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 21 
 
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BIOGRAPHIC A L MKMOT K 
 
 OF 
 
 CLAREXCE KING 
 
 1842-1001. 
 
 SAMUKL, FRANKLIN-KMMONS. 
 
 ouK Tine XATIOXAI, AcAi)i<nrY OF SCIENCE 
 APKFL 2JJ, 100H. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 JUDD & nKTWKUvKR, INC., PRINTERS 
 1907 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 
 
 OF 
 
 CLARENCE KING. 
 
 1842-1901. 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL FRANKLIN EMMONS. 
 
 READ BEFORE THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
 APRIL 23, 1903. 
 
 (4) 25 
 
EARTH 
 
 SCIENCES 
 LIBRARY 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF CLARENCE KING. 
 
 The greatest advance in geological science in the past half 
 century has been due less to the brilliant generalizations of indi- 
 vidual investigators, of which, however, there has been no want, 
 than to the systematic organization of geological work which has 
 given a sounder basis for theoretical deduction and rendered the 
 work of the individual more permanent and effective. 
 
 It was not until the truth that geological studies could not be 
 profitably confined within State lines or other artificial bounda- 
 ries had been proved by practical demonstration that the aid of 
 the general government was freely and permanently enlisted 
 and thereby geological science in America raised to its present 
 high position. 
 
 To the accomplishment of this result the late CLARENCE KING 
 was the foremost and one of the most active contributors. His 
 influence on the development of geological science in this country 
 was exercised at a critical point in its history, when the personal- 
 ity of the man, aside from his purely scientific ability, played a 
 much greater part than it would at the present day, when the 
 labors of men of his type have already borne abundant fruit in 
 impressing upon the people at large the practical importance of 
 a scientific guidance in the development of their material re- 
 sources. It seems, therefore, appropriate in speaking of the 
 man, even to a strictly scientific audience like the present, that 
 the more personal element should receive attention. 
 
 For believers in atavism a consideration of King's ancestry 
 will possess a peculiar interest. On both sides lie came of good 
 English stock planted on New England soil, where conditions 
 seemed propitious for the gradual development of the varied 
 characteristics that showed themselves so remarkably combined 
 in this brilliant man. 
 
 Daniel King, the first of the name in this country, came to 
 Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1637 a younger son of Halphe Kinge 
 of Watford, in Hertfordshire, England. 
 
 27 
 
 788943 
 
~^\ NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
 
 Fifty years later we find his son, Capt. Daniel King, a resident 
 merchant of St. Kitts, in the West Indies. On the floor of St. 
 George's chapel at Basseterre, on that island, is a stone bearing 
 the arms of the King family and recording the death of Benjamin 
 King, presumably Daniel's son. 
 
 Benjamin King, a grandson of the first Daniel, moved from 
 Salem to Newport in the first half of the eighteenth v century, 
 dying there in 1786. In him already was Commerce giving way 
 in a measure to Science, for he displayed strong tastes in the 
 latter pursuit, which the means acquired in the former permitted 
 him to indulge, and he made a point of importing from Europe 
 the latest philosophical instruments. It is a family tradition 
 that the great Benjamin Franklin, on one of his voyages between 
 Philadelphia and Boston, visited him to view the latest electric 
 novelty a Leyden jar. 
 
 Next Art came to pay her tribute, for Samuel, son of Benja- 
 min the scientist, was a portrait painter of no mean repute, and 
 numbered among his pupils the famous Washington Allston and 
 Malbone, the miniaturist. 
 
 The maternal side contributed literary culture and statesman- 
 ship. 
 
 The Honorable Ashur Eobbins, one of King's great-grand- 
 fathers, was. born at Weathersfield, Connecticut, in 1761, and 
 died at Newport, in 1845. He graduated at Yale in 1782, mar- 
 ried Mary Ellery in 1791, was United States district attorney at 
 Newport in 1812, received the honorary degree of LL.D. from 
 Brown in 1835, and from 1825 to 1839 served his country with 
 distinction in the United States Senate. He was distinguished 
 as an orator and classical scholar and was a friend and associate 
 of Daniel Webster. 
 
 William Little, another great-grandfather, was a graduate of 
 Yale in the class of 1777 and received an honorary degree from 
 Harvard in 1786. His son, William Little, Jr., was already dis- 
 tinguished as a linguist and classical scholar, when he died at the 
 early age of 40. His wife, Mrs. Sophia Little, Clarence's grand- 
 mother, from whom he evidently inherited many characteristic 
 traits, was a poetess and philanthropist, a woman of remarkable 
 public spirit, energy, and decision of character. She retained 
 her mental and physical vigor in the most remarkable degree up 
 
 28 
 
CLARENCE KING. 
 
 to the time of her death, at the age of 95, in 1893. Her son, 
 Bobbins Little, was for many years librarian of the Astor Library, 
 New York. 
 
 The immediate ancestors of the name were pioneer merchants 
 of the East India and China trade in the first half of the last 
 century. His grandfather, Samuel Vernon King, moved from 
 Newport to New Yonk, and in 1803 was senior partner in the 
 commercial house of King & Talbot. His four sons, Charles, 
 James, Frederick, and David, successively replaced him in the 
 firm, which became known as Talbot, Olyphant & Company, and 
 later as King & Company. Three of these four brothers died in 
 the far East ; the fourth fell in the first year of the Civil War. 
 
 James, the father of Clarence, though induced by family in- 
 fluence to follow the calling of a merchant, had a natural leaning 
 toward scientific studies. He married Florence Little at the age 
 of 21, but was obliged to leave his young wife before the birth of 
 their first child in order to take the place of his elder brother in 
 the house in China. He died suddenly at Amoy, China, in 1848, 
 leaving as a legacy to his wife and only child his interest in the 
 business of the China firm. 
 
 The young mother, left a widow at 22, devoted herself to the 
 education of her son, learning with an inherited facility both 
 classical and modern languages that she might teach them in turn 
 to him, and cultivating the taste for natural science, an inherited 
 quality, which early showed itself in the child. While living at 
 Pomfret, Connecticut, whither she had gone that he might have 
 the benefit of Dr. Park's excellent school for boys, the .young 
 Clarence, then only seven years old, came to his mother one day 
 in January, when the ground was covered with frozen snow, 
 and asked if she could go a little way with him to see something. 
 The little way proved to be about a mile and the something 
 a remarkably distinct fossil fern in a stone wall, and the boy 
 wished his mother to explain to him how it came there. Books 
 on geology were consulted, and from that time on, she writes, 
 "my rooms became a veritable museum, where all kinds of speci- 
 mens were studied with enthusiasm." In his later school-boy 
 days, which were principally spent in the endowed high school 
 at Hartford, Connecticut, while in the summer vacation trips 
 in the Green Mountains were devoted to camping out -among 
 
 29 
 
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
 
 the rocks and plants he loved to study, his mother was his com- 
 panion and guide. As the boy developed into the man and as 
 the relative disparity of age lessened, there grew up between 
 them a close intellectual companionship that never weakened 
 during his lifetime. She was a woman of remarkable intel- 
 lectual caliber, who might readily have made a name in literature 
 had she had that ambition; but she was contented to live in the 
 reflected glory of her son's reputation. On his side, his tender 
 affection and solicitude for her welfare was one of the most 
 marked traits of his character, and through all the many vicis- 
 situdes of his checkered life his first thought and duty was to 
 provide for her comfort and happiness. 
 
