Q 
 
 '.43 
 
 THE 
 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 OF THE 
 
 WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
 
 HELD AT 
 
 THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 DECEMBER 5, 1913 
 
 BALTIMORE 
 
 WILLIAMS & WILKINS COMPANY 
 1916 
 
GIFT or 
 
W J McGEE 
 APRIL 17, 1853 SEPTEMBER 4, 1912 
 
THE 
 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 OF THE 
 
 WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
 
 HELD AT 
 
 THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 DECEMBER 5, 1913 
 
 BALTIMORE 
 
 WILLIAMS & WILKINS COMPANY 
 1916 
 
ACTION OF THE BOARD OF MANAGERS 
 
 OF THE 
 WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
 
 AUTHORIZING 
 THE McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 180th Meeting. January 11, 1913: "Mr. Pinchot presented by 
 invitation a plan for a memorial meeting in commemoration of the 
 life and service to science of Doctor W J McGee, 1 recently deceased. 
 It was proposed to arrange for a selected list of papers covering the 
 wide range of Doctor McGee's activities, and that the affiliated or- 
 ganizations of which he was a member be invited to participate. 
 After considerable discussion, all of which was favorable to the plan, 
 Doctor Kober moved that a special committee, of which Mr. Pinchot 
 should be chairman and President Coville a member, be appointed 
 by the President to have charge of this meeting. Carried." 
 
 The following Committee was appointed January 20, 1913: 
 Frederick V. Coville, Henry Gannett, G. K. Gilbert, F. W. Hodge, 
 
 J. A. Holmes, F. H. Newell, Gifford Pinchot, Chairman, Milton 
 
 Whitney. 
 
 1 Dr. McGee preferred to write his name without periods. 
 
 3 
 
 o A rrn /I 
 
THE McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 OF THE 
 
 WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
 
 In opening the meeting Doctor Coville said: 
 
 When death comes to a man who has rendered distinguished serv- 
 ice to humanity, it commonly finds him occupying some high office 
 and surrounded by the members of his family. But the end of 
 Doctor McGee, according to the will of fate, came otherwise. It is 
 peculiarly incumbent upon us, therefore, his friends and colleagues, 
 to meet together for the purpose of paying honor to his memory. It 
 is true that individually we shall honor him as long as each of us 
 shall live. But we meet together at this time in order to give testi- 
 mony publicly to the high esteem in which we hold him. The Car- 
 negie Institution, through its President, Doctor Woodward, has 
 granted to the Washington Academy of Sciences the use of this build- 
 ing for this purpose. Doctor Woodward is out of the city. I regret 
 greatly that he could not have been here to himself open the meet- 
 ing, and to permit us to thank him personally. 
 
 Doctor McGee was a member of numerous associations, many of 
 which are represented here tonight by members who have been se- 
 lected for the purpose. Many associations have passed resolutions 
 in commemoration of Doctor McGee. In addition to the resolutions, 
 many letters from individuals expressing appreciation of Doctor 
 McGee have reached the Committee. 
 
 The resolutions and letters which have been received can not be 
 read tonight, but will find place in the commemorative volume which 
 will be printed later. There is, however, one letter which was re- 
 ceived from one closely and intimately related to Doctor McGee. 
 This letter contains so much of human interest that the Committee 
 has decided it should be read to you tonight. The letter came with 
 a statement that it might be edited to suit the desires of the Com- 
 mittee, but it is a document of such intimate personal relationship 
 
 5 
 
6 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 that the Committee has decided to have it read without any emenda- 
 tion whatever. The letter is from Miss Emma R. McGee, of Iowa, 
 a sister of Doctor McGee. 1 
 
 Doctor McGee's constructive intellectual activity was exercised in 
 varied fields of science. From a farm boy Doctor McGee became a 
 blacksmith; from a good blacksmith he became a good geologist. His 
 work on the Atlantic Coastal Plain is one of the monumental works in 
 geology; from that he went into anthropology and ethnology. Then 
 he made an almost new science, for he went into the subject of Con- 
 servation, and brought all the energies and knowledge of a lifetime 
 into that work. 
 
 I am reminded at this time of a statement made by a Russian bota- 
 nist nearly a century ago when he had finished a very remarkable 
 and very good piece of critical work: 
 
 Errare quidem humanum est, sed discrimen statuimus inter errores qui 
 excusari possunt, et qui non possunt. Solatio mihi est spes, vos, benevo- 
 los lectores, errores meos in iis numeraturos esse, qui excusari possint. 
 
 It is the business of the scientist to pursue the truth. We should 
 so live that when we have finished our course, we can say, as Doctor 
 McGee would have said: "To make mistakes is human, it is true, 
 but there is a difference between errors which are excusable and those 
 which are not excusable. It comforts me, my colleagues, to have the 
 hope that you will place my mistakes among those you gladly forgive." 
 
 In my own department of research, the vegetable world, Doctor 
 McGee's work was of limited extent. Yet I always found his advice 
 helpful, constructive, and suggestive. Even in this unfamiliar field, 
 he was an intellectual editor whose criticism, which was often sought 
 and always freely given, was of the highest value. 
 
 It was in geology, geography, and anthropology that he did his 
 chief work. He made lasting contributions to these sciences. In 
 his later years he devoted his efforts to the creation of a sound public 
 conception of our natural resources, and to their development and 
 use to the point of greatest efficiency. Doctor McGee's relation to 
 these subjects is more fully known to his immediate associates in the 
 
 1 See page 90. 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 7 
 
 various lines of activity with which he was identified. We shall 
 listen with pleasure to their discussion of his life and work. 
 
 The first speaker will be Doctor Milton Whitney, Chief of the 
 Bureau of Soils, who was associated with Doctor McGee in his later 
 studies of the uses of water in agriculture. 
 
 Doctor Whitney said: 
 
 For the last five and a half years of his extremely active life, Doc- 
 tor McGee was intimately associated with me in the Bureau of Soils 
 and was one of my principal and most valued advisors. In this in- 
 timate and quiet association in executive work, where practical things 
 have to be done and theories and speculations have to be translated 
 into definite, constructive, and reasonable action, he presented a side 
 of his character which perhaps some of his associates in the field of 
 constructive legislation did not see. It is of this I speak tonight. 
 
 Like all great reformers, he knew that to secure attention and re- 
 form in methods the people must be shocked to overcome natural 
 inertia and arouse them to action. 
 
 His quotation of huge figures indicating that an area equivalent 
 to 100,000 farms has been devastated in this country by soil erosion 
 was a clarion call to attract attention to the need of proper conserva- 
 tion of the soil in cultivating the fields and managing the forests and 
 other protective covers. He did not mean that all erosion is harmful 
 and necessarily destructive he was too eminent a geologist and 
 physiographer to fail to see even more clearly than most of us, that 
 erosion and leaching are natural processes in the life of the globe, 
 just as evaporation and elimination of what we call waste material 
 is a life process of the living body. Without these there would be an 
 absence of surface relief and of physiographic form; there would be 
 an absence of most of the mineral segregation that marks our mineral 
 wealth; there would be an absence of those rejuvenated and most fer- 
 tile soils of our younger flood plains, and of the renewal of our surface 
 soils generally. His conception was that erosion is a necessary nat- 
 ural process; his purpose was not to prevent erosion, but to control 
 it in the interest of mankind. 
 
 He no more considered erosion as a necessary evil than he would 
 have condemned the rainfall because of occasional disastrous floods, 
 
8 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 or the movements of the air which bring fresh supplies of oxygen to 
 the body because of occasional destructive storms. But he did mean 
 to convey the idea that each farmer and each land owner has a duty 
 to himself, to posterity, and to the country to protect our lands and 
 our fields and waterways from destructive erosion, as it is the duty of 
 builders to take all reasonable precautions in the construction of 
 dams and buildings and ships, in the care of abutting properties, to 
 enable them to withstand floods and storms. He would not have the 
 soil with its cover, whose function it is to conserve and regulate 
 the rainfall and act as a spillway, so ignorantly handled that the dam 
 itself would give way with undue and unnecessary loss of life-giving 
 matter and of property interests. 
 
 He was not misled by the popular cry of soil exhaustion or soil 
 robbery as indicating a fundamental and permanent impairment of 
 soil material, which he knew better than any of us can not be accom- 
 plished by human agencies. He knew that on the whole crop yields 
 are increasing through more intelligent use, but he did deplore the 
 <enormous amount of useless and misdirected energy of the individual 
 in methods of handling the soil and in improper crop adaptation, 
 which amounts to gross abuse and present impairment of the produc- 
 tive powers. Again it was not the material he was worried about, 
 but the methods of utilizing it. 
 
 He believed that erosion and leaching, if properly used and con- 
 trolled, would work for the benefit of mankind, just as he believed 
 that the intelligent use of the soil improves the soil for the special 
 needs of mankind. He was a great conservationist through methods 
 of using natural material rather than through saving the material 
 itself. He was not one to wrap his talent in a napkin and at the 
 end say "I was afraid and went and hid my talent in the earth; lo, 
 there thou hast that is thine." 
 
 Doctor McGee's attitude as I have sketched it should be that of 
 all true conservationists. It is the strongest impression I have of 
 Doctor McGee's purpose and work, to conserve, through control and 
 proper development, the natural forces and materials of the nation 
 by the people and for the people by proper use and not by disuse 
 and his great mind and his wise counsel was so potent a factor among 
 us, his associates, as to earn for him the greeting used by the Master 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 9 
 
 when He said to that servant who had ten talents and by putting 
 them to proper use gained another ten talents "Well done, thou 
 good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, 
 I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of 
 thy Lord!" 
 
 The next speaker was Mr. Henry Gannett. 
 
 His tribute to Doctor McGee was that of an intimate personal 
 friend of many years. The Committee deeply regrets that what 
 he said has been lost. 
 
 The next speaker was Mr. N. H. Darton. 
 
 Mr. Darton said: 
 
 When I came to the Geological Survey some years ago, Doctor 
 McGee was in charge of one of the divisions, and for awhile I worked 
 under his direction. The field of investigation was the Atlantic 
 Coastal Plain, and for several years I studied the geology of part of 
 that province. My experience in this association with him was most 
 pleasing, and it developed an appreciation of the man and a feeling 
 of affection and tenderness for him that very few could have without 
 such an intimate acquaintance. 
 
 We were studying in an area that had not been investigated in de- 
 tail before, and most of the current ideas in regard to it were errone- 
 ous. A new system of classification had to be applied, and the genet- 
 ic system developed by Doctor McGee proved invaluable. In the 
 course of the work he was constantly giving helpful suggestions and 
 useful data from his great store of information regarding the geologi- 
 cal features in our area and in other regions. We were together often, 
 and although the field work was my own the results obtained were 
 greatly enhanced by McGee's assistance. The principal tribute I 
 want to make here is to his very great generosity to those working 
 with him. This was one of his strongest characteristics. All who 
 came in contact with him received advice, suggestions, and valuable 
 facts, and these were placed at their disposal without thought of 
 credit to himself. He had not only a vast amount of experience and 
 
10 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 knowledge in geology in various parts of the United States, and in 
 other allied sciences, but he was a compendium of information along 
 a great many other lines. He was indefatigable and unselfish in the 
 search for facts and for their promulgation in advantageous manner. 
 His genius for obtaining information and his unusual ability as a 
 writer and speaker are well known to you. 
 
 I wish to say a few words as to his very great influence in the 
 United States Geological Survey in the early days of its organization. 
 I know how very intimately he was associated with Major Powell, 
 and how effectively he assisted in shaping the policy and characteris- 
 tics of that great organization. It was a labor of love with him, and 
 he showed great skill in developing methods and conducting many 
 of the affairs of the Survey in those days. 
 
 Personally, McGee was known to so many of you that I need 
 hardly refer to his many fine characteristics. He was dear to all of 
 us, I am sure. He was especially so to me. 
 
 The next speaker was Doctor Franz Boas. 
 
 Doctor Boas said: 
 
 I have been asked to speak of McGee's work as an anthropologist; 
 but since he was one of the men whose scientific work was an expres- 
 sion of a powerful personality, an attempt to do justice to the scientist 
 must include a consideration of the man. 
 
 I am probably not mistaken if I assume that McGee's interest in 
 anthropology arose from his close association with Major Powell, for 
 so long a time a dominant figure in the scientific life of our country, 
 especially of Washington. When Powell withdrew from the Geologi- 
 cal Survey, which he had so successfully directed for many years, and 
 assumed the position as Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, McGee 
 left the Survey with him. Owing to Major Powell's failing health, 
 the administration of the Bureau of Ethnology fell more and more 
 on McGee's shoulders. This was the period in which his anthropo- 
 logical work was done. With rare tact and unswerving loyalty to 
 his friend, Major Powell, he conducted the affairs of the Bureau, so 
 far as his position allowed him a free hand. 
 
 My own acquaintance with McGee dates back to this time. Im- 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 11 
 
 mediately upon his transfer to the Bureau of Ethnology, great pres- 
 sure was brought to bear by some of his friends to have him elected 
 president of one of our anthropological societies. At that time I 
 opposed his nomination. At the same time the changes in personnel 
 in a number of governmental and private anthropological institutions 
 had led to some friction, also between McGee and myself. When, a 
 few months later, I met him for the first tune, the courageous frank- 
 ness with which he took up our previous conflicts, and his unceasing 
 straightforward endeavors to reestablish harmony among anthropol- 
 ogists, showed his true mettle and established our lasting friendship. 
 For many years of more or less intimate intercourse he always proved 
 the same upright courageous champion of his ideals, whom no timid 
 consideration could turn from the path that he considered the right 
 one. 
 
 His forceful character that was thus manifested, and his passion 
 for making himself useful, made him a prominent figure in the prog- 
 ress of science. American anthropologists owe much to his initia- 
 tive and persistence. I mention only his share in the foundation of 
 the new American Anthropologist, that, largely through his efforts, 
 became a National journal, when the Anthropological Society of 
 Washington could no longer provide for the growing needs of anthro- 
 pological publication; and his participation in the foundation of the 
 American Anthropological Association, the form of which is largely 
 based on his suggestion. This society differs from other scientific 
 bodies devoted to the interests of special branches of knowledge in 
 not being confined to a membership of specialists. Like many of 
 our more general societies it includes many lay members. McGee's 
 thoroughly democratic spirit and his belief in the possibility of solv- 
 ing scientific problems by application of common sense and honest 
 sober thought made this type of organization more sympathetic to 
 him than a purely technical society, and it was to a great extent due 
 to his influence that this form was finally chosen. 
 
 McGee's scientific work belongs to the period in which certain well- 
 marked tendencies developed under the strong influence of Major 
 Powell's personality. Characteristic of the group of men who worked 
 with Major Powell was the attempt to develop systematic thought, 
 on the basis of certain principles, essentially by deduction. He and 
 
12 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 his friends were ever ready to amass new material for induction, but 
 their own minds set a definite stamp on the data, thus fitting them 
 into a preconceived scheme. The importance given to deductive 
 thought was also the reason why so many among this group of men 
 were ready to attack scientific problems of the most divine kind, and 
 why the craft of the expert was held in less respect by them than the 
 open eye of a clearminded observer. With Powell the systematic 
 idea had taken such firm root that he had planned a complete syste- 
 matic description of American anthropology in a few volumes, which 
 would have been an epitome of his philosophy. He even hesitated 
 to make the full data on which this epitome was to be based common 
 property of the scientific world. Although the work of some of his 
 collaborators, like Dorsey and Gatschet, did not at all fit into this 
 scheme, it was the ideal for which he was striving. Me Gee broke 
 away from this concept, in so far as he recognized more clearly the 
 necessity of detailed monographic studies of data, and of promoting 
 new lines of research that might not fit into the system. Neverthe- 
 less his own inquiries were largely directed by his philosophic inter- 
 est in principles, and the most characteristic feature of his own re- 
 searches is the relatively slight basis of, observation for far-reaching 
 
 deduction. *"* r 
 
 At the same time the thorough saturation of his mind with the 
 principles upon which his scientific facts were to bear made him an 
 acute observer, and gave to his field-work an unusual value. He 
 never became a gatherer of disconnected facts, but every observa- 
 tion had an immediate bearing upon some of the fundamental prob- 
 lems of anthropology as they appeared to his mind. I may mention 
 particularly his studies of desert environment, which bring out this 
 characteristic trait of his work most clearly. His short visit to the 
 Seri Indians of the Gulf of California gave him the material for an 
 elaborate treatise, which is remarkable on account of the ingenious 
 interpretation of data, observed with great skill and care, but never- 
 theless fragmentary, an interpretation that can be understood only 
 when we take into account the deductive basis on which he mar- 
 shalled his array of facts. No less marked is this tendency in his 
 investigations on primitive systems of numeration, on primitive tre- 
 phining in Peru, and on the origin of agriculture. He never lost 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 13 
 
 touch with his data, but the basis of his thought was a system of an- 
 thropology, into which he tried to fit his observations. 
 
 Although, therefore, the value of his monographic studies stands 
 and falls with the acceptance of his fundamental theories, his work 
 itself, carried through under the impulse of a strong desire to contri- 
 bute to the solution of great problems, gains its permanent value 
 through the bearing of his detailed studies upon fundamental ques- 
 tions. In this sense McGee belonged to an older school of investi- 
 gators. During the last twenty years anthropologists have come to 
 be more and more worshippers of the accumulation of facts; and the 
 more facts an investigator brings together, the higher we are inclined 
 to value him. McGee did not belong to this class. For him the fact 
 had a value only as related to a wider concept. While we are not 
 likely to return to Powell's and McGee's points of view, I think we 
 may observe a certain tendency to turn back from the over-enthusi- 
 astic, often unmethodical collection of data, and that theory and ob- 
 servation begin to find their proper relation. 
 
 The idea that stands out most clearly in McGee's work, even more 
 so than in that of Major Powell, is that of the continuity of mental 
 processes in all stages of civilization, an idea the value of which, I 
 believe, will become the more apparent the farther our inquiries pro- 
 gress. This idea was not entirely new. It had found expression in 
 Bastian's analysis of modern philosophic systems by means of com- 
 parison with the philosophic views of primitive man, and it was the 
 fundamental note underlying Spencerian sociology. The beginnings 
 of civilization had a meaning for him, on the one hand as steps neces- 
 sary for an intelligent understanding of the history of mankind, on 
 the other hand as illustrating the stepping-stones to future progress. 
 He wanted to discover the conditions favoring creative activity, the 
 only form of work that seemed to him worth while, and he hoped to 
 find them through his study of the stages that led man from primitive 
 to modern social conditions. 
 
 While other investigators were engaged in similar lines of research, 
 McGee made these ideas the foundation of a new kind of constructive 
 work; and it was his ardent desire to see the Bureau, that was at least 
 in part in his charge, contribute to the welfare of the nation by ad- 
 vancing our knowledge of the conditions that make man creative. 
 
14 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 I believe in this novel concept of anthropology which he formu- 
 lated, and for which he strove with never-ceasing ardor, lies his great- 
 est contribution to anthropology. True to the best traditions of 
 productive scientific work, he gave the men who worked with him the 
 greatest possible freedom in carrying out the work in their charge, 
 while he himself was planning to develop the anthropological work 
 of the Government so as to fulfill the larger mission that he had in 
 mind. The task entrusted to the Bureau is the recording of the 
 earliest history of our country as preserved in pre-historic remains, 
 in the bodily appearance of the Indians, in their living tradition, in 
 their languages and customs. He fully recognized the duty that we 
 owe to our descendants, as well as to the whole civilized world, of 
 gathering these data, that are all too rapidlly disappearing; that we 
 must not expose our generation to the reproach of having neglected 
 our duty to posterity by failing in this work an omission that no 
 future regrets can ever make good, for after our generation the very 
 basis of work of this kind will have disappeared. 
 
 However, Me Gee saw further than this. The forces that are ac- 
 tive in the primitive society of America are still at work, and come 
 into play in the absorption of our immigrant population; in the rela- 
 tions between white, negro, Indian, and Mongol; in the economic 
 conflicts of the day; in the biological conditions of modern life; in 
 the deleterious and beneficial effects of changed modes of nutrition 
 and living; in the inheritance of valuable strains; and the elimination 
 or preservation of the weak. The necessity of solving national prob- 
 lems by means of anthropological research, that during the last few 
 years has come to be recognized most clearly in England, stood out 
 before his mind as an end towards which an anthropological bureau 
 supported by the Government should strive. His recognition of the 
 problem was clear. He expressed his idea once in this form: "We 
 try to conserve our natural resources. Anthropology must do its 
 share for the conservation of human energy. It is our duty to find 
 out how this can be done." His thoughts were largely devoted to 
 the question how to build up a scientific bureau that could realize 
 these aims. He was clear in his mind that scientific painstaking re- 
 searches had to be the basis of this work, and it was his desire to 
 have anthropological work organized on this wider basis. 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 15 
 
 His hopes were not realized. However, we may see even now 
 that his viewpoints find wider and wider acceptance. Here and there 
 in a disconnected way, often carried to extremes by over-enthusiastic 
 confidence in the meagre results so far attained, this anthropological 
 view of society finds expression; and I feel confident that the larger 
 view, to the establishment of which McGee contributed a liberal part, 
 will ultimately prevail. When we reach that period when a true an- 
 thropological survey of the nation stands side by side with the biologi- 
 cal, geological, and physical survey of the country, let us remember 
 the great mind that fought in advance of his time, but not in vain, to 
 realize this great aim. 
 
