 269; conflict with 
 Governor and others, 282, 287- 
 289 ; Europe, 313-317 ; profes- 
 sorship at Harvard, 318 ; " Bri- 
 tannica," 322, 325 ; California 
 reports, 329, 330,345, 346-348, 
 351; Europe, 340-342; the 
 " Azoic System," 342-344, 
 362; Europe, 348-350; death 
 of wife and daughter, 352-356; 
 glacial studies, 360-362 ; " Cen- 
 tury Dictionary," 363-373, 376- 
 377 ; death, 382. 
 
 Whitney, J. D., Sr., 25, 27, 39, 47, 
 51 ; life and character, 2-4, 14, 
 15; and translation of Berze- 
 lius, 67, 72 ; and California 
 Survey, 188, 210 et seq. ; death, 
 357; quoted, 72-73; letters 
 from, 9-14, 65-67, 86-87 > let- 
 ters to, 47-48, 53-59, 159-160, 
 210-213, 254. 
 
 Whitney, Louisa Goddard, 146, 
 147, 175, 190; travels in Cali- 
 fornia, etc., 201, 202, 216, 217, 
 258 et seq., 261 ; observes bar- 
 ometer, 229; health, 146, 271, 
 315, 324, 327, 332, 340, 341, 
 349 ; writings, 336, 354 ; death, 
 353-3S 6 ; let ter of, 161-162; 
 letters to, 155-158, 223-227, 
 273-275, 280-282. 
 
 Whitney, Sarah [Williston], 4, 5. 
 
 Whitney, Sarah Birdseye, 28, 36, 
 47, 68, 87, 164. 
 
 Whitney, W. D., 16, 72, 122, 134, 
 322; relations with brother, 
 62; Lake Superior Survey, 91, 
 105 ; in Europe, 113, 128, 342; 
 at Yale, 132; at Clover Den, 
 138 etseq. ; " Metallic Wealth," 
 138, 139, 144; marriage, 169; 
 lead reports, 188; LL.D.,328; 
 " Climatic Changes," 351-352 ; 
 "Century Dictionary," 363 et 
 seq. ; letter from, 374 ; letters 
 to, 6265, 74-86, 92-106, 108- 
 112, 114-116, 119-121, 124- 
 136, 138-144, 146-149. J 59 
 160-161, 171-180, 192-197, 
 200-204, 208-210, 214-219, 
 232-233, 244-245, 247, 249- 
 253 255-267, 272-273, 276- 
 279, 282-290, 313-316, 323- 
 33 2 334-336, 343-353. 360- 
 379- 
 
 Whitneyite, 172-173. 
 
 Whitney Bay, 284. 
 
 Whitney, Mt., discovered, 237- 
 238 ; confusion concerning, 
 279; climbed, 285-286. 
 
 Whittlesey, Charles, 108, 109, 
 no. 
 
 Williams, M. B., 41, 42, 43, 45, 
 
 59- 
 
 Williamson, R. S., 259. 
 Williston, Samuel, 50. 
 Wilson, A. D., 265, 305, 310, 
 
 333- 
 Winlock, Joseph, 123, 137, 142, 
 
 324- 
 
 Winnipisiogee, Lake, 45-46. 
 Winthrop, Robert C., 102. 
 
INDEX 
 
 411 
 
 Wisconsin Geological Survey, 
 
 1 52 et seq., 1 74 et seq. 
 Worthen, Amos H., 153, 168. 
 Wyman, Jeffries, letter to, 316- 
 
 3*7- 
 
 Yale, 132-133; life at, 18-26; 
 
 LL.D., 272; lecture at Scien- 
 tific School, 318. 
 
 Yosemite, 202, 217, 229, 231. 
 
 Yosemite Valley bills, 263-264, 
 
 317. 
 
 Yosemite Guidebook, 267, 277, 
 310,315. 
 
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U S A 
 
RETURN EARTH SCIENCES LIBRARY 
 
 TO + 230 McCone H* 11 <S4?-9QQ7 
 
 LOAN PERIOD 1 
 1 MONTH 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 Books needed for class reserve are subject to immediate recall 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 LIBRARY USE ONL 
 
 r 
 
 
 
 FEB 1 4 m/ 
 
 
 
 
 .CjRCywrjONUfcP 
 
 
 
 
 
 /e>///<} 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ORM NO. DD8 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 BERKELEY, CA 94720 
 
I