 In the crisis of 1857 the house of King & Company became 
 bankrupt through the loss of a steamer which, in charge of a 
 confidential clerk, was carrying a large amount of specie to meet 
 their liabilities at another port, and the property which had been 
 left by James King for the support of his widow and only son 
 was thereby lost. 
 
 Not long afterward King entered as a clerk in a business 
 house w r ith the idea of following a commercial career, but al- 
 though he succeeded in satisfying his employer, his natural taste 
 lay so strongly in the direction of science and literature that he 
 could not satisfy himself, and after a few months' trial aban- 
 doned the attempt. 
 
 In 1859 he became a student at the Scientific School at Yale, 
 then a much less prosperous and generously endowed institution 
 than at the present day, but rich in the possession of such in- 
 spiring teachers as James D. Dana and George J. Brush. 
 Already, according to the testimony of his fellow-students, King 
 showed many of the qualities which distinguished him above his 
 fellows in later life. He studied enthusiastically both in books 
 and in nature. His observations of natural objects, plants, ani- 
 mals, or rocks were so vivid that they seemed to photograph 
 themselves upon his memory, so that he could recall the picture 
 at wjll. He wrote readily and with delicate literary judgment 
 vand skill, thanks to the influence of his mother's teaching. His 
 love of outdoor life had so developed a naturally robust physique 
 that he readily excelled in all athletic sports, especially rowing. 
 
 30 
 
CLARENCE KING. 
 
 In whatever he was engaged, whether study or recreation, he was 
 naturally accepted as a leader by his fellows. 
 
 In 1862 he was graduated from Yale College with the degree 
 of B. S., his class being the first to which this degree was ac- 
 corded by the University. During his college life his strong 
 natural taste for scientific and artistic study of the greater 
 features of natural scenery had been stimulated by reading the 
 then popular works of Tyndall and Buskin on the Alps of 
 Europe, and Winthrop's stirring pictures of Northwestern Amer- 
 ica ; and an even more direct impulse was given by the incidental 
 hearing, in a letter to Professor Brush, of an account of the 
 ascent by the members of the Geological Survey of California 
 of Mt. Shasta, then supposed to be the highest peak in North 
 America. 
 
 Immediately upon graduation he planned a boat trip from 
 Lake Champlain down the St. Lawrence River to Quebec, which 
 was carried out in company with his friends, James T. Gardiner, 
 Samuel Parsons, Jr., and Daniel Dewey, in the autumn of 1862. 
 They rowed themselves in a four-oared boat from Whitehall, on 
 Lake Champlain, to Quebec, camping out en route and support- 
 ing themselves largely by the fruit of their rods and guns. 
 
 During the winter of 1862-' 3 King was for a time a student 
 of glacial geology under the elder Agassiz, and an enthusiastic 
 member of an art club which, under the guidance of Russell 
 Sturgis, devoted itself to the study of Ruskin and the pre-Raph- 
 aelite school of art. 
 
 The final impulse to the step which had the most influence 
 upon his life was characteristically given by his solicitude for 
 the welfare of another; his life-long friend Gardiner, having 
 broken down in health through overstudy and an open-air life 
 having been recommended to him, King planned a trip across 
 the continent to the sunny skies of California. In May, 1863, 
 the two young men proceeded to St. Joseph, Missouri, then the 
 westernmost terminus of railroads and the starting point for 
 emigrant travel across the plains. On the train between Han- 
 nibal and St. Joe King's kindly attention to the young children 
 of a well-to-do emigrant family led to the adoption of Gardiner 
 and himself as members of their party. The route followed by 
 the party led up the valley of the North Platte River into 
 
 31 
 
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
 
 Wyoming, and thence by the South Pass and the Sweetwater 
 Mountains across Green Elver Valley and around the northern 
 end of Salt Lake to the Humboldt River, in Nevada, correspond- 
 ing thus in a general way to that followed in later years by the 
 transcontinental railroads and included in the belt which the 
 party under King's charge was destined to survey. 
 
 The progress of the wagons was necessarily slow and about 
 three months were occupied in the journey, which gave the 
 young travelers, who were mounted upon their own horses, abun- 
 dant opportunity for making detours along the route, of which 
 they fully availed themselves. In more than one instance, while 
 exploring the neighboring mountains, they ran the risk of cap- 
 ture by hostile Indians, but the experience thus gained was un- 
 doubtedly of great service in King's explorations of later years.' 
 
 After crossing the deserts of Nevada they left the party and 
 made a detour to the south to examine the already famous 
 Comstock Lode at Virginia City. The very night of their arrival 
 their lodging-house took fire and burned so rapidly that they 
 barely escaped with their lives, losing everything they had with 
 them, even to their letters and clothing. This was a serious 
 blow, as they were entirely unknown in the place ; but they were 
 equal to the occasion, and having been fitted out by hospitable 
 miners with rough clothing, they found employment in one of 
 the quartz mills, where they worked until they had saved money 
 enough to continue their journey. Starting anew, they crossed 
 the Sierra Nevada on foot and reached Sacramento with just 
 enough money to pay their passage on the river steamer to San 
 Francisco. 
 
 On this trip they met by chance Prof. William M. Brewer, 
 then first assistant of Prof. J. D. Whitney, of the Geological 
 Survey of California, who was making a reconnaissance along 
 the upper portions of the Sierra Nevada and had temporarily left 
 his party in order to get further aid before going into the north- 
 ern country, where the Indians were reported to be troublesome. 
 The immediate result of this incident, his appointment as volun- 
 teer assistant geologist of the recently organized Geological 
 Survey of California, was one that had a far-reaching effect on 
 King's future career. 
 
 Although a few enterprising geologists had succeeded in pene- 
 
 32 
 
CLARENCE KING. 
 
 trating the great mountain regions of the far west and had 
 brought back vivid accounts of the phenomena observed at various 
 points, the great region beyond the Mississippi Kiver was still 
 geologically a terra incognita, when in 1861 the legislature of 
 California had appropriated a generous sum for a geological 
 survey of that State and made Prof. J. D. AVhitney its director. 
 
 No more attractive field for geological exploration and study 
 could be found than that of the great Sierra Nevada, from which 
 had already come a stream of gold whose volume had disturbed 
 the monetary systems of the world. The problems presented in 
 its structure were in many respects new in the experience of the 
 American geologist, especially in the field of vulcanism, whose 
 manifestations in the eastern part of the continent, where stu- 
 dents of geology had hitherto been mainly occupied, are com- 
 paratively insignificant. To King, full as he was of youthful 
 energy and enthusiasm, the prospect of exploring the summits 
 of this great range and repeating in the Alps of America the ex- 
 periences of Tyndall and Ruskin in those of Europe was indeed 
 a powerful inducement for joining the Survey, and how abun- 
 dantly and fruitfully he embraced the opportunities is well 
 shown in his delightful book on "Mountaineering in the Sierra 
 Nevada." 
 
 His first experience was as an assistant to Professor Brewer, 
 when, in September, 1863, they explored the regions in northern 
 California, where the granite crest of the Sierra Nevada suddenly 
 breaks down and is succeeded by broken hills and lava-capped 
 plains out of which rise the imposing volcanic cones of Lassens 
 Peak and Mt. Shasta. Here he had his first opportunity for a 
 field study of volcanic rocks a study in which, aided by the 
 teaching of his great friend, the German geologist Von Richt- 
 hofen, he afterward became so proficient that for many years he 
 was recognized as the highest American authority upon the 
 subject. 
 