 The next speaker was Colonel H. C. Rizer. 
 
 Colonel Rizer said: 
 
 W J McGee was born in Dubuque County, Iowa, April 17, 1853. 
 He drifted with uncertain aim until he reached maturity, when he 
 definitely took up the study of geology for a career. He became 
 connected with the Geological Survey in 1883 and continued there 
 until 1894, when he became an anthropologist and followed his old 
 leader, Major Powell, to the Bureau of Ethnology. He resigned from 
 that Bureau in 1903 to become chief of the Anthropological Depart- 
 ment of the St. Louis Exposition. At the conclusion of his work there 
 he became connected with the Bureau of Soils, Department of Agri- 
 culture, where he continued until he died. 
 
 His most important work perhaps was as a member of the Inland 
 Waterways Commission and in aid of various phases of the Conser- 
 vation movement. He died at the Cosmos Club, Washington, D. 
 C., September 4, 1912. 
 
 To me the most striking characteristic displayed by Doctor McGee 
 was found in his wide range of information. He knew much of some 
 things and he knew something of many things. Whether much or 
 slight, what he knew in some way near or remote related to human 
 interests or human activities. He had a marvelously retentive mem- 
 ory. Things once carefully noted seemed to be permanently photo- 
 graphed. In private conversation or in a public gathering the intro- 
 duction of a subject would find him a ready participant and an inter- 
 
16 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 esting contributor. He was fond of combating antagonistic views 
 and was glad to proclaim his own. Yet he never seemed to be tinc- 
 tured with pedantry. He enjoyed wit and humor, but cared little 
 for amusements that others usually find attractive. Many years ago 
 at his suggestion I accompanied him to Kernan's to witness feats of 
 strength performed by a man of rare muscular development. I went 
 for diversion and was entertained, while he went for the opportunity 
 to study and was rewarded. Another time I went with him to see 
 an alleged petrified woman. Neither of us believed there existed an 
 authenticated case of petrification of a human body. I was satis- 
 fied at viewing a well molded form, but he, imbued with the scientific 
 instinct, secured permission from the owner to make a test, and at a 
 subsequent visit drilled a hole in an arm of the form and turned a 
 phenomenon into a fake by exposing a piece of gas pipe. 
 
 Many instances might be recounted of his propensity to test or 
 investigate and bring to light the facts before consenting to a pos- 
 sibly false claim. 
 
 He was at all times an optimist. He had absolute faith in the 
 progress and development of the human race and believed it the duty 
 of everyone to use his best endeavor to further this end. Even as 
 death's gloom rapidly settled upon him he manifested his confidence 
 in the final triumph of Science over the malady that was remorse- 
 lessly dragging him from life. 
 
 He looked to the educated investigator for the solution of prob- 
 lems, but if the end sought was accomplished by an empiric he ac- 
 cepted the result gladly. 
 
 He was an industrious man and capable of sustained exertion. 
 He said he needed ten hours sleep in each twenty-four, but I have 
 known him to work thirty-six consecutive hours with brief intermis- 
 sions for eating only. 
 
 His life habits were simple. I never knew him to be addicted to 
 extravagent indulgence. He was profligate of his limited means, how- 
 ever, in responding to appeals for aid, and he was sometimes the vic- 
 tim of parasites. He was not wanting in sympathy, but at times I 
 thought him wholly lacking in the element we call emotion, and I 
 never but once saw a manifestation of it in him. This was about a 
 month before he died when I related to him a highly complimentary 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 17 
 
 reference to him by one whom he probably esteemed first among 
 his personal friends and with whom he had for several years worked 
 in complete harmony on various phases of conservation. As I con- 
 cluded my statement his face flushed, a lump seemed to rise in his 
 throat, and moisture came to his eyes. It was with difficulty that 
 he regained his self-control and gave expressions of his deep feeling 
 of gratitude. 
 
 Two days after he was confined to his bed from a fall he requested 
 to see me. Upon my visit to him that afternoon he told me in a 
 simple matter-of-fact way that he had reached the beginning of the 
 end that he was the victim of cancer in an advanced stage, and that 
 there remained to him but a few weeks of life. He said it was his 
 desire to have his brain sent to Doctor Spitzka, of Philadelphia, and 
 his body given to some institution that it might be dissected in the 
 interest of scientific investigation. He knew that I always remain 
 in Washington through the summer, and as it was necessary for the 
 one upon whom he relied to be here when the end came he wanted to 
 know if I would consent to being named as his executor. His mind 
 seemed relieved upon receiving my consent and the next day he dic- 
 tated his will. 
 
 He lingered more than two months and was almost a constant 
 sufferer. At first he was always glad to engage in conversation and 
 took a keen interest in passing events. He would at such times seem 
 to forget his condition, and not infrequently indulge in his old-time 
 chuckle at some humorous passage. 
 
 He was unable to retain nourishment, and gradually became weaker 
 physically. Soon he began to show mental weariness and became 
 slow of speech, losing the old readiness of uttering the word that best 
 conveyed the thought he desired to express. Then came mental 
 mistiness and periods of unconsciousness, and thus he died. 
 
 The next speaker was Mr. F. W. Hodge. 
 
 Mr. Hodge said: 
 
 It would be difficult for one who was so long associated with Doctor 
 Me Gee in an official and personal way, to present, in a few moments, 
 even a brief appraisal of his many qualities. To such a one four 
 
18 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 characteristics of the man stand out prominently among many others: 
 his indomitable energy and capacity for work; his unbounded gener- 
 osity in its widest sense; his kindliness of spirit; and his helpfulness, 
 especially to younger men. 
 
 McGee's energy and capacity for work are well known to all who 
 knew him. Time and again I have known him overwhelmed with 
 duties of many kinds, but never the time when he was not ready and 
 willing to take on another burden. His energy was stupendous, and 
 his physical endurance for many years such that, day in and day out, 
 for weeks and months together, he would labor from early morning 
 until well after midnight and yet without the staling of his mental 
 or physical vitality. Of his versatility others have spoken. McGee 
 was interested in everything under the sun worthy of his interest, 
 whether politics, religion, hydrography; the origin of mathematics (a 
 subject in which he was particularly interested and for a thesis on 
 which he was accorded his doctorate) ; geology; economics; mechanics, 
 his knowledge of which had its inception at the forge; the play of men 
 and animals; the beginnings of primitive and social institutions; pre- 
 historic surgery indeed there was almost no phase of the science of 
 man to which he did not devote some serious attention or contribute 
 from the sum of his knowledge. 
 
 McGee's unlimited generosity is known to all. It would require 
 many times the brief period allotted me to recount half the generous 
 acts that chanced to come under my personal observation. He was 
 the first and the last resource for all classes of hangers-on as well as 
 for those who were not habitual parasites cowboys and Indians down 
 on their luck, decayed scholars, and many others who, knowing that 
 McGee had never learned the first lesson of refusal, found in his 
 means, limited though they were, a perennial fountain of pecuniary 
 blessings. I never knew an appeal to McGee for aid, of whatever 
 nature, to pass unheeded, and we are all pretty well aware of what 
 his worldly resources were. 
 
 But it was not alone his generosity in such directions, but his en- 
 thusiasm, the inspiring influence of his personality, his energy and 
 capacity, of which all of his associates imbibed and from which they 
 have become the direct beneficiaries. It was impossible for one of 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 19 
 
 his coworkers not to feel the spark of his enthusiastic nature, the full 
 effect of his prodigious energy and versatility, and his interest in all 
 worthy things. 
 
 The next speaker was Professor Joseph A. Holmes. 
 
 Professor Holmes said: 
 
 It was my special commission tonight that I should endeavor to 
 fill up any odds and ends that might be omitted in the preceding dis- 
 cussion. One of the things that has always interested me in connec- 
 tion with Doctor McGee is a thing which has been touched upon but 
 lightly, and that is McGee at play. That can be discussed very 
 briefly because, strictly speaking, McGee never played. I doubt 
 very much whether he played in his boyhood days, for certainly in 
 his mature manhood he never knew what it was to play. I was as- 
 sociated with McGee in the Atlantic Coastal Plain work, and later in 
 connection with the work of the St. Louis Exposition, Doctor McGee 
 having charge of the Department of Anthropology. One of the things 
 which always interested me in trying to study McGee at play was his 
 fairness and his gentlemanliness. I have been with McGee day after 
 day, month after month, at the work table, lunch table, and other- 
 wise. McGee never rested except when he was asleep. McGee 
 did rest well, however, when he slept. It was fortunate that he 
 did sleep soundly, and I think one of the great secrets of his im- 
 mense intellectual activity was that he rested while he rested, and 
 therefore, was able to work while he worked. 
 
 I never heard McGee tell a story or an anecdote, or give an ex- 
 pression that cou'd not have been given before this audience. 
 
 I remember taking a trip with him across Virginia, the Carolinas, 
 Alabama, and Mississippi. When we reached the Mississippi, I 
 asked to see some of McGee's notes, and he said he was going to 
 write them out when he got back to Washington, and the remarkable 
 accuracy with which he had remembered the details of section after 
 section of that trip was one of the marvels that impressed me about 
 him. When he got back to Washington, for some thirty-six con- 
 tinuous hours, with very short stops for meals, McGee dictated the 
 notes which developed into a volume. 
 
20 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 I remember that in the summer of 1907, Pinchot, McGee, and I 
 were out in the southern Sierra Mountains in California, supposedly 
 resting. It was during that time that many of the Conservation plans, 
 which have disturbed somewhat the even tenor of our ways, were 
 formulated. I was a listener, and a good rester. They made the 
 plans. One of the things that occurred was that when we passed 
 over the mountains, we went over formations Me Gee had visited fif- 
 teen years before. Me Gee would tell me time after time with great 
 detail what I was going to see when we came to a certain bluff, and 
 I would see just what Me Gee had told me. 
 
 One of the things in connection with the St. Louis Exposition work 
 illustrates McGee's life as an administrative officer. He went to the 
 Exposition under exceedingly trying conditions. There was little in 
 the way of funds at his disposal and rather an unsympathetic ad- 
 ministration. But with all these discouragements McGee went for- 
 ward and brought together an exhibit representing all the different 
 races of mankind such as we have never had in this country before 
 or since, and there he showed an infinite tact in getting along with 
 people under exceedingly difficult conditions. One of the secrets of 
 that was that McGee always had a good word to say for the other 
 fellow. People got tired of not doing the things McGee wanted them 
 to do simply because he was such a good fellow. It was a great privi- 
 lege to be with him and work with him. He gave the most helpful 
 sort of help I have ever had. 
 
 The last speaker was Mr. Gifford Pinchot. 
 
 Mr. Pinchot said: 
 
 My real knowledge of Doctor W J McGee began when I came to 
 Washington to take charge of the old Division of Forestry in the 
 United States Department of Agriculture. As a beginner in the work 
 of organization, and with little experience of governmental affairs, 
 McGee's helpfulness made an enormous difference to me at the start. 
 It was not only that he put his great experience and wide knowledge 
 at my service. That did very much, but what I think did even more 
 was his consideration for the beginner and the feeling he gave me 
 that in his view as an older man my work and I were both worth 
 while. 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 21 
 
 Gradually his breadth of knowledge and of interest made its deeper 
 impression. I came to see not only that his mind was encyclopedic 
 in the extent and accuracy of its information on countless subjects, 
 but that his vast mental activity was tempered and guided by the 
 informing conviction that what he knew was valuable only as he 
 could make it serve the human race. It was this quality fully as 
 much as his enormous scientific erudition which gave him the indis- 
 pensable place he occupied in the Conservation movement. 
 
 Without Me Gee the Conservation movement would either have 
 been delayed for years, or would have been feeble and halting at 
 birth. His contribution to it has been far too little known. This 
 was due in part to the unavoidable circumstances of the case, and 
 in part to a generosity without parallel in my experience among sci- 
 entific men. McGee's generosity was of that rarest type which is 
 willing to supply ideas and the expression of ideas without asking to 
 be known in connection with them. Many and many a passage in 
 Roosevelt's Presidential messages and in other state papers dealing 
 with Conservation had its first beginning in McGee's penetrating 
 intelligence. Many and many a statement like the Declaration of 
 Principles of the great Conference of Governors, and the final Declara- 
 tion of the North American Conservation Conference, of which con- 
 ference he was not even a member, would have lacked much of their 
 quality and power except for his guiding hand. 
 
 So far as such a thing can ever be said of any one man in a move- 
 ment so extensive, McGee was the scientific brains of the Conser- 
 vation movement all through its early critical stages. The 
 distinguishing fact about that movement from the first was its joint 
 consideration of all the natural resources together as the working 
 capital of humanity, and its object to make the best practicable use 
 of them for the greatest good of the greatest number for the longest 
 time. The wide and balanced knowledge of this continent which was 
 so striking a peculiarity of McGee's intellectual equipment naturally 
 fitted him for this work in a very high degree, and gave him his 
 very special place in the history of Conservation. 
 
 McGee at least as much as any other one man was responsible for 
 formulating the plan for the Roosevelt Inland Waterways Com- 
 mission, which for the first tune in any national project considered 
 
22 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 as a single problem the wise handling of all the natural resources of 
 the continent. As Secretary of this Commission and as unofficial 
 adviser and guide of all of the inland waterway associations, Me Gee 
 played a part in the development of our rivers the importance of 
 which it would be difficult to overstate. Of all his services to the 
 Conservation movement, this was the one which carried most clearly 
 the impress of his personality, and in which his contributions were 
 most effective. In convention after convention of commercial bodies 
 all over the United States and in the action of Governors and Legis- 
 latures on this deeply important subject, it was McGee's mind which 
 inspired and guided the decisions taken. His relation to the Na- 
 tional Irrigation Congress during the latter years of his life was hardly 
 less decisive, and yet in both of these directions, except among the 
 men who were actively responsible, his participation was compara- 
 tively little known. 
 
 McGee was not a member of the Public Lands Commission, nor 
 of the Country Life Commission, yet in both, and especially in the 
 latter, his influence was deeply felt. He was one of the two men upon 
 whom rested the arrangements for the great Conference of Govern- 
 ors held at the White House in May, 1908. Many of the utterances 
 which attracted most attention at that conference were prepared by 
 him or with his assistance, and the breadth of view which character- 
 ized it would have been absolutely impossible without his aid. 
 
 Out of the Conference of Governors grew the National Conserva- 
 tion Commission. Officially McGee was merely secretary of one of 
 its four divisions, that which dealt with the waters of the continent. 
 Practically, in every branch of the Commission's work he was the 
 trusted and effective adviser, a very fountain of knowledge, without 
 whom the material for its historic report, the first inventory of the 
 natural resources of any nation, could not have been brought together. 
 Important as his services were as a geologist, as an anthropologist, 
 and still more because of what he was as a man, I believe that his 
 work in Conservation will ultimately be seen to have outweighed all 
 the rest. 
 
 McGee's grasp of human life as a progressive development in time 
 and space was as wide as his conception of the interrelation of nat- 
 ural resources, which is the basis of Conservation. He saw not only 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 23 
 
 acutely and with the finest intellectual honesty, but also with the 
 broadest comprehension of relations of every kind. For many years 
 I was in effect his pupil. I have never met a man whose imagina- 
 tive suggestiveness in scientific work and in the application of scien- 
 tific results to human problems could be compared with his. It was 
 always the application of knowledge which appealed to him. His 
 mind passed easily across the details of a scientific problem to its appli- 
 cation in matters that would count for the welfare of the people. 
 
 I have never forgotten how he first suggested to me that the saving 
 of the natural resources for the benefit of the people, through the Con- 
 servation movement, involved as one of its main problems the whole 
 monopoly question. At first the idea seemed to me fantastic. 
 Gradually I came to see with him that the use of the resources is 
 fully as important as the saving of them, and that one of the great 
 phases of Conservation is the problem of the concentration of natural 
 wealth in the hands of monopolists. 
 
 The breadth and reach of Doctor McGee's interests may be indi- 
 cated by a partial list of the subjects in which his helpful influence was 
 strongly and effectively exerted. Of geology and anthropology I 
 must leave others to speak. His work in Conservation dealt with 
 navigable streams, waterpower, irrigation, potable waters from wells, 
 and springs, and streams, the laws of streamflow, the whole subject 
 of erosion, including as a single example the methods of avoiding 
 erosion by contour plowing on hilly land, the protection of coal and 
 oil lands from misappropriation, the saving of the phosphate lands for 
 the people, forestry, with particular emphasis on the Appalachian 
 National Forest, the public lands, the whole question of country life, 
 etc. His interest in humanity made him a radical in politics, to 
 which he gave much philosophic attention both as a branch of applied 
 anthropology, and as an instrument for human progress. This in- 
 terest led to his quiet but exceedingly practical participation in law 
 making to such an extent that many laws with whose passage he had, 
 ostensibly at least, little to do, in fact bore the impress of his forceful 
 influence or were originated by it. 
 
 McGee's capacity to see and judge himself and his affairs without 
 selfish bias was as remarkable as his mental achievements. Only a 
 man of flawless courage and complete unselfishness could have reached 
 
24 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 so high a point of personal detachment. Instances of his physical 
 bravery are the common property of all his friends, while every man 
 who knows the circumstances of the last months of his life recog- 
 nizes in him the expression of moral courage of the highest and rarest 
 kind. The certainty that his days were numbered, that they would 
 probably end in prolonged agony, unrelieved by the companionship 
 of his wife and children, left him cheerful, clear-eyed, wholly without 
 self-pity, calm and sane in his determination to use what powers 
 remained to him for the completion of his work. What is more re- 
 markable still, while consciousness remained he was as keenly and 
 unselfishly interested in the affairs of his friends and as little prone 
 to concentrate upon himself as in the days of his greatest vigor. 
 
 Beneath McGee's scientific attainments and mental power lay the 
 nature of one of the most kindly and genial of men, a lover of his 
 neighbor as himself, full of that finest courtesy which is never out 
 of fashion. His invincible serenity of soul made him the most de- 
 lightful of companions, and gave him perfect courage to speak the 
 truth as he found it. He was a great gentleman. 
 
ACTION OF SOCIETIES AND ASSOCIATIONS 
 
 REPRESENTATIVES APPOINTED TO ATTEND THE Me GEE 
 MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 American Anthropological Association F. W. Hodge. 
 
 American Association of Museums Frederick L. Lewton. 
 
 American Civic Association H. K. Bush Brown, Richard B. 
 Watrous. 
 
 American Forestry Association P. S. Ridsdale. 
 
 American Institute of Electrical Engineers J. H. Hanna, E. B. 
 Rosa. 
 
 American Society of Mechanical Engineers William H. Bixby, 
 Calvin W. Rice, Joseph A. Holmes. 
 
 Anthropological Society of Washington D. S. Lamb, Donnel F. 
 Hewitt, Daniel Folkmar. 
 
 Biological Society of Washington F. H. Knowlton. 
 
 Chemical Society of Washington F. W. Clarke, Wm. Blum, F. 
 K. Cameron, W. F. Hildebrand. 
 
 Columbia Historical Society Theodore W. Noyes, W. B. Bryan, 
 M. I. Weller. 
 
 Explorers Club Robert E. Peary, D. L. Brainard, Henry Bre- 
 voort Kane. 
 
 Lakes to the Gulf Deep Waterways Association W. K. Kavanaugh, 
 G. A. Buder, Edwin S. Munroe, Major Wood, T. Edward Wilder, 
 E. S. Conway, Wm. F. Bourland, Wm. H. Russe, W. M. Kavanaugh, 
 Geo. B. Logan, John F. Messmore, J. F. O. Reller, Arthur Leach, E. 
 H. Deffebaugh, Lyman E. Cooley, H. H. Walker, Alex. Y. Scott, 
 James S. Warren, H. F. Auton. 
 
 National Conservation Association Herbert A. Smith, Philip P. 
 Wells, H. A. Slattery. 
 
 National Conservation Congress Thomas R. Shipp. 
 
 National Rivers and Harbors Congress Thomas Wilkinson, S. A. 
 Thompson, M. I. Weller, Perry A. Randall, J. M. Goulden, Howell 
 M. Miller, George Ward Cook, John I. Martin. 
 
 25 
 
26 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 Philosophical Society of Washington -L. A. Bower, J. H. Gore, C. 
 K. Wead. 
 
 Sequoya League Alice C. Fletcher, F. W. Hodge, C. Hart Mer- 
 riam. 
 