 A large portion of the summer of 1864 was spent in exploring 
 the southern part of the Sierra Nevada* around the Yosemite 
 Valley and the high peaks to the eastward at the headwaters of 
 the King and Kern rivers. Tn climbing one of the highest peaks 
 of this group, which they had called Mt. Tyndall, two still higher 
 ones were discovered, to the loftier of which, evidently the cul- 
 
 33 
 
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
 
 minating point of the whole Sierra, they gave the name of "Mt. 
 Whitney" in honor of their respected chief. This King at- 
 tempted to climb later in the same season, hut when near the 
 summit he found his further progress stopped by a sheer wall of 
 granite which rendered its ascent from that side impossible. 
 To show the great unwillingness of the man to abandon any im- 
 portant enterprise that he had undertaken, it may be stated that 
 long after he had severed his connection with the California 
 Survey he twice repeated the attempt from the other side of the 
 range. In 1871 he supposed he had attained the highest point, 
 but a storm coming up just as he had reached it, the clouds in 
 which he was enveloped hid the true summit, which was a little 
 higher than the one which he was on. Two years later the news 
 came to, him in New York that observations by a member of the 
 California Survey had proved his error, and without a moment's 
 delay he crossed the continent and climbed it again, this time 
 reaching the actual summit, the highest peak within the United 
 States. ^ 
 
 In the summer of 18(^ with William Ashburner, the distin- 
 guished mining engineer, he was for a time engaged in an eco- 
 nomic survey of the Mariposa land grant under F. L. Olmsted, 
 and it was during the progress of this work that he made the 
 discovery of the fossil that finally settled the question of the 
 age of the auriferous slates of the Sierra Nevada. In the follow- 
 ing winter, the Survey funds being exhausted through lack of 
 appropriations, he with his friend Gardiner returned to the east 
 by the Nicaragua route, spending two weeks on the Isthmus 
 while waiting for a steamer to New York. On his arrival he 
 was detained for a long time at the house of his stepfather, 
 George S. Howland, at Irvington-on-the-Hudson, by an attack 
 of malaria, after which he took a post-graduate course in field 
 and practical astronomy at Yale. 
 
 Eeturning again to California in the autumn of 1865, the two 
 young men were soon after their arrival engaged as geological 
 and topographical engineers for an exploratory expedition 
 through Arizona, made by General McDowell with a company 
 of cavalry. This expedition occupied the winter of 1865-^6 and,, 
 carried on as it was in a desert country infested by hostile 
 Apaches, involved no little hardship and danger. At one time, 
 
 34 
 
CLARENCE KING. 
 
 while carrying on their scientific work out of sight of their 
 escort, they were ambushed by a party of Indians and only es- 
 caped death through the coolness of King, who first prevented 
 his companion from making what he perceived to be a futile 
 resistance, and later dela^yed the preparation of their torture by 
 fire by exciting the curiosity of the Indians by his barometer, 
 which he explained was a new kind of long-distance gun, and 
 thus gained time enough to allow the cavalry to come in sight 
 and effect their rescue. 
 
 In the spring of 1866, further work in Arizona having been 
 rendered impracticable by the substitution of raw infantry from 
 the easi for the California cavalry, which had hitherto been an 
 efficient guard against the Apaches, the young men returned to 
 San Francisco, making the difficult and then somewhat dangerous 
 journey across the great deserts of southern California alone, 
 being obliged to travel at night and lie by during the daytime 
 that they might not be seen by the Indians and also to avoid 
 the great heat of midday -sun. After working up the results of 
 their field work they resumed their connection with the California 
 Survey and spent the following summer in surveying the high 
 Sierras to the east of the Yosemite Valley. It was during this 
 work, according to Mr. Gardiner, that they planned the system 
 of rapid surveying by triangulation checked by astronomical 
 locations and barometrical measurements which was later so suc- 
 cessfully carried into practice in the Exploration of the 40th 
 Parallel. 
 
 In the early autumn, while still engaged in this work, King 
 received news of the sudden death of his stepfather, Mr. How- 
 land, and at once started home to be near his mother, who, with 
 three young children left dependent upon her, for the second 
 time found herself reduced from affluence to comparative poverty. 
 
 At this crisis he found himself in a position whose difficulties 
 would have daunted a less courageous and sanguine nature. 
 Without other means than his active brain and the experience 
 gathered during his four years' apprenticeship on the California 
 Survey, he had not only to make a career for himself, but to 
 provide for the comfort of those who naturally looked to him for 
 protection and support. That experience, however, was one that 
 was invaluable to him at this time. He had familiarized himself 
 
 35 
 
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
 
 with the best method of overcoming the natural difficulties to 
 be met with in carrying on scientific exploration in the west, and 
 thus so strengthened the inborn self-reliance of his nature that, 
 as in the case of reaching the summit of Mt. Whitney, failure 
 seemed only to spur him on to further effort. 
 
 Not long after his return to the east, therefore, he determined 
 upon attempting to carry out the project that had been gradually 
 shaping itself in his mind ever since he first crossed the conti- 
 nent, that, namely, of inducing Congress to authorize the making 
 of a geological and topographical survey across the entire Cor- 
 dilleran system at its widest point, and thus connecting the 
 geology of the east with that of the west. Before leaving Cali- 
 fornia he had submitted his plan to Professor Whitney, but 
 the latter, while thoroughly appreciating its great scientific im- 
 portance, had refused him any written indorsement for the reason 
 that he believed the natural obstacles in its way to be insur- 
 mountable. 
 
 King, however, confident of the feasibility of his plan, felt 
 that then, if ever, was the time to favorably influence the minds 
 of our statesmen, when their best endeavors were directed to 
 strengthening the liens that bound the various parts of our great 
 country together. There had been considerable apprehension 
 during the dark days of the Civil War lest California, physically 
 isolated as she was at that time, should separate from the other 
 States and set up an independent government. The subsidizing 
 of the transcontinental railroad was the first step toward over- 
 coming this isolation and binding her more closely to the east; 
 but still another step was necessary the resources of the inter- 
 mediate region should be ascertained and a foundation laid for 
 the development of the mineral wealth locked up in its mountains 
 and desert plains/the importance of which few beside himself 
 were able at that time to appreciate. In no other way could this 
 be more thoroughly accomplished than by such a scientific ex- 
 ploration as4ie proposed. Subsequent events have abundantly 
 proved the correctness of this view, for nowhere in the history of 
 the world has there been recorded such an amazingly rapid and 
 permanent development of a comparatively unknown region as 
 has been effected in the thirty years that have elapsed since the 
 opening of the transcontinental railroad. 
 
 36 
 
CLARENCE KING. 
 
 It was with the object of impressing this view upon Congress 
 and influencing their favorable action that in the winter of 
 1866- ? 7 King, then barely 25 years old and looking still more 
 youthful, presented himself at Washington armed only with a 
 few letters of introduction from his college professors and from 
 friends whom he had made in California. It was to his earnest- 
 ness and the magnetic influence of his personality rather than to 
 these letters, however, that was due the favorable impression he 
 soon made upon the leading men to whom he first addressed 
 himself. Chief among these were John Conness, of California, 
 and Abram S. Hewitt, of New York, who became his legisla- 
 tive advisers and champions upon the floors of the Senate and 
 the House respectively; General A. A. Humphreys, Chief of 
 Engineers, eminent not only as a military commander, but also 
 as a scientist, under whose administrative control the survey 
 was carried on, and Spencer F. Baird, Secretary of the Smith- 
 sonian Institution, his scientific adviser, all of whom soon became 
 and always remained his warm and sympathetic friends. 
 
 On the second of March, 1867, Congress approved a bill whose 
 last clause authorized the Secretary of War "to direct a geological 
 and topographical exploration of the territory between the Rocky 
 Mountains and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, including the 
 route or routes of the Pacific Railroad." No definite sum was 
 appropriated at that time, as the bill provided that the expense 
 should be met out of existing appropriations, but it had been 
 arranged beforehand that certain unexpended balances of appro- 
 priations for surveys for a military wagon road across the conti- 
 nent should be used for this purpose. 
 
 Five days later King received his formal appointment as 
 Geologist in Charge of the Geological Exploration of the 40th 
 Parallel, and at once proceeded to organize his corps. As all the 
 resources of the country were to be studied, animal and vegetable 
 as well as mineral, this included, besides geologists and topog- 
 raphers, also a zoologist and a botanist; a feature novel at that 
 time was the addition of a photographer, to which position a man 
 was selected who had had wide field experience with the Army of 
 the Potomac during the Civil War. An escort of cavalry was 
 also provided as a guard against possible danger from hostile 
 
 37 
 
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
 
 Indians, which proved a by no means useless though" sometimes 
 troublesome adjunct. 
 
 In the following May the party proceeded to California by 
 way of the Isthmus of Panama, but it was near the end of July 
 before all the necessary preparations had been made and they 
 took up their march from Sacramento across the Sierra Nevada 
 to their field of work. 
 
 In these days, when the West is covered by a network of rail- 
 ways, it is difficult to conceive of the obstacles that had to be 
 overcome in carrying out so ambitious a work as that which King 
 had planned. Of the transcontinental railroads but a few miles 
 at either end had yet been constructed. The territories of Utah 
 and Nevada were represented on most maps of the day as one 
 broad desert, and. it was considered doubtful whether sufficient 
 water and grass could be found there to support a camping party. 
 
 Through such a country it was designed to carry, not a simple 
 meander survey along a previously chosen route, as had hitherto 
 been the custom in military explorations, but the detailed map- 
 ping, both topographical and geological, of an area about 100 
 miles in width, which finally extended nearly 1,000 miles in 
 length. 
 
 As far as was possible to human foresight, King had provided 
 means to overcome the difficulties liable to be encountered. 
 Guided by his previous experience in such work, he had person- 
 ally supervised the preparation of even 7 article of the party's 
 equipment, from the scientific instruments, many of which were 
 specially constructed for the purpose on his own special designs, 
 down to the minor details of construction of wagons and pack 
 saddles. Nevertheless there were many times, especially in the 
 first two seasons' campaigning in the deserts of Nevada, when, 
 through weakness resulting from malarial fever contracted in 
 the Sacramento Valley bottoms, the impossibility of obtaining 
 potable water, a shortness of food supplies, or delays from 
 storms or other causes, discouragement took possession of differ- 
 ent members of the party. But King's abundant courage and 
 energy never failed and his fertility in expedients was equal to 
 every emergency; so that he gradually impressed upon every 
 member of his corps such confidence in his ability as a leader 
 
 38 
 
CLARENCE KING. 
 
 that their personal devotion to him and their faith in the -com- 
 plete success of the undertaking knew no bounds. 
 
 In 1869, when the two ends of the transcontinental railroad 
 had met in the Salt Lake Valley, the work of the Survey had 
 been carried eastward to the boundary of Wyoming, which was 
 the eastern limit of the area it was primarily intended to survey. 
 In recognition of the public demand for a direct application of 
 the results of government geological work, King had caused 
 special study to be made of the then developed mining districts 
 of the West, more particularly of the Comstock Lode, at that 
 time recognized as one of the three or four greatest silver de- 
 posits in the world. This work was pushed rapidly to comple- 
 tion and was issued in 1870 in an elaborately illustrated quarto 
 volume, written conjointly by himself and James D. Hague, 
 under the title of "Mining Industry." It was described by one 
 of its most capable critics as by "itself a scientific manual of 
 American precious metal mining and metallurgy." It was con- 
 sidered a classic among works in its line, and has served as a 
 model for similar monographs since published under government 
 auspices, which have been important factors in raising the 
 mining industry of America to its present high position. 
 
 In July, 1870, while the members of his corps at Xew Haven 
 were engaged in writing up the reports of what was supposed to 
 be their completed field work, King received telegraphic instruc- 
 tions from General Humphreys to immediately take the field, 
 since Congress, of its own impulse and without solicitation, now 
 appreciating the importance of the work, had voted money for 
 its further continuation. It being then too late in the season to 
 carry on field work to advantage in the higher regions of the 
 Rocky Mountains, King planned an exploration of the great ex- 
 tinct volcanoes of the Pacific coast in order to complete the 
 record of the volcanic phenomena so abundantly exhibited within 
 the area already surveyed in the Great Basin, and during the 
 late summer and autumn special studies were made of the then 
 practically unexplored peaks of Shasta, Rainier, and Hood. 
 
 The field work of the seasons of 1871-'2 carried the work of 
 the Survey across the Uinta and Rocky Mountains well out onto 
 the Great Plains. It was at the close of field work in the latter 
 season that occurred the exposure of the great diamond fraud of 
 
 39 
 
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
 
 1872, an incident that brought into strong relief King's de- 
 cision of character and readiness in an emergency and made him 
 more widely and favorably known to the general public than any 
 single act of his varied career. 
 
 News of an apparently well authenticated discovery of dia- 
 monds in sufficient quantity to affect the markets of the world 
 had been circulated throughout the public prints during the en- 
 tire summer. Its location had been kept carefully concealed, 
 though it was generally assumed to be somewhere in Arizona. 
 A company with ten millions of capital had been formed to work 
 the diamond fields, whose stock had been freely subscribed to by 
 some of the most prominent men in the East as well as the West, 
 while a host of other companies were already organized ready to 
 float their stock as soon as the position and character of the 
 diamond-bearing rocks should become known. 
 
 Late in the autumn the writer and several other members of 
 the 40th Parallel Survey, while on their way to San Francisco 
 at the close of field work, became possessed of a number of clues, 
 which though separately of the most indefinite character, when 
 combined together enabled them, from their intimate knowledge 
 of the country, to fix the location of the supposed discovery at a 
 certain point within the area surveyed by him during the previous 
 year. Whether by chance or intention, the location selected by 
 the supposed discoverers had been singularly well chosen from a 
 geological standpoint, for when asked where within that area 
 diamonds would most probably be discovered, King at once fixed 
 on that very region as the most probable one for their occur- 
 rence. It was because of its scientific importance that he de- 
 cided upon an immediate investigation in spite of the lateness 
 and inclemency of the season. It required over a week's travel 
 for himself and assistants to reach the spot, and when, after 
 several days' careful geological investigation, it was found that 
 the diamonds could not have been placed there by Nature, King 
 realized that a most cleverly planned fraud had been foisted on 
 the public, which, if not promptly and conclusively exposed, 
 would result not only in pecuniary loss to innocent investors, 
 but in great suffering and even loss of life to the many that 
 would probably rush to the bleak exposed region where the loca- 
 tions had been made. By journeying night and day across the 
 
 40 
 
CLARENCE KING. 
 
 bad-land country he reached the railroad, and proceeding to San 
 Francisco laid his facts before the managers of the company, 
 offering to take to the spot with his own outfit any experts they 
 might be willing to send to test the truth of his statements. 
 Their journey was' rendered doubly difficult by the great bliz- 
 zard of that year that overtook them while in camp, but the 
 company's engineers fully confirmed the conclusions arrived at 
 by him and his party, and upon their return they were promptly 
 made public by the officers of the company, thus averting what 
 bid fair to be the most widespread and gigantic financial calam- 
 ity that the world had seen since the Missouri Bubble of Law. 
 