 State Historical Society of Iowa H. M. Towner. 
 
 Upper Mississippi River Improvement Association Thomas Wil- 
 kinson. 
 
 MEMORIAL RESOLUTIONS 
 
 From the American Academy of Political and Social Science: 
 
 WHEREAS, Death has deprived us of our highly honored fellow 
 worker, and 
 
 WHEREAS, Doctor Me Gee had always shown a deep interest in 
 the work of the Academy and was at all times ready to cooperate in 
 the advancement of its purposes, and 
 
 WHEREAS, The Academy constantly benefited by his wise judg- 
 ment and constructive suggestions; 
 
 Therefore be it Resolved, That the Academy herewith express its 
 sense of loss at the death of Doctor McGee and its deep appreciation 
 of the services which he rendered in furtherance of its activities, and 
 record the same on the minutes of the organization, and 
 
 Further be it Resolved, That a copy of this resolution be forwared to 
 the family of the deceased. 
 
 From The American Association of Museums: 
 
 WHEREAS, The late W J McGee was a charter member of the 
 American Association of Museums and contributed materially to its 
 early organization; therefore 
 
 Be it Resolved, That the American Association of Museums desires 
 to record its keen sense of the loss which the Association and the 
 museum interests of this country have sustained in the death of W 
 J McGee; and further 
 
 Be it Resolved, That the American Association of Museums accept 
 the invitation of the McGee Commemorative Committee of the 
 Washington Academy of Sciences to be represented at the special 
 meeting to be held on the evening of December 5 in commemoration 
 of the late W J McGee; and that the Secretary be authorized to 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 27 
 
 invite Doctor Richard Rathbun to attend as the representative of 
 the Association, or to secure the attendance in his stead of a member 
 of the staff of the National Museum who is also a member of this 
 Association. 
 
 From the Archaeological Institute of America: 
 
 At the meeting of the Washington Academy of Sciences in com- 
 memoration of the late W J McGee the Washington Society of the 
 Archaeological Institute of America, as an affiliated society of the 
 Academy, desires to express its deep sense of indebtedness to Doctor 
 McGee as one of its charter members and officers. 
 
 Professor McGee was one of the twenty gentlemen who signed the 
 call for the meeting at which our Society was organized, Monday, 
 May 7, 1902. 
 
 He was elected a member of the original Executive Committee 
 and continued to serve until he left Washington for St. Louis in 
 1903. He also represented the Washington Society in the Council 
 of the Archaeological Institute for the years 1903-05, and was during 
 this period a Vice President of the Institute. 
 
 From the Council of Chiefs of the St. Louis Exposition: 
 
 WHEREAS, Our highly esteemed co-laborer and very dear friend, 
 Doctor W J McGee, Chief Department of Anthropology, Universal 
 Exposition, St. Louis, U. S. A., 1904, has been removed from our 
 circle by death, and 
 
 WHEREAS, The eminent services of Doctor McGee in assembling 
 and installing an exhibit of rare excellence and exceptional scientific 
 value at the St. Louis Exposition entitle his memory to due recogni- 
 tion, and 
 
 WHEREAS, His researches and writings in his chosen line of investi- 
 gation before and since the Exposition are deserving of especial com- 
 mendation of scientists, and 
 
 WHEREAS, The members of the Council of Chiefs so long and so 
 closely associated with Doctor McGee during the Exposition are 
 deeply afflicted in his decease; therefore, be it 
 
 Resolved, By the members of the Council of Chiefs of the Universal 
 Exposition held in St. Louis in 1904, that we learn with much sorrow 
 
28 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 of the death of our most worthy co-laborer, Doctor W J McGee, 
 Chief Department of Anthropology; 
 
 Resolved, That we individually and as members of the Council of 
 Chiefs of said Exposition, esteem it a great privilege to bear testi- 
 mony to the excellence of character, the spirit of loyalty to friends, 
 the devotion to the highest ideals, that made Doctor McGee such an 
 esteemed friend and pleasant associate; 
 
 Resolved, That the family and friends of our esteemed co-laborer be 
 assured of the fullest measure of our sympathy in his death; 
 
 Resolved, That the above resolutions be spread upon the records of 
 this Council and a copy sent to the family of the deceased. 
 
 From the International Irrigation Congress: 
 
 WHEREAS, On September 4, 1912, Doctor W J McGee, formerly 
 one of our board of governors, executive committeeman, and active 
 member, passed away, 
 
 Be it Resolved, That this Twentieth International Irrigation Con- 
 gress record in sorrow its high appreciation of the work and charac- 
 ter of the late W J McGee, an enthusiastic advocate of Conservation 
 and its practical application in irrigation and forestry, and an active 
 worker in support of the Congress. His example of industry and de- 
 votion to scientific research in ascertaining the truth afford an ex- 
 ample to all who are working for the public welfare. We sincerely 
 deplore his loss. 
 
 From the Lakes- to-the- Gulf Deep Waterway Association: 
 
 Doctor W J McGee was a man of many parts. 
 
 He was best known and understood among his coadjutors in the 
 domain of scientific research. 
 
 He was likewise recognized and appreciated by that large body of 
 people concerned in the conservation of our natural resources. 
 
 He had singular aptitude in developing and expounding the prin- 
 ciples of water conservation and in their practical application to the 
 problem of transportation. He regarded a river system as a unit 
 from source streams to the sea; and that its problems should be treated 
 as a whole, so as to develop in one solution all the collateral utilities 
 not only regularity in flow and fixation of bed and banks, but also 
 reclamation, water power, and sanitation. 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 29 
 
 Doctor McGee lost no opportunity to promote and broaden the 
 public mind respecting sound economic principles in the development 
 of our water resources, and he was a persistent attendant and partici- 
 pant at Waterway and Conservation conventions. 
 
 He was an ardent promoter of the Lakes-to-the-Gulf Deep Water- 
 way project, and joined in the formation of a program for the largest 
 possible development as a transportation route, coupled with recla- 
 mation of alluvial lands, the development of water power, and the 
 solution of problems of the public health. He always had a working 
 part in our conventions, and was an untitled but welcome member 
 in our Counsel Board. 
 
 The annual convention of the Lakes-to-the-Gulf Deep Waterway 
 Association, held at Little Rock, Arkansas, September, 19 12, expressed 
 its regret at the untimely passing of Doctor McGee by resolution 
 hereto appended. 
 
 The spirit of Doctor McGee will go forward to the full fruition of 
 his work, but the loss of a friend and colleague clear of brain and 
 with persistent purpose and courage, in the pioneer period of a great 
 enterprise cannot be replaced. 
 
 From the Seventh Lakes-to-the-Gulf Deep Waterways Convention: 
 
 We, the delegates of this Seventh Lakes-to-the-Gulf Deep Water- 
 ways Convention duly assembled, in appreciation and recognition of 
 our own great loss and of the loss to our cause by reason of the recent 
 taking by death of Doctor W J McGee, and in feeble recognition of 
 his services as a friend and scientist, do declare: 
 
 That the services of Doctor W J McGee to science, to progress, 
 and to the enlightenment and welfare of humanity have rightly earned 
 for him the respect and gratitude of his fellow-men. 
 
 In particular we recognize his stimulating and broadening influence 
 in the establishment of a sound and comprehensive ideal for the treat- 
 ment of our waterways, and in formulating and securing public recog- 
 nition for the fundamental truth that "every river is a unit from its 
 source to its mouth." 
 
 We recognize also his vital part in the establishment of the Inland 
 Waterways Commission, as secretary of which he was instrumental 
 in laying down principles and policies that will guide and control the 
 
30 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 utilization of the rivers in the United States for many years to come. 
 The appointment of the Inland Waterways Commission led to the 
 voyages of two Presidents down the Mississippi River under the 
 auspices of this Association and as its guests. The wide and benef- 
 icent increase of public interest in navigation which these journeys 
 produced was molded largely through the wise guidance of Doctor 
 McGee into a national policy of waterway development. Without 
 Doctor McGee's participation these achievements would have been 
 impossible. 
 
 The same is true of the great meeting of Governors in the White 
 House which awakened the nation to the impending exhaustion of 
 its natural resources. This meeting, doubtless the most remarkable 
 ever held in the White House, and one of the most influential in 
 American history, was in its conception and plan, largely the work of 
 Doctor McGee. 
 
 Courteous, modest, eager for the success and recognition of others 
 rather than himself, Doctor McGee was generous beyond measure 
 in giving help to every good cause, and in opening the resources of 
 his marvelous knowledge and his powerfully creative mind to every 
 fellow worker. 
 
 We mourn his loss both personally, and because he was the bene- 
 factor of his country and the friend of every effort to uplift man- 
 kind. 
 
 We rejoice at the result of his labors, which will survive to benefit 
 the people of America and of the world for uncounted generations. 
 
 From the Mississippi Valley Historical Association: 
 
 The Mississippi Valley Historical Association desires to express its 
 high appreciation of the services of the late Doctor W J McGee. 
 His work as a geologist, and especially his extensive geological survey 
 of northeastern Iowa, was of a high order of excellence and of his- 
 torical as well as scientific value. As an anthropologist and eth- 
 nologist he contributed largely to knowledge concerning the Indian 
 tribes of the Mississippi Valley, a field in which this Association has 
 always taken a great interest. Finally, his services in the Depart- 
 ment of Agriculture and on the Inland Waterways Commission can 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 31 
 
 not be overestimated in their importance to the people of the Middle 
 West. 
 
 Doctor Me Gee was generous in his encouragement of this Associa- 
 tion in the work which it has endeavored to perform, and whenever 
 possible he rendered active assistance. In May, 1910, he delivered 
 before this Association an address on the Conservation of Natural 
 Resources which was a source of inspiration as well as of information. 
 The Mississippi Valley Historical Association, therefore, recognizes 
 in the death of Doctor Me Gee a distinct loss to the cause which this 
 Association represents. 
 
 From the National Conservation Association: 
 
 We whose names are hereunder written, having been appointed to 
 represent the National Conservation Association at a meeting of the 
 Washington Academy of Sciences on December 5, 1913, in commem- 
 oration of the late Doctor W J McGee, and desiring to make fitting 
 and formal record of our action to that end, have adopted the fol- 
 lowing minute, and request that it be entered upon the records of the 
 Washington Academy of Sciences on behalf of the National Con- 
 servation Association. 
 
 Of the enduring value of Doctor McGee's contributions to science 
 through the study of primitive men and institutions, and the investi- 
 gation of the structure, history, and resources of the earth it is more 
 fitting that others speak. It is our privilege to remember with grati- 
 tude the patriot and lover of mankind, whose insight perceived the 
 relation of such studies to the problem of present and future human 
 welfare, whose inspiration applied to that problem the scientific 
 method in a quantitative measurement of the natural resources which 
 are the basis of the life of all, and whose soul cried out for the equal 
 participation of all in these impartial gifts of Nature. We honor the 
 statesman whose vision, undimmed by political traditions or super- 
 stitions, foresaw a true government of the people made efficient to 
 achieve general welfare for the people by the extension of National 
 power to all National ends, and by a trained executive free to serve 
 the people and responsible only to them. We mourn the great- 
 hearted leader and friend whose thought was always of the work in 
 
32 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 hand, never of the honor or reward due to himself. We revere the 
 man who met death with serene and unconquerable faith in the ulti- 
 mate and enduring victory of the cause of humanity for which his 
 life had been spent. 
 
 [Signed] HERBERT A. SMITH, 
 PHILIP P. WELLS, 
 H. A. SLATTERY. 
 
 From the Fourth National Conservation Congress: 
 
 We here place on record our sense of the deep loss by the country 
 through the untimely death of Doctor W J McGee, a member of a 
 Committee of this Congress, a scientific man of broad attainment, 
 and of the widest human sympathy, whose helpfulness in these Con- 
 gresses and many similar meetings will be sadly missed. 
 
 From the National Geographic Society: 
 
 The National Geographic Society wishes to express, at this Memo- 
 rial Meeting, its appreciation of the scientific ability and work of its 
 former President, Doctor W J McGee. He was one of the world's 
 foremost scientists, and his investigations covered a wide range of 
 subjects. As geographer, geologist, and ethnologist, his work was 
 masterly and his contributions to these sciences were among the 
 most notable of his time. 
 
 In geography, his interests were at first in physical geography, or 
 geomorphology. They are so numerous and varied, that it is possible 
 to mention only a very few. One of the most important of his works 
 is a classification of topographic forms by genesis, published as a brief 
 brochure in the first number of the National Geographic Magazine. 
 
 It is difficult, if not impossible, to separate McGee's geographic 
 work from his geologic work, since they were often carried on together, 
 the one aiding and supplementing the other. Thus, he discovered 
 that geologic history could in many cases be read from topographic 
 forms, and in his work upon the Coastal Plain he used this means 
 extensively in unraveling the geology. 
 
 He early studied glacial erosion and deposition, and many of the 
 now well known and basic facts regarding the work of glaciers were 
 first developed by him, including peculiarities of forms of moraines, 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 33 
 
 the formation of cirques, rock basins, U-shaped valleys, and hanging 
 valleys. Indeed, the discovery of the significance of the "Hanging 
 Valley" was a very important contribution to the science of glaciology, 
 completely demonstrating, as it does, the power of glaciers to erode, 
 and even measuring the minimum amount of erosion. He also dis- 
 covered a method of determining the direction of ice flow, without 
 depending upon glacial striae. 
 
 While McGee's contributions to pure science were many and great, 
 his work upon the applications of science to man's well-being were 
 none the less notable. Among these were his studies of the water 
 resources of the country, with reference to navigation, irrigation, and 
 domestic supply. These led to his appointment as a member and the 
 Secretary of the Inland Waterway Commission. 
 
 His work in all these various lines of scientific activity led up nat- 
 urally to the idea of Conservation. Of this movement he was one of 
 the originators, and he was one of the chief members of the Conser- 
 vation Commission created by President Roosevelt and the Sec- 
 retary of the section devoted to Water Resources. His work on this 
 Commission formed a fitting climax to his very useful life. 
 
 From the Papyrus Club of Saint Louis : 
 
 The late Doctor W J McGee, first Vice-President of the Papyrus 
 Club of Saint Louis, in the administration of Doctor Alexander N. 
 DeMenil, contributed much to the advancement of our organization 
 on the scientific side of our endeavors. His several essays and ad- 
 dresses on archaeology and kindred subjects were marked by original 
 thought, and his discourses on popular topics, of which he possessed 
 an inexhaustible fund, were invariably profitable and pleasing to 
 our members and invited guests. His prominent activity in Saint 
 Louis educational movements redounded greatly to our advantage, 
 and we recall all these efforts in our behalf and that of the general 
 Saint Louis public with feelings of gratitude. We early learned to 
 appreciate the fact that in Doctor McGee we had a collaborator capa- 
 ble of advancing the cause of popular science in this part of the coun- 
 try, an investigator and expert in research such as we have not had 
 since. His free mind and warm heart endeared him to all with whom 
 he came in contact. When he was called to a more promising field' in 
 
34 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 Washington we rejoiced that a fairer estimate of his abilities would 
 speedily come to him, and in this we, in conjunction with hosts of 
 friends, were not disappointed. 
 
 From the Sequoya League: 
 
 The Sequoya League, "To Make Better Indians," begs to add its 
 tribute to the memory of W J McGee, who was one of its Advisory 
 Board from its foundation until his death. 
 
 Its work for "making better Indians" by treating them better, was 
 earnestly and effectively assisted by Doctor McGee, and his counsels 
 and assistance were valued and effective. His own large nature, 
 simple and unspoiled as that of the aborigines; his own character and 
 achievement, almost as self-made; the gentleness of his heart; the 
 directness and justness of his mind; the practical common sense gained 
 by his experience; his knowledge of the needs of the Indian, earned 
 by experience and hardship in the field all these made him one of 
 the most valued of our advisers. 
 
 We feel that his death was a loss not only to American science but 
 to philanthropy, and the Sequoya League earnestly desires to join in 
 whatever tribute of affection and respect may be paid to his memory. 
 
 From the Society of American Indians: 
 
 Resolved, That the Society of American Indians register its sorrow 
 over the death of our departed friend and fellow member, Doctor W 
 J McGee, who departed this life during the current year, and that 
 we deplore the loss to the Indian race and to anthropological science 
 of so enthusiastic a student. In this loss of a friend and fellow mem- 
 ber we are consoled by the fact that the efforts of his life have proven 
 an inspiration to many students of the race, and we feel sure that the 
 results of his labors will live for many years to come. May he find 
 eternal peace in the up-above world where both scientist and savage, 
 who have wrought well, may greet each other as fellows with a com- 
 mon interest. 
 
 From the Washington Anthropological Society: 
 
 The interest that Doctor McGee had in anthropology seems to 
 have been aroused during a topographical and geological survey 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 35 
 
 that he made in northeastern Iowa during the years 1877 to 1881. 
 In 1878 he published his first paper on an anthropological subject. 
 It was entitled "On the artificial mounds of northeastern Iowa and 
 the evidence of the employment of a unit of measurement in their 
 erection." In the same year at the meeting of the American Asso- 
 ciation for the Advance of Science at St. Louis he presented a paper 
 "On an anatomical peculiarity by which crania of the mound build- 
 ers may be distinguished from those of the modern Indians." 
 
 July 1, 1893, he became connected with the Bureau of American 
 Ethnology, Major J. W. Powell being the Director. In 1894 Doctor 
 McGee was made Ethnologist-in-charge, and at once instituted re- 
 searches concerning the relation of primitive arts and institutions to 
 environment. He continued in charge of the Bureau until 1903, a 
 period of ten years and ten months, and during this time he did a 
 great part of the administrative work. During the several trying 
 years of Director Powell's illness, Doctor McGee did practically the 
 whole of the administrative work, and at the time of Powell's death, 
 McGee was Acting Director. It may be said that in preparing the 
 characterizations of the papers that appeared in the reports of the 
 Bureau, he applied the principles of psychology to the current re- 
 searches of the office. He was a past master in apprehending the 
 trend and significance of human activity. 
 
 Besides the administrative work of the Bureau, he made extensive 
 field researches in northwestern Mexico, in Tiburon Island, in Ari- 
 zona, in New Mexico, in California, in Iowa, and elsewhere, col- 
 lecting ethnological and archaeological data. During the years 1894 
 and 1895 he made a study of the Indians of Tiburon Island in the 
 Gulf of California, and the adjacent coast of Sonora; recording a 
 large body of linguistic material of the Seri, Papago and Cocopa In- 
 dians. He made the only scientific expedition to Tiburon Island that 
 has ever been attempted, and prepared a topographical map of the 
 island. Some of the results of these researches have been published; 
 others have not. Based chiefly on the material gathered by the late 
 J. Owen Dorsey, McGee prepared a memoir on the Siouan Indians to 
 serve as an introduction to Dorsey's "Siouan Sociology;" and based 
 on a series of Peruvian trephined skulls collected by Dr. M. A. Muniz 
 of Peru, McGee, in conjunction with Muniz, published a descriptive 
 paper. McGee also published a paper on "Primitive Numbers," the 
 
36 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 result of which was that Cornell College of Iowa, in 1901, conferred 
 on him the degree of LL.D. 
 
 He resigned from the Bureau of Ethnology July 31, 1903, to take 
 charge of the Department of Anthropology of 'the Louisiana Exposi- 
 tion held in St. Louis. He was also active in organizing the World's 
 Congress of Arts and Sciences in 1904, of which he was the senior 
 speaker in the Department of Anthropology. 
 
 The date that Doctor McGee joined the Anthropological Society 
 of Washington cannot at present be given; some records of the So- 
 ciety have been mislaid. He was first elected a member of the Coun- 
 cil January 21, 1890, and was reflected many times afterwards. He 
 attended the meetings of the Society quite regularly and took part 
 in the discussions. He always spoke to the point and concisely and 
 his remarks were listened to with marked attention. 
 
 He was President of the Anthropological Society of Washington from 
 1898 to 1900. In 1902 he was foremost in founding the American 
 Anthropological Association, of which he was the first President. 
 When the American Anthropologist was established in 1899, he was 
 one of the constructive owners, sharing its financial responsibilities, 
 before it came under the control of the American Anthropological 
 Association. 
 
 McGee's conception of anthropology was broad; he closely followed 
 Major Powell, and like him loved to philosophize. Perhaps it might 
 be said that McGee's mind was essentially synthetic rather than 
 analytic. 
 
 No small part of McGee's administrative success lay in his implicit 
 faith and trust in his co-workers and subordinates in office, which nat- 
 urally inspired them to put forth their highest endeavor, and gained 
 for him their affection; he saw only the best in those with whom he 
 associated. He believed in the ultimate triumph of the ideals of 
 human yearning and endeavor. He was also sensitively responsive 
 to every demand of his fellow-man, either for time, for sympathy, or for 
 money. Herein was the source of his great generosity and altruism. 
 His character was laid along universal lines rather than along the 
 path of selfish narrowness and exclusiveness. 
 
 He was a man, take him for all in all, 
 We shall not look upon his like again. 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 37 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY WASHINGTON ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY 1 
 
 On an anatomical peculiarity by which crania of the mound builders 
 may be distinguished from those of the modern Indians. Amer. Jour. 
 Med. ScL, 1878, xvi, pp. 458-461. 
 
 Report of the Toronto meeting at which he read a paper on "Some prin- 
 ciples of evidence relating to the antiquity of man." Proc. A. A. A. S., 
 1889 (1890), xxxviii, p. 333, also American Antiquarian, 1891, xiii, p. 69. 
 
 An obsidian implement from pleistocene deposits in Nevada. Amer. 
 Anthrop., 1889, ii, p. 301, paper read before the Anthrop. Society of Wash- 
 ington, Nov. 16, 1886. 
 
 Conditions of accumulation of the Trenton gravels; read before the 
 Anthrop Soc. of Washington, Nov. 12, 1877; Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., 
 xxiii. 
 
 Geologic antecedents of man in the Potomac Valley; read before the 
 Anthrop. Soc., Washington. Amer. Anthrop., 1889, ii, p. 227. 
 
 Comparative chronology. Amer. Anthrop., 1892, v, p. 327. 
 
 The Siouan Indians; a preliminary sketch. 15th Annual Report Bureau 
 Amer. Ethnol., 1893-1894 (1897), pp. 153-204. 
 
 Preface to John Garland's "The Pamunkey Indians of Virginia." Bul- 
 letin Bureau Amer. Ethnol. No. 17, 1894. 
 
 Prefatory note to Cyrus Thomas's "The Maya year." Bulletin, etc., 
 No. 18, 1894. 
 
 The earth, the home of man; lecture under the auspices of Anthrop. Soc. 
 Washington, by which it was published, 1894, 28 pages. 
 
 Report of Anthropology at the Madison meeting of the A. A. A. S. Con- 
 gress 1893, at which he read a paper on "Antiquity of man in America." 
 
 The remains of Don Francisco Pizarro, Amer. Anthrop., 1894, vii, p. 1. 
 
 The Citizen; a prize essay; read before the Anthrop. Soc., Washington; 
 Amer. Anthrop., 1894, vii, p. 352. 
 
 Primitive trephining; illustrated by the Muniz Peruvian collection. 
 Johns Hopkins Hosp. Bulletin 1894, v, p. 1; also in 16th Annual Report 
 Bureau Amer. Ethnol. (1894-1895) 1897, xvi, pp. 3-72. 
 
 The antiquity of our Indians; Epitome, Washington, 1894, 1, p. 1. 
 
 The beginning of agriculture. Amer. Anthrop., 1895, viii, p. 350. 
 
 Principles of nomenclature, read before the Anthrop. Soc., Washington, 
 Dec. 13, 1892. Amer. Antiquarian, 1895, viii, p. 279. 
 
 The relation of institutions to environment; Smithsonian Institute, re- 
 port for 1895. 
 
 This does not duplicate bibliography included in Doctor Knowlton's article, pp. 76. 
 
38 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 Report of anthropology at the Buffalo meeting. Amer. Anthrop., 1896, 
 ix, p. 315. 
 < The beginning of marriage. Amer. Anthrop., 1896, ix, p. 371. 
 
 Expedition to Papagueria and Seriland. Amer. Anthrop., 1896, ix, p. 
 93; also in Science, 1896, iii, p. 493; and Nat. Geog. Mag., 1898. ix, p. 345. 
 
 The Seri Indians, 17th annual report Bureau Amer. Ethnol., 1895- 
 
 1896 (1898), pp. 1-128 and 129-344. 
 
 Primitive numbers, 19th annual report Bureau Amer. Ethnol., 1897- 
 1898 (1900), pp. 821-851. 
 
 Primitive rope making in Mexico. Amer. Anthrop., 1897, x, p. 114. 
 The beginning of zooculture. Same jour., p. 215. 
 The science of humanity. Same jour., p. 241, also in Proc. A. A. A. S. 
 
 1897 (1898), xlvi, p. 293. 
 
 Report of anthropology at Detroit and Toronto meetings. Amer. 
 Anthrop., 1897, x, p. 317. 
 
 Anthropology at Ithaca. Amer. Anthrop., 1898, xi, p. 15. 
 
 A muskwaki bowl. Same jour., p. 88. 
 
 Ponka feather symbolism. Same jour., p. 156. 
 
 Ojibwa feather symbolism. Same jour., p. 177. 
 
 Piratical acculturation. Same jour., p. 243. 
 
 The course of human development. Forum, 1898, xxvi, p. 56. 
 
 Thirst in the desert. Atlantic Monthly, 1898, Ixxxi, p. 483; also in Glo- 
 bus, Braunschweig, 1898, Ixxiv, p. 66. 
 
 Anthropology at Columbus. Amer. Anthrop., 1899, 1, 759. 
 
 Beginning of mathematics. Same jour., pp. 646-674. 
 
 Trend of human progress. Same jour., p. 401. 
 
 Anthropology at Baltimore. Amer. Anthrop., 1900, ii, p. 765. 
 
 Remarks on Frank H. Gushing. Same jour., p. 354. 
 
 Man's place in nature. Amer. Anthrop., 1901, iii, p. 1; also in Science, 
 1901, xiii, p. 453. 
 Obituary of G. M. Dawson. Amer. Anthrop., 1901, iii, p. 159. 
 
 Cocopa Indians; read before Anthrop. Soc., Washington, March 12, 
 1901. 
 
 Poisoned arrows; read May 4, 1901. 
 
 Anthropology at Pittsburgh. Amer. Anthrop., 1902, iv, p. 464. 
 
 The wildest tribe in North America; Seriland and the Seri; Land of 
 Sunshine, Los Angeles, 1901, xiv, pp. 364 and 463; also in 16th annual re- 
 port Bureau Amer. Ethnol. 
 
 Work of Bureau Amer. Ethnology. Nat. Geog. Mag., 1901, xii, p. 369; 
 reprinted from Verhandlung des 7th International Geog. Congress, Ber- 
 lin, 1899. 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 39 
 
 Germe Industrie de la pierre en Amerique. Bull, and Mem. Soc. 
 d'Anthrop., Paris, 1902, iii, p. 82. 
 
 The American Anthropological Association. Science, 1902, xvi, p. 309. 
 
 Cardinal principles of science; read before Anthrop. Soc., Washington, 
 Feb. 26, 1901. 
 
 The Indians of North America in prehistoric times, by Cyrus Thomas; 
 in conference with W J McGee, Philadelphia (1903), 464 pages. 
 
 Prehistoric North America, by W J McGee and Cyrus Thomas, Phila- 
 delphia (1906), 485 pages. (Half title: " The History of North America," 
 by Francis N. Thorpe, vol. 19.) 
 
 Conservation in the human realm. Amer. Anthrop., 1910, xii, p. 81. 
 
 Conditions limiting growth of population in United States. Amer, 
 Anthrop., 1911, xiii, p. 499; also in Science, Oct. 6, 1911, p. 428. 
 
 He was also Editor of the Departments of Anthropology and Ethnology, 
 New International Encyclopedia (1911) edition. 
 
PERSONAL ESTIMATES 
 
 From Rene Bache, of Washington, D. C.: 
 
 That I should have enjoyed for a period of nearly twenty-five years 
 not only the friendship of Doctor McGee, but also his confidence and 
 esteem, is to me a matter of much pride. 
 
 He was the only man I have ever known to whom I could go and 
 say "Give me an idea," with a confident expectation of getting one. 
 He would treat that foolish demand with seriousness, and often would 
 respond with a suggestion which I was able to turn into money. 
 
 The ideas Doctor McGee gave me put thousands of dollars into 
 my pocket. I used to tell him that he had paid for the second story 
 of my house on Q street. 
 
 This amused him. He was also amused when I told him that he 
 never could say a thing a second time as well as he could the first. 
 
 Let me explain that the experienced newspaper man rarely takes 
 the trouble to put down verbatim the words of a person whom he 
 interviews. What he wants is facts and ideas; he can usually write 
 them better than the man interviewed can talk them. But with 
 Doctor McGee it was different. Not to take him verbatim was to 
 lose, so to speak, the efflorescence of his discourse. 
 
 I am not a stenographer, and so I could not always keep up. I 
 would have to ask him to repeat a sentence which he just uttered. 
 But he never could put the matter as strikingly a second time. 
 
 This was characteristic of the born talker. Doctor McGee wrote 
 well, but he talked much better than he,wrote. The task of compo- 
 sition hampered the utterance of his thoughts. In conversation he 
 would seize an idea and give it a twist which he himself a moment 
 later could not reproduce. 
 
 Doctor McGee never lost a chance to help me. I never found him 
 so busy that he was not ready to put his work aside for my benefit. 
 He was always glad to help other people believing, as he did, that 
 the object of existence was by no means the pursuit of happiness, but 
 rather the pursuit of usefulness. It was not merely information (full 
 
 40 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 41 
 
 as he was of it on an amazing variety of subjects) that he had to com- 
 municate. The special quality of his discourse was that it was illu- 
 minative. When he talked, it was as if he lighted a candle inside 
 of a lantern. 
 
 To most people, things assume a certain appearance because they 
 are accustomed to be seen from a certain standpoint. But Doctor 
 McGee was intellectually stereoscopic. He would place his listener 
 at a new angle with the subject under discussion, whatever it might 
 be whereupon it assumed an entirely new and surprising aspect. 
 Often one saw it for the first time as it really was. 
 
 What we call "intellect" is understood to mean a superior degree 
 of intelligence. But this definition I hold to be inadequate. Intel- 
 lect properly signifies a distinct plane of mentality. 
 
 Who would think of referring to Doctor McGee as a "highly in- 
 telligent" man, or a "very clever" man? Such terms as applied to 
 him would be absurd. He was something entirely different; and the 
 difference was not one merely of degree, but of kind. 
 
 If the man of intellect be understood to represent a distinct psychic 
 type, Doctor McGee was obviously a most striking and conspicuous 
 example of that type. His was an intelligence raised to the nth power. 
 It was of a quality unapproached save by a few individuals in each 
 generation of the world's human product. 
 
 His record proved him a man of undaunted and indomitable pluck 
 and will-power as shown, for example, on the occasion of his won- 
 derful journey alone across a waterless desert in Sonora. But the 
 same quality was exhibited even more strikingly perhaps during the 
 last years of his life, when, although dying by inches of a lingering 
 and hopeless disease, he kept steadfastly on with his work, while dis- 
 playing the unfailing cheerfulness under adverse circumstances which 
 is at once the highest exhibition and the best proof of a noble courage. 
 
 From Doctor H. Foster Bain, of San Francisco: 
 
 I have always felt that I owed a good deal to the kindly interest of 
 Doctor McGee at the time when I was a beginner. 
 
 I remember especially the first paper I presented to the Iowa Acad- 
 emy of Science. I suppose one always remembers his first scientific 
 paper with especial interest, probably out of all proportion to the 
 
42 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 real value of the contribution. In those days I knew very few men 
 in the scientific world, but I bravely sent out my little pamphlet to 
 all with whom I could by any chance claim acquaintance, and, among 
 others, to McGee, who had once lectured to us when I was a student 
 at Johns Hopkins. He took the thing as seriously as though it had 
 been a contribution from one of the leaders of science, and wrote me 
 a most careful and critical review in the form of a personal letter, at 
 the same time making most illuminated and suggestive comment that 
 led me in the next succeeding years into a very fascinating field of 
 physiographic work. Apparently, to McGee, the young man work- 
 ing in a far state as a beginner was worth time and thought; and I 
 have reason to believe that this was his habit of mind, and that many 
 beginners, as well as myself, have him to thank for inspiration. 
 
 Later, as with Calvin I worked over the Pleistocene in north- 
 eastern Iowa, I realized something of what his own work as a begin- 
 ner had been, and how he must have appreciated any help which came 
 to him at that time. He really did a great piece of work in northeast- 
 ern Iowa. It is hard to realize now how firmly fixed was the notion 
 of one glacial period. In the area in which McGee studied, there are 
 the drift sheets of three well defined periods, as we know now. He 
 insisted that there were more than one and proposed two as the maxi- 
 mum of audacity. Such mistakes as he made were due mainly to 
 the fact that he wasn't bold enough and did not claim more than 
 two. It was because he tried to make the whole scheme fit in with 
 this that he missed the well-marked and extremely significant drift 
 border near Iowa City. 
 
 I saw something of McGee later at the time he was trying so hard 
 to build up a museum at St. Louis. He had even then, although a 
 much older man, a tremendous store of enthusiasm and energy, and 
 all of us on the Illinois Survey who came in contact with him derived 
 many fruitful suggestions from him. 
 
 From John Barrett, of Washington, D. C.: 
 
 I knew W J McGee almost intimately for many years, and he grew 
 on me with the passing of time. At first I did not fully understand 
 him, but later, when I came under the influence of his wide knowledge 
 and his sincere enthusiasm, I realized that he was, indeed, a rare man. 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 43 
 
 Particularly was I impressed with his sincerity and with his ability 
 to present strong arguments in favor of a cause in which he was in- 
 terested. He was always master of what he undertook to debate, 
 and he was a dangerous antagonist for the superficially informed. 
 His wide acquaintance, moreover, all over the land enabled him to 
 spread his influence and his knowledge, which was practical and ef- 
 fective. When he was taken away, not only science but the people 
 of our country at large lost one of their ablest and truest friends. I 
 am glad to express my profound regard for the memory of this re- 
 markable man. 
 
 From George Eames Barstow, of Barstow, Texas: 
 
 Doctor McGee had great moral courage. The question with him 
 was not as to the ultimate effect that his advocacy of any given cause 
 should have upon himself, but only that the cause nearest his heart 
 should succeed. 
 
 My relations with Doctor McGee, covering many years, on national 
 efforts for conserving our National Resources, such as irrigation, for- 
 estry, deep waterways and the reclaiming of our swamp lands, were 
 most intimate, and afforded me full opportunity to analyze his char- 
 acter. From it I derived great satisfaction and strength. His inti- 
 mate familiarity with precedent and custom in social and diplomatic 
 affairs was of great value in shaping the course of wise procedure in 
 all our Congresses and gatherings for the promotion of the public wel- 
 fare. His minute care in matters of detail as well as what concerned 
 broad conduct always impressed me, and contributed in large degree 
 to the great success that obtained in our endeavors. His unvarying 
 readiness for full and friendly conference on vital issues always made 
 him suggestive, but with due regard for the opinions of his conferees. 
 
 Doctor McGee's convictions were strong and his action pronounced 
 on the lines of his belief, yet his conduct was tempered by true modera- 
 tion. I could not pay a more just and ideal tribute to our departed 
 friend than by saying that the characteristic in his life which most 
 impressed me was his unselfish devotion. 
 
44 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 From Governor N. C. Blanchard, of Louisiana: 
 
 I came to know Doctor McGee first in connection with the Mis- 
 sissippi River problem, and then in connection with the movement 
 for the Conservation of Natural Resources. 
 
 I found him an exceedingly well informed and resourceful man. 
 Indeed, so well equipped was he for intelligent discussion and consid- 
 eration of the subjects mentioned, that I looked upon him as one of 
 the country's leading experts thereon. His knowledge was so pro- 
 found, and so well digested and systemized in his broad and compre- 
 hensive mind, that he was, indeed, in respect to these matters, a sci- 
 entist. 
 
 In May, 1908, President Roosevelt invited all the Governors of 
 the States of the Union to meet him at the White House in confer- 
 ence over the vital question of Conservation of the Natural Resources 
 of the country. The Conference lasted three days and attracted 
 world-wide attention. 
 
 During the course of its deliberations, it was thought advisable to 
 appoint one Committee to embody in a report or Declaration the 
 conclusions and results that should be arrived at by the Conference, 
 and that this Committee should be composed of five Governors. 
 
 Accordingly, such Committee was created, and President Roose- 
 velt named as the Committee the following Governors: 
 
 Newton C. Blanchard, of Louisiana, 
 
 John Franklin Fort, of New Jersey, 
 
 John C. Cutler, of Utah, 
 
 James O. Davidson, of Wisconsin, and 
 
 Martin F. Ansel, of South Carolina. 
 
 At the Committee's first meeting, Chairman Blanchard suggested 
 that a sub-committee be appointed to prepare the report or declara- 
 tion, to be afterwards submitted to the full Committee for its con- 
 sideration, amendment, and adoption, and, in that connection, stated 
 that if the work of preparing the draft of the report were turned over 
 to him, he would call to his assistance Gifford Pinchot and Doctor 
 McGee, both of whom were in attendance on the Conference. Ac- 
 cordingly the Chairman and Messrs. Pinchot and McGee were ap- 
 pointed a sub-committee to draft the report. 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 45 
 
 So the three of us "put our heads together/' and after a labor of a 
 day and part of the night, there was brought forth the draft of the 
 report, which took the form of a Declaration of views and recom- 
 mendations by the Conference. 
 
 The next day the full Committee adopted the report, and directed 
 the Chairman to report the same to the Conference as a Declaration 
 on Conservation embodying and formulating general conclusions on 
 that great subject. 
 
 This was accordingly done, and after the reading of the Declara- 
 tion before the Conference, and debate had thereon, the report of 
 the Committee was unanimously adopted amid great applause. 
 
 Doctor McGee's services in preparing the Declaration were simply 
 invaluable. The part he performed in this work greatly elicited my 
 admiration, and my association in it with him and with Gifford Pin- 
 chot led to ties of close friendship, and is to me one of the most 
 pleasant episodes and reminiscences of my life. 
 
 Referring to the Declaration on Conservation, I heard President 
 Roosevelt declare, in an address before a distinguished gathering in 
 Washington, where he and President-elect Taft were the speakers, 
 that it was so important a work, an instrument of such transcendent 
 importance, that it ought to be framed and hung in every school- 
 house in the land. 
 
 Doctor McGee was a rare character on the good and useful side of 
 life. With all his great capabilities, the distinguishing trait of his 
 character was his modesty in never claiming credit for himself, no 
 matter how much he had contributed of origination, ability, resource- 
 fulness, and industry to any work of broad scope and far-reaching 
 effect. 
 
 His was a gentle, kindly, lovable disposition. I greatly deplore 
 his death. 
 
 From J. Stanley Brown, of New York City: 
 
 It was my good fortune to have known Doctor McGee from almost 
 the day of his arrival in Washington to take service in the United 
 States Geological Survey. Then and there sprang up a warm 
 friendship which continued uninterruptedly to the day of his untimely 
 
46 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 death, so that whatever is here set down is in the spirit of kindliest 
 remembrance. 
 
 Although many years have slipped by my first impressions of his 
 personal appearance are still vivid. His most conspicuous outward 
 characteristic was a pleasing manly vigor, indicative of abounding 
 good health and unusual ability, both physical and mental. By 
 reason of this, his power of sustained bodily and intellectual effort 
 endured almost to the end of his career. Eyes and complexion were 
 fresh and clear, and countenance frank and open, giving every evi- 
 dence of kindliness, sincerity, and earnestness of purpose. His ever 
 present smile was genial and inviting. 
 
 As these lines are written a delightful picture of McGee, mellowed 
 by time and affection, arises before me. It was soon after his entrance 
 on his duties. On a beautiful autumn day he started on foot to 
 examine the geological formations of the upper Potomac River. To 
 him there was no inappropriateness in appearing at the office minus 
 a coat, and arrayed in outing shirt of a screamingly brilliant blue 
 color, while a new and shining little axe dangled from the back buckle 
 of his trousers. This startling costume was crowned with a black 
 Alpine hat of western construction and ancient vintage. The out- 
 come was a cross between a Baltimore fireman of the olden days and 
 a juvenile camper about to enter upon his first experience. The epi- 
 sode nearly caused a riot of interest and comment among the members 
 of the Survey, but many of us who smiled can recall the valuable 
 contributions he made to the unraveling of the then unknown " Coastal 
 Plain Geology" of the Atlantic Seaboard. 
 
 The kindliness, wholesomeness, and sincerity of Me Gee's nature 
 were early recognized by his associates. No demand on him was so 
 small or so large that it was not promptly met, and he gave of his 
 best. Always the subject of good-natured friendly chaffing, it was 
 ever taken in good spirit. There was never resentment or ill nature, 
 and never was there heard from him a harsh or critical personal com- 
 ment on his associates. Apparently there was no place for such 
 things in his philosophy of life. He enjoyed fun and social inter- 
 course, and maintained his part with repartee and story, but never 
 was sarcasm or irony employed, nor was there even a hint of care- 
 lessness or coarseness in conversation. 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 47 
 
 Loyalty was part of his creed, whether to his friends or to what 
 he believed to be the fundamental principles of life, while his devotion 
 to the development of scientific knowledge was unsurpassed. 
 