 After the completion of field work of the Survey in 1873 there 
 was necessarily a long delay before the abundant collections in 
 the various scientific branches could be worked up by the re- 
 spective specialists, the lithologic collections alone numbering 
 about 5,000 specimens, for, under the high standards fixed for 
 his work, it was only to the highest authorities in their respective 
 branches that King was willing to entrust the final study of these 
 collections. 
 
 Thus, under his instructions, the writer spent the summer of 
 1874 in Europe conferring with the heads of the leading Euro- 
 pean geological surveys as to their methods of work, and buying, 
 at King's expense, the best and latest geological literature, with 
 which at that time American libraries were but scantily pro- 
 vided. Furthermore, by personal persuasion he succeeded in 
 inducing Professor F. Zirkel, the founder of the science of mi- 
 croscopical petrography, to visit America and study in the pres- 
 ence of the colle'ctors their numerous collections of eruptive rock 
 specimens, for at that time there was no geologist in America 
 who had any practical knowledge of this new branch of geology. 
 
 King reserved for himself the final summarizing of the work 
 of his assistants, and the drawing of general conclusions and 
 theoretical deductions therefrom. This he did in the winter of 
 1877-' 8 after the five government quartqs and two great atlases 
 embodying the details worked out by his various assistants had r 
 been printed. This summary was published in a volume, enti- 
 tled "Systematic Geology," of over 800 pages, profusely illus- 
 trated by reproductions of photographic views illustrating typical 
 geologic phenomena and analytical charts representing the im- 
 (5) 41 
 
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
 
 portant stages in the geological history of the Cordilleran system. 
 It was probably the most masterly summary of a great piece of 
 geological work that has ever been written, and was well charac- 
 terized by its most competent critic in the following words : 
 
 "The most satisfactory part of Mr. King's work, next to its 
 scientific thoroughness, is the breadth of view which embraces 
 in one field the correlation of such extended forces and the vigor 
 of grasp with which the author handles so large a subject with- 
 out allowing himself to be crushed by details. Hitherto every 
 geological report has been a geological itinerary without general- 
 ization or arrangement. This volume is much more ; it is indeed 
 almost a systematic geology in itself, and might be printed ir* 
 cheaper form and used as a text-book in the technological 
 schools." 
 
 Aside from the direct contributions to science embodied in the 
 seven quarto volumes that contained the published results of this 
 great survey, King exerted a most important influence upon 
 geological work in this country by the high standards he set for 
 it and his practical demonstration of the possibility of living up 
 to them. Thus a topographic survey which should afford an 
 accurate delineation of the relief of a country had not hitherto 
 been considered a necessary base for geological mapping either 
 in State or government surveys. - A system of rapid surveying 
 by triangulation and the use of contours to express relief was 
 first employed by him in making maps of large areas, and inaug- 
 urated an improvement in our systems of cartography that has 
 made the maps issued by our government superior to any in the 
 world. ^/Ke demonstrated the importance of the general use of 
 photography as an adjunct to geology, which previously had not 
 been considered practicable because of the labor and expense 
 involved in transporting the necessary apparatus for the develop- 
 ing of wet plates in the field. 4)&t even greater moment was the 
 practical introduction of the methods of microscopical petrog- 
 raphy, supplemented by chemical analysis, in the examination of 
 rocks an innovation which marked the opening of a new era 
 in geological study in the United States. 
 
 His mind was possessed in a high degree of the quality, known 
 as scientific imagination, that enabled it to grasp almost at a 
 glance the ultimate bearing of observed phenomena on the 
 
 42 
 
CLARENCE KING. 
 
 broader problems of geology, and thus he was often able to sug- 
 gest to others profitable lines of investigation which h^ himself 
 did not have time to follow out. Thus, during his study of the 
 glaciers of Mt. Shasta, he made the observations that are credited 
 with first suggesting the true origin of the kettle-holes and 
 kames of New England, and his later discovery in the summer 
 of 1874, that the line of islands extending along the southern 
 coast of Xew England from the heel of Cape Cod to Staten 
 Island contains remnants of the terminal moraine of the great 
 glacier that once covered the northeastern States, had much 
 influence in inducing the later systematic studies of the Conti- 
 nental glacier which have brought aboui the most important 
 advance in the science of glaciology since the days of the elder 
 Agassiz. 
 
 It had been the hope and ambition of King and his associates 
 on the 40th Parallel that the quality and demonstrated useful- 
 ness of their work would be such that it would ultimately lead 
 to the establishment of a general geological survey of the United 
 States, whose permanence would be assured by being made a 
 bureau of one of the executive departments of the government. 
 This result came about much earlier than either of them had 
 anticipated, and its accomplishment, singularly enough, was 
 hastened by the zeal of rival leaders of different government 
 surveys which it entirely superseded. 
 
 After two seasons of field work with the 40th Parallel Survey 
 had demonstrated the practicability of geological map-making 
 in the West, a _second survey was inaugurated under the Engi- 
 neer Department by Lieut. George M. Wheeler, which was desig- 
 nated "United Stat& Geographical Surveys West of the 100th 
 Meridian." In 1894 the already existing "Hayden Survey" 
 adopted King's system of making topographic maps as a basis 
 for its geology, employing for this purpose the topographers on 
 the 40th Parallel after their work in the latter, survey had -been 
 completed, and its title was changed to the "United States Geo- 
 logical and Geographical Surveys of the Territories." The fields 
 of work of these organizations were not limited by any definite 
 bounds, as had been that of the 40th Parallel, and with increas- 
 ing popularity each became desirous of surveying the regions 
 which contained the most remarkable and striking phenomena. 
 
 43 
 
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
 
 Thus their work often overlapped and was duplicated, and their 
 rivalry finally became so intense that the influence of one party 
 with Congress was used to .curtail the appropriation allotted to 
 the other. As a final result of this rivalry there was serious 
 danger of a reaction in the feeling of Congress toward such sur- 
 veys that would result in cutting off all government aid to geo- 
 logical work. 
 
 In this crisis King was appealed to as a disinterested party, 
 and it was mainly, through his influence with the leading scien- 
 tific men of the country and his tactful management of affairs 
 in Congress that the danger was averted. Congress was induced 
 to call upon the National Academy of Sciences for its advice as 
 to the best methods of carrying on the various scientific surveys 
 which were then being conducted under different departments. 
 Although a member of the Academy since 1876, King was not 
 appointed on the committee to whom this question was referred, 
 but was freely consulted by its members in making up their 
 report. 
 
 By the law of March 3, 1879, the present United States Geo- 
 logical Survey was established as a bureau of the Interior De- 
 partment, the exact language of the Academy's report being 
 adopted so far as it related to geological surveys, and the previous 
 organizations were thereby discontinued. 
 
 President Hayes, after consultation with the best scientists of 
 the country, appointed Clarence King as the first director of the 
 new Bureau. King accepted the appointment with the distinct 
 understanding that he should remain at its head only long 
 enough to appoint its staff, organize its work, and guide its forces 
 into full activity. At the close of Hayes' term he offered his 
 resignation, but at the President's request he held over until 
 after the inauguration of Garfield. The latter accepted it on 
 March 12, 1881, in an autograph letter expressing in the warmest 
 terms his appreciation of the efficiency of King's service and his 
 regret that he did not find it possible to remain longer in charge 
 of the Geological Bureau. 
 
 Brief as was the duration of his administration, his influence 
 being exercised at the critical period of the Survey's existence,, 
 left a lasting impress upon it. He^ outlined the broad, general 
 principles upon which its work should be conducted, and its. 
 
 44 
 
CLARENCE KING. 
 
 subsequent success has been in a great measure dependent upon 
 the faithfulness with which these principles have been followed 
 by his successors. His belief was that a geological survey of a 
 great industrial country, while not neglecting the more purely 
 scientific side of its work, should occupy itself primarily with the 
 direct application of geological results to the development of the 
 mineral resources of the country. 
 
 Under his direction were carried on the examinations of the 
 Comstock, Eureka, Leadville, and other mining districts, whose 
 importance is to be measured not solely by the accurate informa- 
 tion which they afforded of these particular regions, but in far 
 greater degree by their influence upon the whole body of mining 
 engineers, in teaching them the practical importance of a study 
 of the geological relations of ore deposits. 
 
 He also planned and supervised the collection of statistics of 
 the precious metals for the Tenth Census, a work which has never 
 been equaled in detail or scientific accuracy, and whose logical 
 result was the annual collection of statistics of all the mineral 
 resources of the United States, which has been carried on by the 
 Geological Survey ever since the completion of the work of the 
 Tenth Census. 
 
 King set the very highest standard for the work of the Survey 
 and showed remarkable judgment and knowledge of character in 
 his selection of the men who in their respective branches were 
 best fitted to keep it up, as nearly as possible, to this standard. 
 In his establishment of a physical laboratory for the determina- 
 tion of the physical constants of rocks, he took a step in the 
 direction of the application of methods of exact science to geo- 
 logical problems so far in advance of the average standards of 4 
 the day that its importance was not generally realized until long 
 after. 
 
 In all his after life he maintained a lively interest in the work 
 of the Survey and kept closely in touch with his successors in 
 office, who frequently consulted him on important questions of 
 policy. 
 
 In giving up his official connection with government geological 
 work, King was doubtless influenced by several motives: His 
 many years of strenuous work and unusual responsibility had 
 been a severe strain upon his health, and he felt the need of rest 
 
 45 
 
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
 
 and change. Moreover., he was confident that he could render a 
 greater service to geological science by pursuing the theoretical 
 researches into its deeper problems, for which the physical 
 laboratory he had established would in time furnish the neces- 
 sary data, than by devoting his time and strength to administra- 
 tive duties. Financial considerations doubtless had some weight 
 also, for under the new law his official position shut him out 
 from any professional remuneration beyond his salary, and that 
 was not sufficient to enable him to meet the obligations he felt it 
 incumbent upon him to assume for others. 
 
 During the remaining twenty years of his life much of his 
 time was necessarily given to private professional work, either in 
 personally managing and developing mining properties or acting 
 as adviser for others. In this work his ambition was to accumu- 
 late sufficient capital to enable him to pursue unrestrainedly 
 the necessarily expensive experiments needful for the carrying 
 out of his chosen line of investigation, and to insure the comfort 
 of those depending upon him. Freed from the confinement and 
 responsibilities of the administration of a great survey, he was, 
 moreover, now able to devote more of his time to the cultivation 
 and indulgence of his pronounced literary and artistic tastes; 
 but his scientific investigations, though of necessity frequently 
 interrupted, were ever present in his mind, and never, as some 
 have erroneously assumed, abandoned. 
 
 In 1882, being called to London on business connected with 
 some large Mexican mining companies, of which he was presi- 
 dent, he came into familiar converse with the leaders of the 
 scientific and literary circles of that great intellectual center, to 
 whom his work was already well and favorably known and his 
 charming personality soon endeared him. 
 
 The greater part of the next two years was spent there and 
 in traveling extensively on the continent. While he naturally 
 came into contact with most of the prominent scientific men in 
 Europe and recalled with special pleasure his intercourse with 
 Sir William Thomson (now Lord Kelvin), whose investigations 
 into terrestrial physics had early attracted his attention and ex- 
 cited his admiration, he was perhaps even more widely known 
 and admired in Europe for his literary and social qualities and 
 as a connoisseur of art. 
 
 4G 
 
CLARENCE KING. 
 
 In 1890 Brown University conferred upon him the honorary 
 degree of LL.D. That he received no public recognition of his 
 later scientific work may perhaps be ascribed to its peculiarly 
 unobtrusive character, which gave rise to the erroneous impres- 
 sion that -he had abandoned science altogether. 
 
 In 1892 he wrote the only scientific publication of his later 
 years on the "Age of the Earth," which appeared in the American 
 Journal of Science in 1893. It is the latest and perhaps one of 
 the most profound discussions from the point of view of terres- 
 trial physics of that important subject, and was most favorably 
 received by such great physicists as Kelvin and Helmholtz. 
 
 By the great financial disaster of 1893 King, in common with 
 many others, suffered severe financial losses, and by the failure 
 of a national bank which he had founded the greater part of his 
 accumulations of previous years were swept away. In the follow- 
 ing winter, during convalescence from a serious attack of nervous 
 prostration, he spent several months in Cuba at the country house 
 of his friend, Henry Adams, the historian, during which he be- 
 came deeply interested in the political condition of the island 
 and visited the camps of the revolutionists, thus becoming per- 
 sonally acquainted with their chiefs. The sympathy with their 
 cause which resulted from his investigations led him to actively 
 espouse it during the discussions in this country which led up to 
 the Spanish war, both in personal interviews with the leaders of 
 the administration and in published articles in the "Forum." 
 
 He also investigated the geology and economic resources of the 
 island, which so interested him that it became one of his cher- 
 ished plans of future work to organize a geological survey in 
 Cuba, if political conditions should become sufficiently settled 
 to justify it. 
 
 During his later years the great stimulation of mining in- 
 dustry of this country led to an ever-increasing demand for his 
 services, both, as expert in important mining investigations and 
 in passing on the value of properties offered as investments to 
 capitalists, demands which he did not feel justified in refusing. 
 Such work often involved the most severe and even dangerous 
 strain, and in this, as in everything else in which he was engaged, 
 King never spared himself. 
 
 47 
 
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
 
 In January, 1901, he undertook the examination of a mining 
 property in Missouri which had been sold to English capitalists 
 subject to his approval. An attack of whooping cough and 
 pneumonia in the previous month had left him with a slight 
 tubercular affection of one lung. The weather was inclement 
 and the examination proved unusually long and laborious, so 
 that at its close it was found that tuberculosis had taken so firm 
 a hold upon his system that he was obliged to abandon all busi- 
 ness and give himself up entirely to the attempt to recover his 
 health. 
 
 After a fruitless visit to the tropics, which had hitherto proved 
 a balm for all of his ailments, he attended the annual meeting 
 of the Academy in April, 1901, and then went West, where he 
 , spent the balance of the year in southern California and Arizona 
 in a brave though hopeless fight against the inroads of the dread 
 disease. 
 