 He brought to all of his problems intensity of concentration, unu- 
 sual industry, and very clear perception, while his exceptional powers 
 of expression enabled him to present his conclusions in the most 
 orderly and convincing manner. 
 
 When the Geological Society of American was organized, some 
 twenty-seven years ago, the determination of the form of publication 
 of the Proceedings of the Society was intrusted to McGee. It was a 
 most laborious and difficult task. As to these Proceedings, I made 
 the following statement on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anni- 
 versary of the founding of the Society: 
 
 As Minerva sprung, full grown and completely armored from the brain 
 of Jupiter, so was the Society's publication created a model of form and 
 efficiency by the sole effort and peculiar genius of one of the most compe- 
 tent and brilliant scientific minds the West has produced. In its essential 
 features the Bulletin stands today as it did at the time of its creation. 
 
 The calm courage of this philosopher was revealed to me a few 
 months before his death. In one of my infrequent visits to Washing- 
 ton I met him at the Cosmos Club, and as always we sat down to- 
 gether to get "caught up." He then told me of the malignant dis- 
 ease which had attacked him, and of his recent hospital experience 
 in connection therewith. He spoke of the future, and with a sim- 
 plicity and serenity I have never seen equaled said, "Well! I find since 
 my resumption of my active work that my productiveness equals 
 that of former days, and if the operation proves a success all will be 
 well. If not, I fear it will be a short story." There were no hero- 
 ics, just the words, spoken with dignity and courage, of a brave man 
 who knew the trick fate might play him. It proved a short story, 
 and soon there crossed the "Great Divide" one who was a real ex- 
 ponent in his life and in his death of the true scientific spirit. Indif- 
 ferent to the trivialities of life, earnest in the pursuit of Nature's 
 truths, sincere in his collection and presentation of them to the world, 
 when the call came he met it in that calm confidence which comes 
 from a realization that he had done his best, and that all was well. 
 
48 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 From Senator Theodore E. Burton, of Ohio : 
 
 I knew Doctor McGee intimately and would have considered it a 
 privilege to testify in person to my appreciation of his life and work. 
 All his scientific attainments, which were especially marked in anthro- 
 pology, geology, and hydrology, were utilized for practical ends and 
 the benefit of the country and the race. A man of remarkable ver- 
 satility and of big ideas, he dwelt not in the past but in the future. 
 He drew his lessons from history, but he made them an inspiration 
 for coming generations. He was above and beyond all a disciple of 
 practical conservation, a believer that water was as much an asset 
 of the nation as the land or as the minerals beneath the land. 
 
 It is frequently said that the influence of men is ephemeral, and 
 that when they are laid away they are soon forgotten. This is doubt- 
 less true of the majority of us, but the name and work of such men as 
 Doctor McGee will endure as long as men are interested in science 
 and as long as people admire the work of genius. 
 
 From Doctor Frank R. Cameron, United States Bureau of Soils: 
 
 I first met Doctor McGee nearly twenty years ago, shortly after 
 my arrival in Washington. I was not especially drawn to him then 
 nor for some years later, although I recognized his great personal 
 force. I greatly admired his devotion to the late Major Powell, but 
 first became really interested in him on his return to Washington af- 
 ter the inauguration of the " Conservation" movement. We became 
 close and even intimate friends. 
 
 My strongest recollection of Doctor McGee is of his intense devo- 
 tion to the public interest and keen sense of personal responsibility 
 thereto. Never, I think, at least during the last years of his life 
 when I was privileged to know him well, did he commit himself to 
 even a trivial act without more or less carefully considering its im- 
 port on the public welfare. Certainly he never failed of this consid- 
 eration in his conduct of his official work, nor was any one with whom 
 he was brought into contact allowed to ignore or forget that the pub- 
 lic interest must be kept paramount. 
 
 Some months after the surgical operation he underwent in the 
 summer of 1910 he asked me to come to his office. Although at the 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 49 
 
 time he appeared to be steadily gaining his strength, he informed me 
 that his own careful observations had led him to a definite conclusion 
 as to how long he had to live and how many months of effective work 
 were left to him. In this latter estimate especially, his prediction 
 proved remarkably accurate. He then outlined to me his tentative 
 plans for the best utilization of his time, and calmly invited my criti- 
 cisms. 
 
 We had been having a series of conferences on the desirability of 
 inaugurating some experimental work on mulching. I had disagreed 
 with his a priori reasoning and did not think that it justified the 
 expense incident to the particular experimentation he had been sug- 
 gesting. This I knew to be very near to his heart, and I offered to 
 set aside my own judgment and hurry the experimentation he de- 
 sired. He declined, however, on the ground that as I alone would 
 be able to use the results, I must accept alone the responsibility for 
 using government facilities and had no right to permit my judgment 
 to be warped or biased, even by the wishes of a dying friend and 
 colleague. 
 
 Next in vividness is my recollection of his unfailing charity. He 
 could and did dislike, and even scorn, ignoble men as well as ignoble 
 actions. But his vision was clear, backed by a well controlled imag- 
 ination, and he was always quick to see the good in men and their 
 motives, and ready to credit them with it. He gave freely and with- 
 out reserve of his vast learning and well of inspiration to others, es- 
 pecially to men of the younger generations with whom he came in 
 contact. Always ready to listen when convinced of earnestness of 
 purpose, he was a patient critic, a wise and considerate counsellor. 
 
 His philosophy was very puzzling to me. He was frankly an ag- 
 nostic. His attitude of mind was to accept facts for exactly what 
 they are, together with such correlations only as could not reasonably 
 be doubted. Yet he would freely argue by analogy and thus be led 
 into conclusions diametrically opposed to the necessary and sufficient 
 deductions by accepted methods. He accepted as facts many ideas 
 which to others were merely speculations, due, I think, to an inher- 
 ent repugnance toward laboratory-bred ideas as compared with those 
 developed in what he regarded as the necessarily broader and more 
 comprehensive vision of the field man. His concept that the soil, 
 
50 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 because of its complexity, is suborganic, led him to attribute to it 
 characteristics of living organisms. Although flatly denying to water 
 any constitution that would involve a sensory system, he still stoutly 
 maintained that water could and does exercise a preference to be in 
 the liquid phase, and never would he admit that liquid water is more 
 common to human experience than vapor or ice simply because it 
 is the stable phase at ordinary temperatures and pressures. Always, 
 he held, we must push back our inquiries another step into the un- 
 known. Atomistic concepts appealed to him far less than those of 
 the phenomenologist, so that he was less sympathetic in his discus- 
 sions with chemists and physicists than with experts in other lines 
 of philosophic enquiry. 
 
 Great as was McGee's service to science in general, he left but com- 
 paratively little of permanent material value to soil enquiries. Three 
 problems attracted his attention: the conservation of the soil water 
 for the use of crops; the transport of soil material, or soil erosion; 
 and the management of soils, especially the theoretical basis for the 
 practice of mulching. To the last of these problems he gave a great 
 deal of thought, and was convinced himself that the principal func- 
 tion of a mulch is to attract moisture from the air so that it could 
 within the soil pass to the preferred liquid phase and there perform 
 its normal function of aiding plant growth. To the first and second 
 problems, however, he lent yeoman service by pressing them upon 
 public attention, formulating them in terms that would appeal to 
 the imagination; and by lending the weight of his remarkable per- 
 sonality and marvellous diction, forcing their importance upon the 
 consciousness of all thinking men. That the details of his concepts 
 of the mechanism of the water cycle and the life of soils as subor- 
 ganic entities will quickly be forgotten detracts not at all from the 
 debt we owe him, in broadening our vision of the scope of the con- 
 servation ideal to include our greatest material heritage, the soils of 
 the nation, and their most important component, the soil water. 
 
 From Professor Collier Cobb, of the University of North Carolina: 
 
 I never knew a man of such wide and varied interests, or one who 
 possessed more accurate and detailed information about them all, 
 and always in relation to their bearing on human betterment. 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 51 
 
 Geologist and geographer, archaeologist and anthropologist, delv- 
 ing in the past while working always at the task that lay immedi- 
 ately at hand, his work looked ever to the future, making him our 
 first conservationist. To him Mr. Pinchot owed much of his inspira- 
 tion, and President Roosevelt no doubt found him a never failing 
 source of information as well as a perpetual inspiration. 
 
 To young men he was ever a helpful friend, and there are some 
 who were with him in the West who would not be alive today had it 
 not been for his thoughtfulness where they were thoughtless. And 
 this care for the welfare of others extended even to the savage men 
 among whom he worked, and endeared him to everyone who came 
 in contact with him. 
 
 From Dr. N. H. Darton, of the United States Geological Survey. 
 A Memorial presented to the Association of American Geographers, 
 December 28, 1912: 
 
 In the death of W J McGee science has been deprived of one of 
 its most efficient workers, and mankind has lost a vigorous champion 
 for its advancement. Had he been spared to us, he might have had 
 many more years of continued usefulness, for he was only 59 years of 
 age and in most respects was in fine physical and mental condition. 
 McGee had always been a worker. He was remarkable for the uni- 
 versality of his interests. He was wonderfully rich in ideas pertain- 
 ing not alone to those sciences in which personally he was most in- 
 terested but also to the broader fields of general culture in which his 
 companions might be working. A man of enthusiastic endeavor him- 
 self, he was bound to inspire enthusiasm in an honest worker in any 
 field. 
 
 The variety of interests of which McGee was mentally capable 
 was shown by a very early versatility. As an illustration of the 
 latter I might mention that he had a large share in the great con- 
 servation movement, and was one of the principal advisors of the 
 National Conservation Commission. 
 
 He was born on a farm in Dubuque County, Iowa, April 17, 1853, 
 of Irish parentage. Excepting a short attendance at the county 
 school he was entirely self-educated. As a boy he had much to do 
 on the farm but gave all spare time to study, and at the age of 20 had 
 
52 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 acquired the more important lines of information usually presented 
 in schools and colleges, and had mastered sufficient law to practice 
 in the justice's courts of his county. With some instruction from a 
 blacksmith he became skilled in metal working, mainly for the pur- 
 pose of making certain agricultural implements which he invented. 
 He also 'learned land surveying, and at the age of 22 or 23 he began 
 studying geology. He became so deeply engrossed with this science 
 that he soon gave most of his time to it. It was at this time that he 
 commenced his elaborate investigation of the superficial geology of 
 northeastern Iowa, and the preparation of the topographic base for 
 his observations then was his first geographic work. The maps 
 and report were finally published by the United States Geological 
 Survey. 
 
 McGee's first work for the government was on the building stones of 
 Iowa for the tenth Census, and his report was of notable excellence. 
 From 1882 to 1893 he was geologist on the United. States Geological 
 Survey, and during these 11 years his life was one of great activity 
 in scientific work. He traveled extensively in field work, wrote volu- 
 minously, and was in close association with Director Powell in the 
 development and administration of the survey. A summary of this 
 work, written by himself when he left the survey and published in the 
 fourteenth annual report, shows 'the extent and variety of his occupa- 
 tions in the 11 years of service. Of course it does not indicate his 
 very great zeal and usefulness, which were of incalculable value at 
 that stage of the survey's development. 
 
 His first assignment was to assist Russell in the Lake Lahontan 
 investigation where he proved highly efficient. He went to Wash- 
 ington City in 1883 and Powell, quickly recognizing his ability, kept 
 him there for much of the time in the following years to assist in ad- 
 ministrative matters. He aided in perfecting cartographic methods, 
 served on the correlation board, and gave much attention to the 
 classification of data available for the use of the Survey. He com- 
 piled maps and reports; started the dictionary of formation names 
 and the thesaurus of American formations, and he represented the 
 Survey at the Berlin meeting of the International Geological Con- 
 gress. In connection with his study of cartographic methods Me Gee 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 53 
 
 prepared a number of geologic maps, largely for the purpose of illus- 
 trating the Survey scheme, but which were very useful compilations. 
 The first of these was the geological map of the United States pre- 
 pared with the assistance of Professor C. H. Hitchcock, and pub- 
 lished in 1885 in the fifth annual report. It was on the scale of 100 
 miles to the inch and very beautifully executed. Another edition of 
 this map, incorporating results of a large amount of new field work, 
 was issued in 1894 in Part 2 of the fourteenth annual report. 
 
 It was McGee's instigation and zeal that led to the preparation of 
 the large geological map of the state of New York which was the first 
 one published since 1844. In the first stage of this work McGee and 
 Hall made a compilation of the geology, but the base was poor, and 
 the information that could be placed on the map so fragmentary and 
 indefinite as to location that the result was useless. With authority 
 from the Director of the United States Geological Survey a new base 
 was compiled from county maps, and the writer was transferred to 
 the state work for parts of two seasons to map boundaries and piece 
 together the work of local observers. The map was finally published 
 by the United States Geological Survey in cooperation with the State. 
 In the course of this work I heard from Dr. Hall warm praise for 
 McGee's phenomenal keenness as an observer and his great ability to 
 grasp the problems presented. 
 
 Early in his connection with the Geological Survey McGee was 
 placed in charge of the Potomac Division of Geology, which was cre- 
 ated to study the region contiguous to the basin of Potomac River, 
 but the area was finally extended to comprise all of the middle and 
 southern Atlantic coast province. He accomplished considerable 
 field work himself in many portions of this area and directed the op- 
 erations of a number of other investigators. Among the latter were 
 Dr. G. H. Williams on the crystalline rocks of the Piedmont slope; 
 Dr. J. A. Holmes, Dr. W. B. Clark, R. H. Loughridge, and N. H. Dar- 
 ton on the Mesozoic and Cenozoic geology of the Atlantic coastal plain; 
 and Dr. E. A. Smith, L. C. Johnson, and Dr. E. W. Hilgard on the 
 formations of the Gulf region and Mississippi embayment. He also 
 had charge of work by Hay in Kansas and of Dr. Phinney's investi- 
 gation of the gas in Indiana. At the time of the Charleston earth- 
 
54 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 quake McGee was sent at once to the scene of the disaster, and 
 he obtained a large number of data used later by Button in his 
 report. 
 
 McGee's principal fields of personal investigation in geology were 
 northeastern Iowa and the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain. He also 
 assisted Russell in the Lake Lahontan work and made a survey of 
 part of Macon County, Missouri. His work in northeastern Iowa, 
 which covered an area of 20,000 square miles, was done privately as 
 already stated, before he became a member of the Geological Survey, 
 although some supplemental work and the publication of the report 
 were at governmental expense. In the Coastal Plain his observations 
 were mainly from Maryland southward, and while some of the minor 
 details of the classification and identification of deposits may not 
 be verified at every point, the differentiation of the Potomac, Lafay- 
 ette, and Columbia formations was one of the most important geo- 
 logic contributions we have had. It matters but little whether or 
 not the type locality of the Lafayette proves to be valid and that 
 some marginal red sands are Eocene, for McGee made a master stroke 
 in recognizing the fact that our coastal plain is covered by a wide- 
 spread mantle of littoral deposits representing Pliocene time. It was 
 recognized over an area of 300,000 square miles and was of greatest 
 significance in the history of the continent. McGee's first name for 
 this formation was the Appomattox, and its correlation with Lafay- 
 ette was a later idea. When I began my association with McGee 
 this formation had not been recognized north of the James River, but 
 I found that it extended across Virginia and Maryland, and some 
 outliers remained in New Jersey. The Potomac formation has proven 
 to comprise a group of stratigraphic units varying in range in different 
 regions, but widely separated from the Newark group below and from 
 the marine Cretaceous above. It included the deposit which I sepa- 
 rated later as Magothy formation but aside from this it remains as a 
 distinct group. 
 
 The recognition of the Columbia formation was of great signifi- 
 cance to geography as well as to geology. It was correlated with 
 the earlier glacial deposits and found to cover nearly 150,000 square 
 miles of the coastal plain. Its topography and components have most 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 55 
 
 important bearing on the physiographic conditions of the early Pleis- 
 tocene time in the region south of the glacier. 
 
 For many years I was intimately associated with McGee in the 
 Geological Survey under Powell, and I wish I could pay an adequate 
 tribute to the value of his influence to me and to many other asso- 
 ciates in those early days of the organization. He had marvelous 
 ability to appreciate all bearings of an investigation and to make far 
 reaching and important suggestions. His willingness to assist in 
 guiding the policy and conduct of all lines of the survey work made 
 him a most important member of the organization in those days. 
 This was fully appreciated by Major Powell, who brought McGee 
 into intimate association in all administrative matters, and his genius 
 had much to do with shaping survey methods. He became a close 
 personal friend of the Major's, and the two spent much time together. 
 
 McGee left the Survey with Major Powell at the time when the 
 Major turned the great bureau over to the directorship of Mr. Wal- 
 cott. McGee then became Powell's Chief Ethnologist in the Bureau 
 of Ethnology, a position which opened up to him lines of investiga- 
 tion which were very congenial. On the death of Major Powell, in 
 1902, McGee continued with the bureau as acting director, but in July, 
 1903 on account of disfavor of S. P. Langley, Secretary of the Smith- 
 sonian, he severed his connection. This was generally regarded as a 
 most unfortunate circumstance, as undoubtedly McGee would have 
 accomplished a very large amount of ethnological work of greatest in- 
 terest and value if he had continued as director of the bureau. How- 
 ever, he left to accept the position of Chief of the Department of 
 Anthropology at the St. Louis Exposition, where he had opportunity 
 to make a brilliant record for administrative ability. At th : s exposi- 
 tion he presented to the public a greater variety of natives of many 
 parts of the world than had ever been assembled before, and illus- 
 trated their natural environments, customs, and products in a most 
 instructive manner. It was one of the greatest lessons in geography 
 that has ever been given, and one that had the largest audience. When 
 the great fair was over McGee was placed in charge of the St. Louis 
 Public Museum project, where he continued for two years till 1907, 
 when he resigned to take up work in the Department of Agriculture 
 
56 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 as expert in charge of Soil Water investigations. This position he 
 held until his death. 
 
 McGee made many valuable contributions to geography. In the 
 Great Basin work he investigated the cause of the peculiar curvature 
 of lateral moraines issuing from gorges into broad valley bottoms; 
 some conditions of erosion by glacial ice, especially in the develop- 
 ment of cirques, rock basins and U shaped canyons; and the law of 
 foothill development in that region. In his study of northeastern 
 Iowa he ascertained the conditions under which certain drift features 
 were developed, and set forth a method of determining direction of 
 the ice flow without depending on evidence of glacial striae. In this 
 work also he set forth a law of land profiles applied in the driftless 
 area, and a law of varigradation in the stream gradients. In his 
 work on the Atlantic Coastal Plain McGee added many notable ideas 
 to our growing science of Geomorphy, then in its infancy. He showed 
 that geologic history could be read from topographic forms, and this 
 means was extensively used by him and by myself in unraveling the 
 Coastal Plain geology. Another important mode of recognizing the 
 formations was developed at the same time and that was by homo- 
 geny, or correlation by identity of genesis. This criterion was very 
 essential where fossils were lacking. One very important phase of 
 this work was in the differentiation of terrace deposits and correla- 
 tion of terraces which represented the same stage in the topographic 
 development of a region. It was by this means that I mapped many 
 areas of Lafayette and earlier Columbia deposits as well as non-fossil- 
 iferous outliers of underlying Tertiary and Cretaceous deposits. 
 
 Some of these lines of work led McGee to develop a classification of 
 geographic forms by genesis which was set forth in a paper published 
 in the first number of the National Geographic Magazine. McGee's 
 observations in lower California on his trips to Seriland and Tiburon 
 Island afforded some very instructive facts regarding erosion conditions 
 in arid lands. He found that sheet flood erosion was an important 
 factor in levelling the surface and producing peneplains at various ele- 
 vations above the sea. This idea has proven to be a very valuable 
 one, and has greatly simplified our conception of the topographic de- 
 velopment of certain regions. 
 
 The paper entitled "Outlines of Hydrology" which McGee pre- 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 57 
 
 sen ted to the Geological Society of America in 1907 was a very valua- 
 ble contribution to geography. It was a philosophic presentation of 
 the role of water in nature, and summarized in compact form a large 
 amount of information. His paper on potable waters of the Eastern 
 United States published in the fourteenth annual report of the Survey 
 was a notably complete and instructive presentation of domestic 
 water problems. This publication was in great demand and un- 
 doubtedly had a wide influence on the development of the water sup- 
 plies and in guarding them from pollution. Throughout his work on 
 United States Geological Survey and later, he gave special attention 
 to relations between geology and soils and especially the waste of 
 soil by erosion. His last large publication was a memoir on soil ero- 
 sion issued by the Department of Agriculture in 1911. It treated 
 not only of the conditions of soil erosion but suggested remedies 
 which may prevent erosion and reclaim farm lands that are being 
 damaged by it. There is now in press in that Department another 
 publication, "Field records relating to Subsoil Waters." [Issued early 
 in 1913. Ed.] 
 