 In this, with a thorough understanding of the probable out- 
 come of his illness, he displayed the same cheerful courage and 
 spirit of self-renunciation that had characterized his whole life. 
 He would not yield to the desire of his devoted mother to hasten 
 to his bedside, fearing the effect of the long journey in her then 
 precarious condition of health, and he courteously declined the 
 many offers of his friends to visit him and cheer his loneliness. 
 On Christmas eve of 1901, at Phoenix, Arizona, he finally passed 
 away, quietly and without suffering, in the prime of intellectual 
 life, with his greatest scientific work not yet fully completed and 
 leaving a void in the hearts of friends that can never be filled. 
 
 It is difficult to fairly judge King's scientific publications in 
 the light of the present day, for they were written just before 
 the opening of an era of great change in the methods of geo- 
 logical investigation a change which has thus far proved de- 
 structive rather than constructive in its results. Many of the 
 fundamental theories of geology which prevailed at that time 
 have been disproved or abandoned, while as yet there is no gen- 
 eral acceptance of those which have been put forward to replace 
 them. 
 
 In June, 1877, he delivered the address at the 31st anniver- 
 ' sary of the Sheffield Scientific School 011 "Catastrophisni and the 
 
 48 
 
CLARENCE KING. 
 
 Evolution of Environment." It was a protest against the ex- 
 treme uniformitarianism of that day, based largely on the geo- 
 logical history of the Cordilleran System as developed during 
 the work of the 40th Parallel Survey. This uniformitarianism 
 he characteristically described as "the harmless undestructive 
 rate (of geological change) of today, prolonged backward into 
 the deep past." He contended that while the old belief in catas- 
 trophic changes had properly disappeared, yet geological history, 
 as he read it, showed that the rate of change had not been" so 
 uniform as was claimed by the later school. While a given 
 amount of energy must evidently be. expended, he reasoned, to 
 produce a given eft'ect, yet the expenditure of this energy might 
 be extended over a very long time or crowded into a compara- 
 tively short one ; and his observations showed him that at certain 
 periods in geological history the rate of change was accelerated 
 to such a degree that the effect upon life produced was somewhat 
 catastrophic in its nature. 
 
 Of his great work upon Systematic Geology, the larger part 
 that which outlines the geological history of the Cordilleran sys- 
 tem stands as firmly today as it did when written, as a correct 
 and authoritative exposition. In view of the circumstances under 
 which the field work was originally done, its essential correct- 
 ness, even in matters of minor .detail, is considered surprising 
 by those who have since had occasion to make detailed studies 
 of portions of the area covered. 
 
 In the more theoretical sections, while he necessarily did not 
 take into account the great number of new facts which have been 
 established by more recent work, especially in the domain of 
 microscopic petrography, he showed such grasp of his subjects 
 and such originality and power of thought that his views consti- 
 tuted not only an important advance over those of the day, but 
 they were suggestive of the lines of investigation that have been 
 most fruitful in the modern advance of geological science. 
 
 For instance, in his discussion of the reason for the changes 
 from acid to basic eruptives within the individual groups, which 
 he proposed as a variation from the natural order in age of vol- 
 canic rocks, as laid down by Richthofen, he advanced views very 
 suggestive of the modern conception of differentiation in eruptive 
 magmas. 
 
 49 
 
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
 
 Again, in endeavoring to account for the formation of those 
 types of granite that pass into gneiss and crystalline schists of 
 essentially the same chemical composition, but which show no 
 evidence of having been subjected to such excessive heat as would 
 produce actual liquefaction, he called in the agency of the im- 
 mense pressure to which such rocks would necessarily have been 
 subjected. While the long years of combined field work and 
 microscopic study of modern petrographers, made since King's 
 theory was enunciated, have proved that the structure of crystal- 
 line schists is due to pressure, they do not go so far as he did in 
 assuming that the end product of such mechanical pressure might 
 be granite. 
 
 Perhaps his most enduring theoretical discussion of that time 
 was that on hypogeal fusion, in which, accepting the validity 
 of the physical arguments against the fluid interior of the earth, 
 he discusses and rejects Hopkins' theory of residual lakes and 
 Mallett's conception of local lakes produced by mechanical crush- 
 ing. He then advances an hypothesis of his own which may be 
 called that of a critical shell, or couche, between the permanently 
 solid interior and the outer crust of the earth, which is above the 
 temperature of fusion but restrained from fusion by pressure. 
 In this,, therefore, the opposing forces of pressure and tempera- 
 ture hold themselves reciprocally in equilibrium, but when this 
 equilibrium is disturbed, as, for instance, by a sudden change of 
 the relative position of isobars and isotherms say by local 
 erosion and rapid transfer of load within limited areas local 
 lakes of fusion would be created. Iddings, in his "Origin of 
 Igneous Rocks," says of King's treatment of this subject: "By 
 the breadth of his treatment and by better and fuller data he 
 advanced the problem of the origin of the various kinds of vol- 
 canic rocks far beyond the point reached by any of his prede- 
 cessors." 
 
 In his chapter on Orography, King says, in speaking of the 
 causes of crust motion: "I can plainly see that were the critical 
 shell established its reactions might thread the tangled maze of 
 phenomena successfully, but I prefer to build no farther until 
 the underlying physics are worked out." He was at that time 
 already very strongly impressed with the imperfection of the 
 then existing knowledge of terrestrial thermo-dynamics and the 
 
 50 
 
CLARENCE KING. 
 
 indispensability of more exact data in this branch of science for 
 a rational discussion of the fundamental problems of geology. 
 
 This idea found a practical outcome a few years later in the 
 establishment of a physical laboratory, immediately after his 
 assumption of the Directorship of the United States Geological 
 Survey. His earnestness and energy is shown by the fact that 
 instead of waiting for the slow action of Congress, he defrayed 
 the cost of the delicate apparatus necessary for this work out of 
 his own pocket. The credit of the brilliant physical investiga- 
 tions carried on in that laboratory is naturally due to Professors 
 Barus and Hallock, who conducted them, but it was King's 
 acumen and good judgment that was responsible for their selec- 
 tion, and his action that made it possible for them to carry on 
 their work. To himself, as he says ten years later in his paper 
 on the Age of the Earth (Am. Jour. Sci.,vol. xlv, January, 1893), 
 he reserved the privilege of "making geological applications of 
 the laboratory results." The experiments on the physical con- 
 stants of rocks contemplated were to be directed to the determina- 
 tion (a) of the phenomena of fusion, (&)of those of elasticity 
 and viscosity, and (c) of those of heat conductivity, each consid- 
 ered with special reference to their dependence on temperature 
 and pressure. 
 
 The paper on the Age of the Earth, mentioned above, is his 
 only published result, and was but an earnest of what he had 
 planned to do. This was an attempt to advance to new precision 
 Kelvin's estimate of the earth's age deduced from terrestrial 
 refrigeration. It consists mainly of a mathematical discussion 
 of the earth's thermal age as determined from various postulates 
 presented by Laplace, George H. Darwin, and Lord Kelvin, and 
 based on Barns' determinations of the latent heat of fusion, spe- 
 cific heat, melted and solid, and volume of expansion between 
 the solid and melted state, of the rock diabase. This is followed 
 by a critical examination of other methods of determining the 
 earth's age by tidal retardation, by sun-age, and by variations 
 of eccentricity. After a careful scrutiny of all the data on the 
 effect of pressure on the temperature of consolidation, King con- 
 cluded that, without further experimental data, "we have no 
 warrant for extending the earth's age beyond 24 millions of 
 years," an estimate which, as the result of a somewhat more ex- 
 
 51 
 
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
 
 tended discussion, was afterwards confirmed by Lord Kelvin 
 himself. (Smithsonian Report, 1897, p. 345.) 
 