 McGee always had great interest in earth crust movements, and 
 in 1894 he presented to the Geological Society a very suggestive 
 memoir entitled "The Extension of Uniformitarianism to Deforma- 
 tion." In this contribution he reviewed the criteria relating to such 
 movements and discussed the conditions causing deformations of 
 various kinds. 
 
 McGee gave considerable attention to Dutton's law of isostacy and 
 showed that isostatic adjustment, while sufficing to explain minor 
 crustal oscillation, is insufficient to explain the greater movements of 
 the earth's crust. He set forth some criteria for the discrimination of 
 two primary classes of earth movement, antecedent and consequent. 
 In his memoir on the Gulf of Mexico as a measure of isostacy McGee 
 reviewed in 1892 the evidences of subsidence in the gulf region, es- 
 pecially as indicating that the land and sea are in a state of hydro- 
 static equilibrium. Evidence was presented showing that in former 
 times, however, some of the movements were cataclysmic. 
 
 Largely in connection with his work in the Bureau of Ethnology 
 McGee achieved great distinction in anthropology. He made many 
 contributions to that science and devoted much time to its societies 
 
58 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 and other interests. He was president of both the American and 
 Washington societies and was editor and contributor to the section 
 on anthropology in the International Encyclopedia. He was United 
 States Commissioner in the International Commission of Archaeology 
 and Ethnology, and in 1904 he was senior speaker in the World's Con- 
 gress of Arts and Sciences. One of his most notable pieces of work 
 while on the Bureau of Ethnology was an exploration of Tiburon 
 Island in the Gulf of California. This island is inhabited by savages 
 who had never been investigated before, and the expedition, which 
 was a highly perilous one, afforded a large number of interesting and 
 novel data. Another important item of his work in anthropology was 
 the formulation of principles relating to geological evidence of human 
 antiquity. 
 
 Probably McGee's most notable service to humanity was the promi- 
 nent part which he had in the great movement for the conservation 
 of our natural resources. He was one of the fathers of this move- 
 ment, and exerted very powerful influence in its growth and promul- 
 gation. He also furnished a large amount of useful data, specially in 
 the hydrographic line. He was a most prominent member of the 
 Conservation Association, and his council was always of greatest serv- 
 ice to that body. He was chief promoter of the project of having 
 the great Conference of Governors which President Roosevelt brought 
 to the White House in 1908. He was secretary of the Conference, 
 guided its deliberations, and prepared the fine volume of its proceed- 
 ings. He was made a member of the Inland Waterways Commission 
 when it was created in 1907, and later was appointed its Secretary, an 
 office in which he continued to the time of his death. He did a vast 
 amount of work for that commission, and much of its value came 
 from his services. 
 
 McGee was greatly interested in our scientific societies and had 
 prominent part in their organization, meetings, and administration. 
 He was a member and frequent attendant at all the societies in 
 Washington, and the Historical Society owes its existence largely to 
 his interest and energy. The National Geographic Society also had 
 his aid in its inception and development, and he edited its magazine 
 for several years. After his active editorship ceased he remained an 
 associate editor until 1908. He was president of the society in 1904 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 59 
 
 and 1905, and held other offices in its administration. He strongly 
 advocated the idea of making the society appeal to popular taste, 
 and this policy has since made it the largest scientific body in the 
 world, with a membership of 160,000. 
 
 He was greatly interested in the Anthropological Society of Wash- 
 ington, serving as its president, and in 1911 he was also president of 
 the American Anthropological Society. In 1902 he was Vice Presi- 
 dent of the Archaeological Institute. He was one of the founders of 
 the Geological Society of Washington, and made many communica- 
 tions to it in its early days. He was one of the small group of geolo- 
 gists who organized the Geological Society of America, and for many 
 years he was editor of its bulletin. This publication had many novel 
 and admirable departures from old time methods, and its form was 
 copied by various other societies. In the earlier years of its existence 
 he attended all the meetings of the Geological Society of America 
 and frequently read papers. He was one of the original members of 
 the Association of American Geographers, and gave us two inter- 
 esting communications at the New York meeting in 1906. In 1904 
 Me Gee was chairman of the Organizing Committee for the Inter- 
 national Geographical Congress, and he was appointed United States 
 Commissioner to the International Committee of Archaeology and 
 Ethnology and senior speaker at the World's Congress of Arts and 
 Sciences. He was given the degree of LL.D. by Cornell College in 
 Iowa, in 1904. 
 
 McGee died at the Cosmos Club in Washington on September 4, 
 1912, from cancer, which began developing in the prostate region some 
 years ago. The progression of the final stage of the disease was slow, 
 confining him to his room and then to bed for about two weeks, and 
 there were four days of coma at the end. 
 
 With characteristic originality and desire to advance science, McGee 
 willed his body to the surgeons of Jefferson Medical College of Penn- 
 sylvania, and his brain to Doctor Spitzka. After the simple burial 
 service at the home of his close friend, Gifford Pinchot, the body was 
 taken to Philadelphia in compliance with the will. At the same 
 time there was forwarded to Doctor Spitzka the brain of Major 
 Powell, which has been in McGee's possession since 1903. There had 
 been some good natured rivalry between the two as to the greater 
 
60 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 weight of brain; while McGee's brain weighed 1410 grains Powell's 
 was 1488 grains, both far above the average of men in general, but 
 in the case of Me Gee slightly below the average of the brains of 100 
 eminent men in Doctor Spitzka's possession. 
 
 I shall not present a list of publications made by Me Gee, for they 
 can be found in the bibliographies of geology. They number more 
 than 300. His most voluminous reports were on the " Lafayette 
 Formation," "The Geology of the head of Chesapeake Bay," "The 
 Pleistocene Geology of Northeastern Iowa," "Potable Waters of the 
 Eastern United States," "Siouan Indians," "Seri Indians," "Primi- 
 tive Numbers," "Soil Erosion," "Outlines of Hydrology," "Primi- 
 tive Trephining in Peru." 
 
 Of the personal side of Me Gee I need say but little, for you all 
 knew him. He was kind, gentle, generous, and inspiring. His as- 
 pirations were for the best results, and he strove unselfishly for the 
 truth and the advancement of science. His mind was lofty, and had 
 a deep insight into the beauty of nature. His friendship was a never- 
 ending fountain of help, good cheer, and inspiration. I am proud 
 that he was my friend. 
 
 From Professor H. L. Fairchild, of the University of Rochester: 
 
 For McGee's character, ability, culture, and disposition I have 
 the greatest admiration. He was a remarkable and noble person- 
 ality. 
 
 Me Gee did a fine stroke of work when he planned the form of the 
 Bulletin of the Geological Society of America. He was at the first 
 meeting and was made one of the committee on publications. With 
 his characteristic energy and thoroughness he made a careful study 
 of scientific periodicals, and in an elaborate report evolved the ad- 
 mirable form of the publication, which has been a model. He was 
 made Editor of the Society, and the first three volumes of the Bulletin 
 are the concrete expression of his ideas. Considerable part of the 
 success of the publication and of the prosperity of the Society are 
 due to his brainwork. 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 61 
 
 From Senator Duncan U. Fletcher, of Florida: 
 
 I knew Doctor W J McGee personally and admired him greatly. 
 He was a thinker, public spirited and patriotic. His scientific at- 
 tainments were of the highest order, and he was so modest and gentle 
 he made warm friends on every hand who can never forget, "The 
 tender grace of the years that are dead." 
 
 The Mississippi to Atlantic Inland Waterway Association was very 
 proud of his favor. I first met him at Columbus, Ga., some five 
 years ago, when I was elected President. He made a fine speech then 
 and every year thereafter until this, when he sent us a strong and 
 encouraging message since he could not attend our convention. 
 
 From Wm. L. Hall, of the United States Forest Service: 
 
 In 1911, when after years of delay the Government entered upon 
 a policy of acquiring National Forests in the Appalachian Region and 
 I was called upon to take part in the work, I found a most helpful 
 friend and adviser in Doctor McGee. 
 
 The work was new and presented numerous problems. Many in- 
 deed had regarded these problems as so grave and difficult of solu- 
 tion as to question the wisdom of the Government's undertaking the 
 acquisition of such lands at all. The conditions under which we had 
 to work at first were not favorable. Large sums had been made avail- 
 able with but little time to use them. Machinery for the work was 
 lacking. Land owners, in not a few cases realizing this situation, en- 
 deavored to turn it largely to their profit by offering lands at exorbi- 
 tant prices. Manifold chances were presented for unfortunate mis- 
 takes which would quickly have brought the work into question, and 
 blighted the hopes of those who saw in the movement an opportunity 
 to conserve, develop, and rightly utilize the Appalachian Region. 
 
 In this situation I turned for advice and counsel to a number of 
 men who had given deep thought to the welfare of this most inter- 
 esting section. In Doctor McGee I found a man of broad under- 
 standing of the questions involved and of deep sympathy for the 
 plan. No other man with whom I conferred seemed more accurately 
 to appraise the scope of the work which had been undertaken and to 
 fit the work into its place in the conservation movement. He saw 
 
62 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 clearly relationships that were indistinct or indiscernible to many 
 others. He distinguished the principles involved and looked far to 
 the future. 
 
 We did not find it possible to accept all the suggestions that he ad- 
 vanced, but the principles which he had so well in mind awakened 
 in myself a deeper appreciation than I had before of the far-reaching 
 importance of the work which had in small part been placed in my 
 hands. He helped me too by pointing out and emphasizing the 
 chances for mistakes which at that time I did not fully appreciate. 
 
 This occasion gives me the opportunity I have coveted to say that 
 Doctor McGee helped me to a better grasp of the Appalachian situa- 
 tion. He was a wise counselor and a ready friend at a critical time. 
 
 From Professor C. H. Hitchcock, of Honolulu, Hawaii: 
 
 I first met Doctor McGee at the Boston meeting of the American 
 Association for the Advancement of Science in 1880. He had become 
 a member of the Association two years earlier, at St. Louis. Some- 
 what later he sent me a contribution upon the geology of Iowa for 
 my large geological map of the United States. I was quite surprised 
 that a young man not known to fame should venture to correct the 
 mapping of the geology of that State; but the correction was so obvi- 
 ously right that I immediately placed his delineation upon the map. 
 
 In 1884, McGee and I were associated in the employ of the United 
 States Geological Survey in the preparation of a small geological 
 map of the United States. We prepared a single copy, using the 
 coloration devised by Major Powell and the classification of my 
 earlier published map. Our maps were published separately later, 
 one in the annual report of the United States Geological Survey in 
 1884, using the colors proposed by Major Powell, the other, with 
 many changes, in the report of the Institute of Mining Engineers 
 in 1886, designed to illustrate the scheme of coloration proposed by 
 the International Congress of Geologists. The Survey map was con- 
 fined to the territory upon which tolerably complete maps had been 
 already published; mine very ambitiously endeavored to fill the 
 gaps between the States and Territories, with data furnished unoffi- 
 cially by geologists more or less familiar with them. 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 63 
 
 Geologists will recall the earnest discussions during the late eighties 
 and early nineties in connection with the attitude to be taken toward 
 the International Congress of Geologists. One of the objects men- 
 tioned as calling for the institution of this body was the discussion 
 of the schemes of color to be used for the representation of the forma- 
 tions. It was thought there might be a uniformity in a scheme to 
 be adopted by the geologists of the different countries represented. 
 The Congress led off in the discussion by adopting a scheme por- 
 trayed upon a new geological map of Europe. Among those who 
 vigorously opposed its adoption was Doctor McGee, who proposed 
 instead the scheme employed by the United States Geological Survey. 
 After years of discussion, the parties still retain their original pref- 
 erences. Though we were opposed to each other in the discussions 
 we still retained pleasant social relations, especially in the enter- 
 tainment of the International Congress in Washington in 1892. 
 
 Doctor McGee served as editor of the Geological Society of America, 
 his name appearing upon the first three volumes issued. The pecu- 
 liar features of the publication were largely outlined by him. In 
 this work we were associated together. 
 
 After this we met often in the meetings of the Geological Society, 
 and of the American Association; and discussed various phases of 
 the glacial period. His most elaborate works were the reports upon 
 the Lafayette and Columbia formations. 
 
 From F. W. Hodge, of the Bureau of American Ethnology: 
 
 Reprinted from the American Anthropologist, Vol. 14, No. 4, Oct.-Dec., 1912. 
 
 William John McGee, or, as he preferred to be known, W J McGee, 
 was born on a farm at Farley, Dubuque County, Iowa, April 17, 1853, 
 and died of cancer at Washington, D. C., September 4, 1912. He 
 was the son of James and Martha (Anderson) McGee, of Scotch Irish 
 ancestry, his paternal great-great-grandfather having been Alex- 
 ander McGee of County Down, Ireland, who emigrated to the United 
 States, while on the maternal side the line leads back to Samuel An- 
 derson, of Irish parentage, who was born at sea in 1740. Both of 
 these grandparents espoused the American cause in the Revolution. 
 In his early years, although large for his age, McGee was frail in 
 health, averse to manual labor, and rather uncertain in disposition; 
 
64 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 and even in later life, notwithstanding his apparent robustness, he 
 was not so strong physically as was generally supposed. 
 
 Me Gee attended irregularly a county district school, of the kind 
 common to sparsely settled communities, until he was about fourteen 
 years of age, from which time his education was almost entirely the 
 result of intense individual effort, in which he was urged and stimu- 
 lated by his mother, an excellently well-informed woman, who was 
 anxious that her children should be well educated. The last one 
 apparently to give him formal instruction, in 1867-68, was an elder 
 brother. The boy proved to be an apt pupil, acquiring knowledge 
 with wonderful ease and retaining it in what later developed into a 
 really remarkable memory. These home studies were continued 
 through the years 1867 to 1874, and included Latin, German, and 
 higher mathematics. He also read law, and to a slight extent en- 
 gaged in justice-court practice. His self-acquired knowledge of 
 mathematics, which included astronomy and surveying, combined 
 with field instruction by a maternal uncle, made him an excellent 
 surveyor, and his services in this capacity were not only much in de- 
 mand in the neighborhood, but increased his powers of observation 
 during the outdoor work that ultimately led him into the paths of 
 geology and anthropology. Meanwhile, when about twenty years of 
 age, he worked at the forge and became engaged in the manufacture 
 and sale of agricultural implements. In conjunction with an elder 
 brother and a cousin, he invented and patented, June 9, 1874, an im- 
 proved adjustable cultivator, but the device was not a commercial 
 success. 
 
 As is well known, McGee's first serious scientific work was in the 
 field of geology. In 1878 he was enrolled as a member of the Ameri- 
 can Association for the Advancement of Science in affiliation with 
 its section of geology, and in the same year published his first paper 
 on a geological topic. From 1877 to 1881 he prosecuted, as a private 
 enterprise, a topographic and geological survey of an area in north- 
 eastern Iowa covering about 12,000 square miles. 
 
 It was evidently during this field work that McGee's interest in 
 anthropological research was first aroused. In 1878 appeared his 
 first paper on an anthropological subject "On the Artificial Mounds 
 of Northeastern Iowa, and the Evidence of the Employment of a 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 65 
 
 Unit of Measurement in their Erection" an immediate outcome of 
 his geological studies and surveys in the preceding year. At the 
 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 
 at St. Louis in 1878 he presented a paper "On an Anatomical Peculi- 
 arity by which Crania of the Mound Builders may be Distinguished 
 from those of Modern Indians," in which, as in the case of his earlier 
 paper, were presented views that, while characteristic of the period, 
 are untenable in the light of present knowledge, but serve to illustrate 
 the great advance made in the elucidation of archaeological prob- 
 lems during subsequent years. 
 
 McGee's first work under Federal auspices was a report on the 
 building stones of Iowa, prepared for the Tenth Census (1880), pub- 
 lished in 1884. This, but more especially his careful work on the 
 multifarious phenomena of glaciation in the upper Mississippi valley, 
 had attracted wide attention, and in July, 1883, when thirty years of 
 age, he was called to the United States Geological Survey by its di- 
 rector, Major J. W. Powell, where for ten years he served as a geolo- 
 gist and performed important scientific work. On June 30, 1893, 
 Me Gee resigned from the Geological Survey to assume on the follow- 
 ing day the active charge of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 
 under the directorship of Major Powell, with the title of ethnologist, 
 and a year later his designation was changed to ethnologist-in-charge. 
 During his service with this Bureau, which extended through a de- 
 cade, he continued active scientific work whenever the pressure of 
 the administrative duties of a Government office permitted. His 
 most noteworthy undertaking in this direction, which resulted in his 
 most important contribution to anthropology, was a study, during 
 two seasons, of the Seri Indians of Tiburon Island in the Gulf of 
 California and of the adjacent coast of Sonora, in 1894 and 1895. 
 With a small party he conducted the only scientific expedition to 
 Tiburon Island that had ever been attempted, and prepared a topo- 
 graphic map of the island home of the Seri; but as the Indians fled on 
 the approach of the party, McGee did not come in contact with them 
 on the island, depending for his information on a band employed by 
 a Mexican ranchman near the Sonora coast. The results of these 
 studies formed one of the accompanying papers of the Eighteenth 
 Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Subsequently 
 
66 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 he spent several weeks in northern Lower California, making obser- 
 vations among the Cocopa Indians, but the results were not pub- 
 lished. Based chiefly on material gathered by the late J. Owen Dor- 
 sey, McGee prepared a memoir on "The Siouan Indians" to serve 
 as an introduction to Dorsey's "Siouan Sociology," both of which 
 papers appear in the Fifteenth Annual Report of the Bureau. Based 
 on a collection of Peruvian trephined skulls collected by Dr. M. A. 
 Muniz, of Peru, McGee prepared, in conjunction with Dr. Muniz, a 
 descriptive paper which was published in the Sixteenth Annual Re- 
 port of the Bureau, while in the Nineteenth report he presented a 
 paper on "Primitive Numbers," with the result that Cornell College, 
 in his home State, conferred on him the degree of LL.D. in 1901. 
 McGee's anthropological bibliography alone is an extended one, while 
 his writings on scientific subjects generally are extremely varied and 
 extensive. He resigned from the Bureau of American Ethnology, 
 July 31, 1903, to assume charge of the Department of Anthropology 
 of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis, where he was 
 active also in organizing the World's Congress of Arts and Sciences in 
 1904, of which he was senior speaker in its department of Anthropo- 
 logy. At the close of the exposition he was appointed director of the 
 "St. Louis Public Museum," which never developed much more 
 than the name; and in 1907, after spending a period in the Papagueria 
 Desert of Sonora and Arizona, he became associated with the Bureau 
 of Soils in the United States Department of Agriculture as an expert 
 in subsoil erosion and subsoil waters, which position he held until 
 the time of his death. Meanwhile he became interested in the Con- 
 servation movement, and was selected as Vice-Chairman and Secretary 
 of the Inland Waterways Commission, of which he was the leading 
 spirit and in whose interest he was the most active worker. 
 
 In 1888 he married Anita Newcomb, who, with a son and a daughter, 
 survive him. 
 
 McGee was a man of commanding presence, of remarkable mental 
 vitality, ingenuity, and versatility, and of almost fanatical persever- 
 ance. He had a personal fondness for the unusual, as his preference 
 in respect to the initials of his given name and his strong liking for 
 the coinage of new terms suggest. But McGee was human withal, 
 and the most generous character, both with his slender purse and his 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 67 
 
 store of knowledge, that any of his host of intimates ever knew. He 
 was sympathetic and helpful, with almost unlimited ambition, and 
 ever ready, whatever the cost, to resent any seeming interference 
 with it. He was remarkably alert and resourceful, as an incident of 
 one of the meetings of the American Association for the Advance- 
 ment of Science will show. A local divine, mistaking McGee for a 
 fellow minister, invited him to fill his pulpit at a Sunday evening serv- 
 ice. McGee, although not affiliated with any church, immediately 
 accepted, and selecting as his text the words "Love ye one another," 
 delivered an address remarkable for its eloquence and replete with 
 human sympathy and understanding. 
 
 McGee's interest extended to almost every branch of science, as 
 his constant activities in behalf of and his affiliation with many scien- 
 tific bodies attest. He became a member of the Anthropological 
 Society of Washington soon after coming to the Capital and served 
 as its President from 1898 to 1900. In 1902 he was foremost in the 
 founding of the American Anthropological Association, of which he 
 was elected the first president. When the American Anthropologist 
 was established in 1899, McGee became one of the two constructive 
 owners, sharing its financial responsibilities before it came under the 
 control of the American Anthropological Association. The scientific 
 and other learned organizations of which he was an active member 
 are too numerous to list here. 
 
 The courage and fortitude, so characteristic of McGee in his most 
 active days, he did not permit to desert him toward the close of his 
 life. Aware of his fatal malady long before the end, he determined 
 to note carefully the progress of the disease (which first manifested 
 itself in the Sonora Desert fourteen years before), in the hope that 
 the interests of learning might be subserved. The result of these ob- 
 servations was published in Science shortly after his death. Not- 
 withstanding intense suffering and separation from all his kindred, 
 and with full knowledge of the inevitable, he worked assiduously on 
 the final revision of a scientific memoir which he finished on the eve 
 of the final dissolution. 
 