 His further investigations along the same general lines on the 
 fundamental principles of upheaval and subsidence were in aD 
 advanced stage of completion when they were cut off by his 
 untimely death. 
 
 It is practically impossible to adequately characterize King's 
 literary work, for the greater part of what he did was never pub- 
 lished, and very likely never even written. It was his habit to 
 work out in his head any subject which interested him, even 
 down to its minutest details, before putting a pen to paper ; once 
 this was accomplished to his satisfaction, he wrote with such 
 ease and rapidity that the words actually flowed from his pen. 
 Probably one reason that he did not write more was that his own 
 literary taste was so refined and exacting that he was never 
 thoroughly satisfied with his own conceptions. In his scientific 
 writing, there was generally some imperious necessity that made 
 it urgent upon him to give his results to the public in spite of 
 the imperfections he might still see in them, but in literature 
 such necessity rarely appeared. What he did publish he himself 
 held in comparatively light esteem, but in the opinion of the 
 best literary writers of the day, with most of whom he was on 
 terms of friendly and intimate intercourse, his writings, and even 
 more his affluent and delightful talks, disclosed a literary quality 
 that might have given him a foremost place among American 
 ,men of letters. 
 
 His one literary book, "Mountaineering in the Sierra Ne- 
 vada," went through more editions in England than in this coun- 
 try, and was very generally regarded there as far the best book 
 of its kind that had ever been written. Of it Edward Gary, one 
 of our most discriminating literary critics, has said: 
 
 "There is in these pages a vital harmony between the subject- 
 matter and the form. It cannot be analyzed; much less can it 
 be described or accounted for; least of all can it be resisted. It 
 stimulates and energizes, while it charms the mind. It gives, 
 in its own way and in its field, an intelligent reaction akin to 
 that given by certain passages of Shakespeare in which he ex- 
 plores the depths of human consciousness, and every inflection, 
 
 52 
 
CLARENCE KING. 
 
 every cadence thrills with the solemnity and the vastness of the 
 subject." 
 
 Of his occasional articles in current periodicals, two appeared 
 in the Century in 1886, two in the North American Review, and 
 three in Forum. Of the latter, two on Cuba, published in the 
 years immediately preceding the Spanish War, were written 
 under the impulse of strong feelings of sympathy with the cause 
 of the insurgents, with whom he had come into intimate personal 
 contact during the winter he spent on the island. 
 
 Of his Century articles, one was a delicate tribute to his closest 
 friend, John Hay, as one of the biographers of Lincoln; the 
 other, a short sketch of his search for the "Helmet of Mam- 
 brino" for a fellow-Cervantista, was that which more than any- 
 thing he ever published disclosed the exquisite delicacy of his 
 literary touch, which rivaled that of Howells or James and 
 showed an even rarer and more refined quality of wit than Bret 
 Harte's. 
 
 The best idea of the estimation in which he was held by his 
 many friends and associates in the literary and artistic world 
 may be obtained from the following quotation from the necrol- 
 ogy of the Century Association of ^"ew York, of which he had 
 been a prominent member for the last quarter of a century : 
 
 "He was himself a blend of varied qualities and gifts that were 
 not always ready to keep the peace one with another, but the col- 
 lective manifestation of which was to his fellows a constant joy. 
 The talk he made or evoked may be equaled by those who are to 
 come after; it can never be matched. Its range was literally 
 incalculable. It was impossible to foresee at what point his 
 tangential fancy would change its course, /^rom the true 
 rhythm of Creole gumbo to the verse of Theocritus, from the 
 origin of the latest mot to the age of the globe, from the soar or 
 slump of the day's market to the method of Lippo Lippi, from 
 the lightest play on words to the subtlest philosophy, he passed 
 with buoyant step and head erect, sometimes with audacity that 
 invited disaster, often with profound penetration and with the 
 informing flash of genius, fit is but a suggestion of his rare 
 equipment to say that in his talk, as in his work, his imagination 
 was his dominant, at moments his dominating quality. Intense,, 
 restless, wide-reaching, nourished by much reading, trained in 
 
 53 
 
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
 
 the exercise of an exact and exacting profession, stimulated by 
 commerce with many lands and races, it played incessantly on 
 the topic of the moment and on the remotest and most complex 
 problems of the earth and the dwellers thereon. And within 
 a nature brilliant and efficient beyond all common limits glowed 
 the modest and steady light of a kindness the most unfailing 
 and delicate. The good one hand did he let not the other know ; 
 both were always busy, laying in many lives the foundations of 
 tender and lasting remembrance." 
 
 54 
 
CLARENCE KING. 
 
 The following list comprises the principal published works 
 of Clarence King: 
 
 Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada. Boston, 1870. 
 
 Mining Industry (by James D. Hague, with geological contributions 
 by Clarence King), vol. in of the Fortieth Parallel Reports. 
 Government Printing Office, Washington, 1870. 
 
 Active Glaciers within the United States. Atlantic Monthly. March, 
 1871. 
 
 On the Discovery of Actual Glaciers on the Mountains of the Pacific 
 Slope. Am. Jour. $c/., 3d ser., vol. i, p. 157. 1871. 
 
 Three Lakes. Poem in hexameters. Privately printed in folio, 1875. 
 
 Notes on Observed Glacial Phenomena and the Terminal Moraine of 
 the N. E. Glacier. Proc. Boston 8oe. Nat. Hist., vol. xix, p. 60. 
 1876. 
 
 Paleozoic Subdivisions of the Fortieth Parallel. Am. Jour. Sci., 3d 
 ser., vol. xi, p. 475. 1876. 
 
 Notes on the Uinta and Wahsatch Ranges. Ibid., p. 494. 
 
 Catastrophism and Evolution. Am. Nat., vol. n, p. 449. 1877. 
 
 Systematic Geology. Vol. i of the Fortieth Parallel Reports. Govern- 
 ment Printing Office, Washington. 1878. 
 
 First Annual Report of the V. S. Geological Survey. Government 
 Printing Office, Washington, 1880. 
 
 Production of the Precious Metals in the U. S. 17. S. Geol. Survey, 2d 
 Ann. Report, pp. 333-400. Government Printing Office, Washing- 
 ton, 1882. 
 
 On the Physical Constants of Rocks. U. S. Geol. Survey, 3d Ann. 
 Report, p. 3. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1883. 
 
 Style and the Monument. North Am. Revieir, November, 1885. (An 
 article on the proposed Grant monument anonymous, but known 
 by friends of Mr. King to have been written by him.) 
 
 Artium Magister. North Am. Review, October, 1888. 
 
 The Age of the Earth. Amer. Jour. 8ci.. vol. XLV, January, 1893. 
 
 The Helmet of Mambrino. Century, p. 154, May, 1886. 
 
 The Biographers of Lincoln. Century, p. 861, October, 1886. 
 
 The Education of the Future. Forum, p. 20, March, 1892. 
 
 Shall Cuba be Free? Forum, p. 50, September, 1895. 
 
 Fire and. Sword in Cuba. Forum, p. 31. September, 1896. 
 
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