 W J McGee was an unusually remarkable man. It would be a 
 difficult task to appraise now the value of his varied contributions to 
 knowledge, to recall even a tithe of his generosities, or to recount the 
 
68 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 multitude of his interests. From early manhood he was a strong ad- 
 vocate of the diffusion of knowledge, and his last efforts were devoted 
 to this lifelong purpose. 
 
 From Doctor Arthur Hollick, of the New York Botanical Garden : 
 
 The Cosmos Club brought Doctor McGee and me into social con- 
 tact, and when our dining hour chanced to be identical we were ac- 
 customed to sit at the same table and discuss scientific subjects of 
 mutual interest in an informal and unconventional way. I can well 
 recall the last of these impromptu meals together, because it was 
 such a short time before his death, and I learned afterwards, as we 
 all are now aware, that he knew he was doomed at that time; yet no 
 hint of what he knew ever intruded itself into our conversation, and 
 his discussions and comments were apparently just as much con- 
 cerned with work to be done in the future as with that already ac- 
 complished. It is this which makes me realize now, as I never did 
 when he was alive, his wonderful self-control and will power char- 
 acteristics which make him appear to me as unique and conspicuous 
 and inspiring a personality as that with which we all associate his 
 scientific attainments. 
 
 The latter require no comment on my part. The reputation 
 which he has achieved in such connection assures that those best 
 qualified to recall them will not fail to do so. We were never asso- 
 ciated together in scientific work, either as co-laborers or otherwise; 
 but it is interesting to refer to the casual correspondence which 
 passed between us during a period of over twenty years, and to note 
 the variety of subjects in regard to which I had occasion to communi- 
 cate with him time estimates in connection with the subdivisions of 
 the Pleistocene; paleolithic implements; lithologic characters of the 
 Potomac clays; subdivision of the "yellow gravel;" soil erosion, etc. 
 
 It was a privilege to have known him, even as superficially as I 
 did, and I appreciate the opportunity which permits me to tender 
 this little contribution to his memory. 
 
 From Arthur Hooker, of the International Irrigation Congress: 
 
 W J McGee was born in Iowa on April 17, 1853, and died in 
 Washington, D. C., September 4, 1912, aged 59 years. He had very 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 69 
 
 little of the schooling of the times, but belonged to the class of so- 
 called self-educated men who have acquired the power of observation 
 and of making use of this knowledge without the help of teachers. 
 He grew up on a farm, studied, largely by himself, Latin, mathe- 
 matics, astronomy, and surveying, read law, practiced before the 
 local justice courts, and turned his attention to inventing and manu- 
 facturing agricultural implements, himself working at the forge and 
 at the bench. He became attracted to the geology of the surrounding 
 country, and on foot and by his unaided exertions, made one of the 
 most comprehensive geologic and topographic surveys (of Northeast- 
 ern Iowa) ever executed by an individual. This work attracted the 
 attention of Major John W. Powell, Director of the United States 
 Geological Survey, and McGee entered that bureau, being rapidly 
 advanced to the charge of important field practice. Among other 
 matters he compiled a geologic map of the United States, investigated 
 the Charleston earthquake, and later explored Tiburon Island in the 
 Gulf of California, the home of a savage tribe never before studied. 
 
 Gradually his interests shifted from geology to the study of man- 
 kind, and he became the principal officer in the Bureau of American 
 Ethnology, and later Chief of the Department of Anthropology at 
 the St. Louis Exposition in 1904. Those who visited that Exposition 
 recall the unprecedented assemblage of the world's peoples. On the 
 close of this Exposition he became Director of the St. Louis Public Mu- 
 seum, and later a member of the United States Inland Waterways 
 Commission, and finally during the last years of his life, gave especial 
 attention to the subject of distribution of water on and beneath the 
 surface of the United States and to its industrial relations. His last 
 work is a very exhaustive study of the gradual lowering of the water 
 plane throughout the United States, as shown by the increasing 
 depth of wells, and the greater difficulty of securing an adequate 
 supply. 
 
 In connection with the more important work above enumerated, 
 he was at all times prominent in scientific societies, and showed a 
 broad interest and sympathetic appreciation of all advances in human 
 knowledge. There are few scientific men of today who have had a 
 wider range and broader grasp of what was forme'rly called "Natural 
 History," and who could discuss these subjects with the breadth and 
 
70 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 intimate knowledge of details shown by McGee. His publications 
 are voluminous, and show a grasp of the larger features and relations 
 of many of the highly specialized sciences. 
 
 The ability to accomplish such unusual results in a lifetime by 
 no means long, has been due to an extraordinary diligence and power 
 of application. Possessing a strong physique and untiring interest, 
 McGee was able to concentrate upon each subject which came before 
 him, and regardless of time or external distractions, continued hour 
 after hour, sometimes all day and far into the night, on the subject in 
 hand. Generosity marked all his acts and was one of his best recog- 
 nized characteristics. At all times he freely shared with his associa- 
 ates the idea developed by him, discussing frankly all related facts 
 and theories. Few men have done more to stimulate and diffuse 
 general information, and to give freely to all who would receive his 
 ideas and original conceptions. He was fearless in advocating the 
 truth as he saw it, and in showing the fallacies of mistaken ideas, 
 however popular they might be. He thus had a wide circle of very 
 warm friends, who now miss his cheerful companionship and sin- 
 cerely mourn his loss. 
 
 His character may be summed up in his attitude toward his ap- 
 proaching end. Interested at all times in matters of health, he 
 discovered through observation that he had a fatal disease long before 
 definitely assured of the fact by physicians. At once, he took a keen 
 impersonal scientific interest in its progress, made accurate estimates 
 of the probable length of life, the amount of work he could accom- 
 plish, made his plans systematically, and finished the work a few days 
 before he was finally compelled to abandon original investigation. 
 As long as consciousness remained, he took a lively interest in the 
 doings of his friends, was at all times cheerful, preserving to the last 
 his characteristic sense of kindly humor, and seemed more solicitous 
 for the comforts and convenience of his associates than for himself. 
 
 From Doctor J. F. Kemp, of Columbia University: 
 
 When we find a man who works out his own preparation by the 
 vastly more difficult method of personal effort, and who fits himself 
 thoroughly and well in his early years, under his own ins true torship, 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 71 
 
 we pay him a three-fold tribute of respect, and we view his results with 
 the admiration which his arduous efforts richly deserve. In the lat- 
 ter group, on the roll of American scholars and scientific men, belongs 
 the name of W J McGee, whose work and character we recall with 
 affection and respect. 
 
 At the outset of his career, the aid which W J McGee received 
 from others was extremely meagre. The common schools gave him 
 his sole early training. But he was gifted by nature with an all-em- 
 bracing and acquisitive mind, so that he absorbed methods and facts 
 with eager facility. And yet, when we consider the effort that he of 
 necessity put forth in order to learn the results of others; in order to 
 acquire an easy, clear and correct literary expression; and to impress 
 men in authoritative positions, so as to win an opening for future 
 work, we gain some adequate conception of the difficulties which he 
 surmounted. 
 
 W J McGee did all this and more. As he advanced in oppor- 
 tunity, he gained a broader and broader grasp of scientific problems, 
 until this comprehensive sweep of the field of action became one of 
 his chief characteristics. No one can read his principal monographs 
 without being impressed by his clearness and breadth of vision. 
 
 On entering the United States Geological Survey in 1883, Doctor 
 McGee came before long under the influence of Major Powell, and by 
 the Major's strong interest in the physiographic side of geology he was 
 apparently much influenced. His early observations upon the drift 
 in his native State prepared him for this result. We all recall espe- 
 cially his later studies on the surface geology of Iowa, as the ripe 
 fruition of years of growth under the Survey's influence. Before his 
 final paper on Iowa in 1891, he had become busied with similar prob- 
 lems along the Atlantic Coast. While their treatment involved close 
 stratigraphic work in the latest Tertiary and Pleistocene beds, yet 
 as we read we see that our author's mind was constantly reconstruct- 
 ing the old physiographic conditions. The real objective of his work 
 was the history of the Atlantic coast rather than the thickness and 
 distribution of the beds which resulted from its ups and downs. 
 
 Major Powell, as we all know, was also profoundly interested in 
 the ethnology of our aborigines. His life in the West had established 
 the Indians very deeply in his affections. No one so closely associated 
 
72 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 with him as was Doctor McGee could escape the contagion of these 
 absorbing interests. The connection of man on this continent with 
 the deposits of the glacial epoch led by a natural transition also to 
 the study of the native tribes. We find therefore Doctor McGee pass- 
 ing in the early nineties quite naturally to ethnographical work, 
 with which he was to be identified for the next fifteen years. His 
 courageous and successful expedition to the Island of Tiburon was 
 an example of the irrepressible spirit of the investigator, pushing ever 
 into new and unknown fields. The tragedy of his life came when, 
 from influences beyond his control, he was diverted from his natural 
 and normal career. We remember at this date only the cheerful 
 philosophy with which new, undeserved, and unexpected conditions 
 were faced. We recall also the calm courage with which, in the soli- 
 tude of the western desert, a physical break-down was overcome. 
 We are mindful of the vigor with which new duties were assumed and 
 discharged when our old friend resumed his place in the eastern world. 
 We remember no less the characteristic cheery philosophy with which 
 the final departure from this life was viewed, and the ever present 
 desire of the man of science to make his experience of use to his 
 fellows. 
 
 There have been many remarkable characters developed in America 
 amid unpromising environments in youth. There have been many 
 who have had in addition to contend with difficulties and disappoint- 
 ments in maturer years. There are fewer who have triumphed over 
 all without bitterness, and with all the finer sides of character unin- 
 jured. Yet all this was done by him whose memory the Washington 
 Academy of Sciences honors. 
 
 From Professor Charles Keyes, of Des Moines, Iowa: 
 
 In a short unpretentious paper, published so long ago as 1882, 
 Doctor McGee clearly shows that certain thick sections of glacial 
 till are divided medially by an extensive deposit of homogeneous 
 pebbleless loam. The descriptive record is included in the notes "On 
 the Loess and Associated Deposits of Des Moines." So far as it 
 now appears this is the first and best evidence adducted up to that 
 time in support of the theory of the complexity of the Great Ice age. 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 73 
 
 The discovery was followed by many others of similar nature until 
 the complete sequence involved no less than five distinct till-sheets. 
 Today the Iowa classification of the Glacial period is accepted the 
 world over. 
 
 Since diversity of the Glacial period is a necessary consequence of 
 CrolFs now celebrated hypothesis of climate and time, this first seri- 
 ous attempt to establish glacial complexity as opposed to glacial 
 unity premised by Agassiz, was soon shown to have its astronomical 
 dates too far apart satisfactorily to explain the vicissitudes of the 
 Ice age that were even then known. In the meanwhile direct obser- 
 vations in the field were beginning to tell heavily against the unity 
 idea then generally held by scientific men. Professor Edward Orton 
 had noted (1870) a soil separating the Ohio drift into two parts. Al- 
 ready Professor T. C. Chamberlin had argued for the duality of the 
 Glacial period (1876) . It remained, however, for Doctor McGee actu- 
 ally to demonstrate for the first time an orderly succession of glacial 
 deposits in a definitely circumscribed area. 
 
 The arguments for a dual Glacial period, and at the time of its sug- 
 gestion for a multiple Ice age, were for many years based mainly upon 
 the fact of the presence in some till-sections of thin black soil streaks, 
 replaced here and there by old peat-beds. The latter were plausibly 
 accounted for in other ways. That there might be extensive inter- 
 glacial sands, or clay-deposits, was not thought of. Yet they were 
 actually described and a complete record made of their attendant 
 relationships a full decade before the phenomena were properly in- 
 terpreted. 
 
 At the time when Doctor McGee's little memoir appeared the sub- 
 ject of the complexity of the Glacial period was too new for a ready 
 and correct apprehension of the facts which were accumulating with 
 such amazing rapidity. The interest of glacial workers was centered 
 too intensely upon the possible dual character of the Great Ice invasion 
 to permit of the entertainment of any further complications. In 
 Iowa, where afterwards the five great till-sheets were made out and 
 shown to be separated from one another by extensive soil zones, thick 
 deposits of loess, and vast accumulations of sands and gravels, Doc- 
 tor McGee (then) had but recently gone over the ground, and had 
 found everywhere the same succession of only two tills parted by fine 
 
74 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 loam. This fact he attributed to the dual character of the ice ad- 
 vance. That he should have failed to detect the disparities in the 
 correlation of the several till-sheets is not to be wondered at, for no 
 detailed mapping of any part of the region had yet been done. It is, 
 then, no disparagement to his keen observational powers, his philo- 
 sophic insight into the order of nature, or his remarkable generalizing 
 faculties, to note this fact, for he chanced to be on the ground a full 
 decade too soon. Had he remained a few years longer in his native 
 State he doubtless would have been able to correctly correlate his 
 different drift-sections; but he was called into distant fields, and he 
 was unable until many years later to review his earlier work. 
 
 The place where these depositional proofs of the complexity of the 
 Glacial period were first obtained is for several reasons of exceptional 
 interest. The section as originally displayed and described is now 
 fast disappearing. It is also this section which later gave the first 
 intimation of the eolic origin of American loess loams. It was here 
 that was found the first clue to the wonderful interlocking of the 
 southwestern loess deposit with the northeastern glacial tills. The 
 locality bids fair long to remain one of the classic geologic spots of 
 the continent. 
 
 At this time and distance there are few of us who have any ade- 
 quate conception of the great difficulties which the Ice problem once 
 presented. Still fewer of us there are who understand from experi- 
 ence what it really means actively and determinedly to contend on 
 the battle-line of the unknowable. No one is in better position to 
 know intimately the intricacies of attempting to decipher the glacial 
 puzzles of that day than was McGee himself; and no one has stated 
 them more graphically. Here are his own words, as he sums up his 
 results in northeastern Iowa : 
 
 The most startling induction of geology, if not of modern science, is the 
 glacial theory; but in the problem of these pages it is necessary to do more 
 than assume the existence and action of a great sheet of ice hundreds or 
 thousands of feet in thickness and hundreds or thousands of miles in ex- 
 tent. In order to explain the sum of the phenomena it is necessary to pic- 
 ture the great ice-sheet not only in its general form and extent, but in its 
 local features, its thickness, its direction and rate of movement over each 
 square league, the inclination of its surface both at top and bottom, and 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 75 
 
 the relation of these slopes to the subjacent surface of earth and rock; and 
 all this without a single glacial stria or an inch of ice-polish, save in one 
 small spot, in the whole tract of 16,500 square miles. It is necessary 
 to conceive not only the mode of melting of the ice at each league of its 
 retreat, but also every considerable brook, every river, and every lake or 
 pond formed by the melting, both at its under surface and on its upper sur- 
 face; it is necessary to restore not only the margin of the mer de glace under 
 each minute of latitude it occupied, but, as well, the canyons by which it 
 was cleft, the floe-bearing lakes and mud-charged marshes with which it 
 was fringed, each island of ice, and each ice-bound lake formed within its 
 limits. And it is not only necessary to reconstruct the geography of a 
 dozen episodes, as does the anatomist the skeleton from a few bones, but 
 to develop a geography such as civilized eye has never seen, and which 
 could only exist under conditions such as utterly transcend the experience 
 of civilized man. All this has been done. The trail of the ice monster 
 has been traced, his magnitude measured, his form and even his features 
 figured forth, and all from the slime of his body alone, where even his 
 characteristic tracks fail. 
 
 This now somewhat famous geologic section is situated on the 
 crest of Capitol Hill, at the south end of the Capitol grounds, in Des 
 Moines, Iowa. As originally described in the American Journal of 
 Science (Vol. xxiv, p. 202, 1882,) the exposure of deposits presents the 
 following relations: 
 
 5. Till, light reddish buff clay with pebbles (feet) 7 
 
 4. Till, contorted and interstratified with loess 5 
 
 3. Loess, with numerous fossils 15 
 
 2. Till, dark red clay with abundant pebbles 6 
 
 1. Shale (Carboniferous) exposed 10 
 
 Three important features are especially to be noted: (1) The lower 
 till (No. 2) represents what is now called the Kansas drift, which 
 was formed when the great continental glacier, reaching southward to 
 St. Louis and Kansas City, attained its greatest extent and thickness; 
 (2) the loess members composed of fine loams (Nos. 3 and 4) consti- 
 tuted the soil formation during a long interglacial epoch when the 
 climate was not very different from what it is at the present day; 
 and (3) the upper till (No. 5) represents what is now known as the 
 Wisconsin drift. 
 
76 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 Thus for one of the half dozen great geologic generalizations of the 
 Nineteenth Century Doctor McGee laid the foundations. 
 
 From Doctor F. H. Knowlton, of the U. S. National Museum: 
 (Reprinted from Science, Sept. 12, 1912.) 
 
 In these days of advanced specialization and refinement in the 
 study of scientific problems, it has seemingly become increasingly 
 evident that the best measure of success can only be attained with 
 the full panoply of a modern educational equipment. Yet there 
 have been in the past, and doubtless there will be in the future, notable 
 exceptions to this rule. It is often said of one who has reached an 
 eminence without the stimulating aid of early educational advantage, 
 that had he fortunately possessed this training no one may measure 
 the higher eminences to which he might have ascended. Rather is 
 it possible indeed, probable that the spark of genius is stimulated 
 by adversity, and that breadth of vision and strength of character 
 come oftener as the fruit of action rather than of ease; for 
 
 So doth luxury make weaklings of us all. 
 
 Certain it is that Doctor McGee attained a very notable measure 
 of success with the minimum of formal educational training. 
 
 William John McGee or simply W J McGee, as in later years he 
 preferred to be known was born on a farm at Farley, Dubuque 
 County, Iowa, April 17, 1853, and died at Washington, D. C., Sep- 
 tember 4, 1912. He was the fourth of a family of eight children born 
 to James and Martha Ann (Anderson) McGee, and is survived by 
 three brothers and a sister, the others having died in infancy or youth. 
 His parents were of sturdy Scotch-Irish stock, his great-great-grand- 
 father on the paternal side having been Alexander McGee of County 
 Down, Ireland, who came early to this country, and on the maternal 
 side the line leads back to Samuel Anderson, who was born at sea, 
 about 1740, of Irish emigrant parents. The latter resided near York- 
 town, Virginia, and both participated in the Revolution on the 
 American side, which perhaps accounts in a way for McGee's intense 
 Americanism. In infancy and early youth, although always of large 
 size for his years, McGee was in frail health and somewhat uncertain 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 77 
 
 in disposition, and even in later life, notwithstanding his rugged physi- 
 cal appearance, he was far from being as strong as seemed apparent. 
 
 McGee's early education followed the usual course in sparsely settled 
 country districts. He attended irregularly the county district school 
 until he was about 14 years of age, but as the school was confessedly 
 of low grade, it is not probable that he advanced much beyond the 
 merest rudiments. From this time on his education was almost en- 
 tirely the result of intense individual effort. In this, as is so often 
 the case, he was urged and stimulated by the mother, an excellently 
 well informed woman, who was particularly anxious that her family 
 should be well educated. The last one apparently to give him for- 
 mal instruction (1867-1868) was an older brother, who speaks of him 
 as an exceedingly apt pupil, acquiring knowledge easily and retain- 
 ing it in what was later developed into a really marvelous memory. 
 His home studies were continued over the years 1867-1874, during 
 which time he studied Latin, German (in which he became especially 
 proficient), and the higher mathematics, including astronomy and 
 surveying. He also read law and to some extent engaged in justice- 
 court practice, but this never was considered as of much importance 
 in his plan of life, and was soon laid aside. He was, however, an ex- 
 cellent surveyor, having been instructed in this field by a maternal 
 uncle, and his work was much in demand in the neighborhood. 
 
 When about twenty years old McGee learned blacksmithing, and 
 for several years engaged in the manufacture and sale of agricultural 
 implements. In conjunction with an older brother and a cousin, he 
 invented and patented (June 9, 1874,) an improved adjustable culti- 
 vator, but the enterprise was not financially successful, nor was the 
 invention a pioneer in its class. 
 
 It was apparently about this time (1874) that McGee's attention 
 was first directed to geology. Just what the incident was that first 
 claimed his attention and stimulated his interest in what was later 
 to be one of the dominating activities of his life is not known. The 
 glacial mantle which so completely covers northeastern Iowa offered 
 many then unsolved problems, and together with his brothers he ex- 
 plored with keen interest the numerous caves about their home and 
 studied the peculiar rocky topography with more than boyish interest. 
 He read widely of such books and papers as were then available on 
 
78 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 glaciation and its phenomena, and began independent observations 
 which soon brought him into communication and contact with other 
 workers in this field. The fact that he joined the American Associa- 
 tion for the Advancement of Science in 1878 (twenty-seventh meet- 
 ing, St. Louis, August, 1878), enrolling himself in the section of geol- 
 ogy, shows that his interest was even then crystallizing along these 
 lines. So far as learned, his first scientific paper, "On the relative 
 position of the forest bed and associated formations in northeastern 
 Iowa," was published in 1878, and was the forerunner of many of 
 like import. Between the years 1877 and 1881 he prosecuted, as a 
 private enterprise, a topographic and geologic survey of some 12,000 
 square miles of territory in northeastern Iowa, though the full results 
 were not published until 1891. 
 
 McGee's first work under Federal auspices was a report on the 
 building stones of Iowa, prepared for the Tenth Census of 1880, 
 though not published until four years later. This, but more espe- 
 cially his careful work on the multifarious phenomena of glaciation 
 in the upper Mississippi Valley, had attracted wide attention, and 
 in July, 1883, he was called to the U. S. Geological Survey, then under 
 the directorship of Major J. W. Powell. In a very short time he was 
 placed in charge of the division of Atlantic Coastal Plain geology. 
 Although then but thirty years of age, he came, not as a mere tyro 
 or dabbler in geology, as might be presumed from his previous isola- 
 tion, but with an astonishing breadth of view and maturity of judg- 
 ment, and within the next ten years he erected a foundation which 
 must always be considered by any who would study the geology of 
 the Coastal Plain. This decade 1883-1894 covers the period of 
 his most intensive constructive geological activities. He resigned 
 from the Geological Survey on June 30, 1893, to assume on the fol- 
 lowing day the position of ethnologist in the Bureau of American 
 Ethnology, to which department he had accompanied Major Powell. 
 One year later he became ethnologist in charge of the Bureau, and 
 continued in this position until July 31, 1903, when he resigned to as- 
 sume charge of the Department of Anthropology of the St. Louis 
 Exposition, where he brought together an unprecedented assemblage 
 of the world's peoples. At the close of the exposition he became the 
 first director of the St. Louis Public Museum, continuing in this po- 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 79 
 
 sition from 1905 to 1907. On March 14, 1907, President Roosevelt 
 created an Inland Waterways Commission, and at the first meeting of 
 this Commission Doctor McGee was elected vice-chairman and secre- 
 tary, a position he continued to fill until his death. About the same 
 time (March 23, 1907) he was appointed as an expert in soil waters 
 in the Bureau of Soils, United States Department of Agriculture, and 
 in this position he also continued until his death. 
 
 Aside from the honors and responsibilities which came with a busy 
 official life, many additional honors were conferred upon Doctor Mc- 
 Gee. He was one of the principal founders of the Columbia Histori- 
 cal Society; sometime president of the American Anthropological As- 
 sociation, the Anthropological Society of Washington, the National 
 Geographic Society, and the American Association for the Advance- 
 ment of Science (1897). He was the senior speaker in the depart- 
 ment of anthropology at the World's Congress of Arts and Sciences 
 in 1904, and non-resident lecturer on anthropology at the State Uni- 
 versity of Iowa. In 1901, in recognition of his distinguished attain- 
 ments, the degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by Cornell College, 
 Iowa, at which time he presented a comprehensive essay on the 
 " Beginnings of mathematics." 
 
 In 1888 Doctor McGee was married to Anita Newcomb, who, with 
 a son and daughter, survives him. 
 
 In the field of the Pleistocene geology of the upper Mississippi Val- 
 ley, McGee was really a pioneer. At the time he began his studies 
 very little was known of the glacial history of this region, and he did 
 much to establish a knowledge of the succession of invasions and re- 
 cessions of the ice-sheet, and while many of his conclusions have been 
 subject to revision in the light of fuller modern investigation, much 
 of his work remains, and must remain, as a basis on which subsequent 
 knowledge is to be builded. 
 
 McGee's most notable contributions to American geology, are, of 
 course, in the Atlantic Coastal Plain. In this field there must ever be 
 associated the names of four notable students Hilgard, Smith, Dall, 
 and McGee. These men have laid the foundation, however much it 
 has been, or in future will be, modified, upon which all subsequent 
 work must be erected. In the particular phase of the subject which 
 McGee made his own, he was again a pioneer. He saw and appreci- 
 
80 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 ated the broad problems of stratigraphic continuity and succession, 
 of continental elevation and depression, and he set about their solu- 
 tion. His work was distinctly constructive, and as such finds a per- 
 manent place in American geologic history. While certain of his con- 
 clusions, as is almost inevitable in pioneer work, have been modified 
 or revised, the broad fundamental generalizations remain as an 
 essential basis for later students. 
 
 After an interval of a dozen years or more following the close of his 
 studies on Coastal Plain geology, during which his attention was 
 mainly occupied in the field of ethnology, Doctor McGee again re- 
 turned to the consideration of certain collateral geologic problems. 
 It had come to be the fancy in certain quarters that the removal of the 
 forest or vegetal covering had little or no influence on the run-off of 
 surface waters. His report on "Soil Erosion," published as a bulle- 
 tin of the Bureau of Soils in the United States Department of Agricul- 
 ture, is a complete and graphic refutation if such were really needed 
 of this contention. His last work, completed less than a month 
 before his death, and also published as a bulletin of the Bureau of 
 Soils, is an elaborate study of subsoil water and its essential relation 
 to agriculture. 
 
 Of his anthropological and ethnological work only the briefest men- 
 tion may be made here. While much of his time was given to admin- 
 istrative work, he nevertheless found opportunity for a number of 
 studies, perhaps the most notable being a study of the Seri Indians, a 
 fierce previously unstudied tribe inhabiting certain islands off the 
 coast of Lower California. 
 
 Doctor McGee did much for the Geological Society of America. He 
 was one of its founders and served for four years as its editor, estab- 
 lishing the Bulletin, its official publication, on the high plane it 
 then and has since maintained. His constant attendance at the 
 meetings during the earlier years of the Society's existence will be re- 
 called, as well as his contributions to many notable discussions of 
 geologic problems. 
 
 W J McGee was a man of commanding presence, one who would 
 attract attention in whatever assemblage he might find himself. Al- 
 though seemingly somewhat formal in address to those not intimately 
 acquainted with him, he was, nevertheless, a man of cordial sympa- 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 81 
 
 thetic manner and of deep human sympathies. It is related of him 
 that once, when in attendance on a meeting of the American Associa- 
 tion, he was asked by a local divine to fill his pulpit at the Sunday 
 evening service. Although not affiliated with any church, McGee 
 accepted at once, and, selecting as his text the words "Love ye one 
 another, " delivered an address replete with human sympathy and 
 understanding. He was kindly and considerate to those who worked 
 with him, and generous to a degree, it being rare indeed too rarely 
 for his own best interest that an appeal was without substantial re- 
 ward. He was a good conversationalist and a ready public speaker, 
 having at command a splendid memory and a really wonderful 
 vocabulary; in fact, in the use of the latter he sometimes seemed to 
 border on the pedantic, yet when a new or unfamiliar word was used 
 it was usually found in last analysis that it was a fitting word for the 
 shade of meaning desired to be conveyed. 
 
 McGee was a helpful man, every ready with counsel and information 
 to assist whomsoever might come to him. To the younger men he was 
 especially considerate and helpful, drawing freely upon his vast store- 
 house of information without thought or regard for personal credit. 
 When the so-called conservation movement was launched a few years 
 ago, the exigencies of public life made it impossible for full credit to be 
 given to all who had a guiding hand in the work, but from one in posi- 
 tion to know it appears that the success of this movement was in a large 
 measure due to the far-sighted comprehensive policy and sterling ad- 
 vice of Doctor McGee. Many of the activities of the Inland Water- 
 ways Commission, of which, as already mentioned, he was the Vice- 
 Chairman and Secretary, were due to his energy and initiative. La- 
 borious statistical tables were compiled, and scattered information 
 brought together in usable form. During all these later years, al- 
 though not engaged in active geological investigation, he was always 
 willing and anxious to discuss the newer results in the several fields 
 and to accept without question or resentment those which offered a 
 surer solution than any he had himself proposed. 
 
 Although it is said of Doctor McGee that in early life he was dis- 
 tinctly averse to manual labor, in later life he certainly developed un- 
 tiring energy, as a glance at his many and varied accomplishments will 
 show. He was also a good organizer and was systematic and pains- 
 
82 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 taking in all he undertook. His last work on "Wells and Subsoil 
 Water," the proof-sheets of which lie before me, was recalled during 
 the last weeks of his illness, and was finally submitted but two weeks 
 before his death, complete to the last detail. 
 
 It is perhaps fitting in this connection that a word should be said of 
 the remarkable courage and fortitude exhibited by Doctor McGee dur- 
 ing the progress and culmination of the insidious malady (cancer) 
 which caused his death. For the benefit of humanity he made a spe- 
 cial study of his own case, setting down calmly and imperturbably the 
 progress of the disease from its first observed inception, in 1894, to its 
 obvious dominance, in April, 1912, this diagnosis being published a 
 few days after his death (Science, September 13, 1912). It thus ap- 
 pears that for the last fifteen years of his life his work some of it the 
 most exacting of his career was carried on in the impending shadow of 
 certain dissolution, much of it at the last under the stress of acute 
 physical suffering, but there was no slighting, no faltering, no repining. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY, MAINLY OF GEOLOGY AND COLLATERAL 
 
 SUBJECTS 
 
 On the relative positions of the forest bed and associated drift formations 
 in northeastern Iowa. Am. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., vol. 15, 1878, pp. 339-341. 
 
 On the artificial mounds of northeastern Iowa, and the evidence of the 
 employment of a unit of measurement in their erection. Am. Jour. Sci., 
 3d ser., vol. 16, 1878, pp. 272-278. 
 
 On the complete series of superficial formations in northeastern Iowa. 
 Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Proc., vol. 27, 1879, pp. 198-231. 
 
 Notes on the surface geology of a part of the Mississippi Valley. Geol. 
 Mag., n. s., vol. 6, 1879, pp. 353-361; 412-420. 
 
 Superposition of glacial drift upon residuary clays [Iowa]. Am. Jour. 
 Sci., 3d ser., vol 18, 1879, pp. 301-303. 
 
 On some Iowa kames and aasar. Iowa Acad. Sci., Proc., vol. 1, pt. 1, 
 1875-1880, p. 15. 
 
 The "laterite" of the Indian Peninsula. Geol. Mag., n. s., vol. 7, 
 1880, pp. 310-313. 
 
 A contribution to Dr. CrolTs theory of secular change in terrestrial cli- 
 mate. Iowa Acad. Sci., Proc., vol. 1, pt. 1, 1875-1880, p. 24. 
 
 Additional observations on Iowa kames and aasar. Iowa Acad. Sci., 
 Proc., vol. 1, pt. 1, 1875-1880, p. 25. 
 
 On maximum synchronous glaciation. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Proc., vol. 
 29, 1881, pp. 447-509. Abstracts: Science, vol. 2, 1881, pp. 566-567; 
 Am. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., vol. 22, 1881, pp. 264-267; 368-369. 
 
 A contribution to Croll's theory of secular climatic changes. Am. Jour. 
 Sci., vol. 22, 1881, pp. 437-443; Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Proc., vol. 2, 1881, 
 pp. 175, 176. 
 
 On some elements in orthographic displacement. Am. Jour. Sci., 3d 
 ser., vol. 21, 1881, pp. 276-278. 
 
 The geology of Iowa soils. Iowa State Horticultural Soc., Trans., vol. 
 15, 1881, pp. 101-105. 
 
 Shale and Davis' "Glaciers." Science, vol. 2, 1881, pp. 581-584; 624- 
 630. 
 
 On local subsidence produced by an ice-sheet. Am. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., 
 vol. 22, 1881, pp. 368, 369. 
 
 Modifications proposees dans la nomenclature geologique. Int. Cong. 
 Geol., Compte Rendu, 2d ser., 1882, pp. 620-622. 
 
 83 
 
84 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 Evaporation and eccentricity as cof actors in glacial periods. Am. Jour. 
 Sci., 3d ser., vol. 23, 1882, pp. 61, 62. 
 
 The relations of geology and agriculture. Iowa State Horticultural 
 Soc., Trans., vol. 16, 1882, pp. 227-240. 
 
 And Call (R. Ellsworth). 
 
 On the loess and associated deposits of Des Moines [Iowa]. Am. Jour. 
 Sci., 3d ser., 1882, pp. 202-223. 
 
 Note on jointed structure [Iowa]. Am. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., vol. 25, 1883, 
 pp. 152, 153. 
 
 Report on geology and soils. Iowa State Horticultural Soc., Trans., vol. 
 17, 1883, pp. 270-280. 
 
 On the origin and hade of normal faults. Am. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., vol. 
 26, 1883, pp. 294-298. 
 
 On the present status of the eccentricity theory of glacial climate. Am. 
 Jour. Sci., 3d ser., vol. 26, 1883, pp. 113-120. 
 
 On glacial canyons. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Proc., vol. 32, 1883, p. 238. 
 Abstract: Science, vol. 2, 1883, pp. 315, 316. 
 
 The geological distribution of forests. Pop. Sci. Mo., vol. 24, 1883, p. 
 115. 
 
 On the cause of the glacial period. Am. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., vol. 26, 1883, 
 p. 244. 
 
 The drainage system and the distribution of the loess of eastern Iowa. 
 Wash. Phil. Soc. Bull., vol. 6, 1883, pp. 93-97; Iowa State Horticultural 
 Soc., Trans., vol. 18, 1883, pp. (reprint) 1-14. Abstract: Science, vol. 2, 
 1883, pp. 762, 763. 
 
 [Subterranean forest in District of Columbia.] Science, vol. 2, 1883, p. 
 724. 
 
 What is a glacier? Phil. Soc. Wash., Bull, vol. 7, 1884, p. 38. 
 
 Iowa [building stones]. 10th Census U. S. Rept. on building stones of 
 the United States and statistics of the quarry industry for 1880, pp. 256- 
 265. Bound as part of vol. x, but separately paged. 
 
 A proposed history of American State [geological] Surveys. Washing- 
 ton, 1885, pp. 1-4. 
 
 On meridional deflection of ice-streams. Am. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., vol. 
 29, 1885, pp. 386-392. 
 
 The terraces of the Potomac Valley. Phil. Soc. Wash., Bull., vol. 8, 
 1885, p. 24. 
 
 Map of the United States exhibiting the present status of knowledge 
 relating to the areal distribution of geologic groups (preliminary compila- 
 tion). U. S. Geol. Survey, 5th Ann. Rept., 1883-1884 [1885]; in pocket 
 in back, with explanation on pp. 34-38. 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 85 
 
 Some features of the recent earthquake. Science, vol. 8, 1886, pp. 271- 
 275; Sci. Am. Suppl., vol. 23, 1887, pp. 9205, 9206. 
 
 Methods of geologic cartography in use by the United States Geological 
 Survey. Compte Rendu Cong. Geol., Berlin, 1885, pp. 221-240. 
 
 Methodes de Cartographic Geologique employees par 1'United States 
 Geological Survey. Annuaire Geol. Universel, 2 me Parte, 1886, App., 
 pp. 3-27. 
 
 Report [of work]. U. S. Geol. Survey., 6th Ann. Rept, 1884-1885, 
 
 1886, pp. 25-32. 
 
 Geography and topography of the head of Chesapeake Bay. [Read 
 before Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1886.] Abstract: Am. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., 
 vol. 32, 1886, p. 323. 
 
 [Geology of Washington and vicinity.] Report of the health officer of 
 the District of Columbia for the year ending June 30, 1885, Wash., 1886, 
 pp. 19, 20; 23, 25. Abstract: Am. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., vol. 31, 1886, pp. 
 473, 474. 
 
 Ovibos cavifrons from the loess of Iowa. Am. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., vol. 34, 
 
 1887, pp. 217-220. Abstract: Am. Geol., vol. 1, 1887, pp. 126, 127. 
 
 The Columbia formation. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Proc., vol. 36, 1887, 
 pp. 221, 222. 
 
 The field of geology and its promise for the future. Minn. Acad. Nat. 
 Sci., Bull., vol. 3, 1887-1889, pp. 191-206. 
 
 Tuscaloosa formation. Summary of previous observations and opin- 
 ions. U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull, No. 43, 1887, pp. 247-255. 
 
 The geology of the head of Chesapeake Bay. U. S. Geol. Survey, 7th 
 Ann. Rept., 1885-1886 [1887], pp. 537-646, pis. 56-71. Abstract: Am. 
 Geol., vol. 4, 1889, pp. 113-115. 
 
 Report [Potomac division of geology]. U. S. Geol. Survey, 7th Ann. 
 Rept., 1885-1886 [1887], pp. 104r-lll. 
 
 Three formations of the Middle Atlantic Slope. Am. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., 
 vol. 35, 1888, pp. 120-143, 328-330, 448-466. Abstracts: Nature, vol. 38, 
 1884, pp. 90, 91; Am. Geol., vol. 2, 1888, pp. 129-131. 
 
 The classification of geographic forms by genesis. Nat. Geog. Mag., vol. 
 1, 1888, pp. 27-36. 
 
 Notes on the geology of Macon County, Mo. St. Louis Acad. Sci., 
 Trans., vol. 5, 1888, pp. 305-336. 
 
 Some definitions in dynamical geology. Geol. Mag. (Lond.), vol. 5, 
 
 1888, pp. 489-495. 
 
 Paleolithic man in America; his antiquity and environment. Pop. Sci. 
 Mo., vol. 34, 1888, pp. 20-36. 
 
86 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 [On some peculiarities of the superficial deposits of northeast Iowa.] 
 Am. Geol., vol. 2, 1888, pp. 137, 138. 
 
 An American Geologic Society. Science, vol. 13, 1889, p. 1. 
 
 Geological antecedents of man in the Potomac Valley. Am. Anthrop., 
 vol. 2, 1889, pp. 227-234. 
 
 The world's supply of fuel. The Forum, vol. 7, 1889, pp. 553-566. 
 
 The southern extension of the Appomattox formation. Am. Jour. Sci., 
 3d ser., vol. 40, 1890, pp. 15-41. Abstract: Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., vol. 1, 
 1890, pp. 546, 547; 548, 549; Am. Geol., vol. 5, 1890, p. 120. 
 
 Carte Geologique des fitats-Unis d'Amerique, donnant la distribution 
 actuellement connue des Groupes Geologiques. "Une Mission Viticole en 
 Amerique," Paris, 1889, pi. ix. 
 
 Report [Potomac division of geology]. U. S. Geol. Survey, 9th Ann. 
 Rept., 1889, pp. 102-110. 
 
 Introduction [A geological reconnaissance of southeastern Kansas, by 
 Robert Hay]. U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull., No. 57, 1890, pp. 11-14. 
 
 Topographic types of northeastern Iowa [Abstract]. Am. Assoc. Adv. 
 Sci., Proc., vol. 38, 1890, pp. 248, 249. 
 - Encroachments of the sea. The Forum, vol. 9, 1890, pp. 437-449. 
 
 [Remarks on pressure of rock gas, especially in Indiana.] Bull. Geol. 
 Soc. Am., vol. 1, 1890, pp. 96, 97. 
 
 [Remarks on the formations comprised under the term "orange sand," 
 and on the relations of certain loams and gravels in the vicinity of Vicks- 
 burg and Grand Gulf.] Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., vol. 1, 1890, pp. 474, 475. 
 
 [Remarks on the relations of the Pleistocene deposits at Belvidere on the 
 Delaware.] Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., vol. 1, 1890, pp. 480. 
 
 [Remarks on certain peculiarities of drainage in the southeastern United 
 States.] Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., vol 1, 1890, pp. 448, 449. 
 
 Geology for 1887 and 1888. Smithsonian Inst, Rept. 1888, pt. 1, 1890, 
 pp. 217-260. 
 
 Iowa. Macfarlane's Geol. Rwy. Guide, 2d ed., 1890, pp. 233-245. 
 
 The Columbia formation. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Proc., vol. 36, 1888, 
 pp. 221, 222. 
 
 The Columbia formation in the Mississippi embayment. [Abstract.] 
 Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Proc., vol. 39, 1891, pp. 244, 245. 
 
 The Appomattox formation in the Mississippi embayment. [Abstract.] 
 Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., vol. 2, 1891, pp. 2-6. 
 
 Report [Potomac division Geological Survey]. U. S. Geol. Survey, 10th 
 Ann. Rept., 1890, pp. 148-158. 
 
 Flood plains of rivers. The Forum, vol. 11, 1891 , pp. 221-234. 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 87 
 
 Neocene and Pleistocene continent movements. [Abstract.] Am. Assoc. 
 Adv. ScL, Proc., vol. 40, 1891, pp. 253, 254. 
 
 The southern oil fields. Am. Assoc. Adv. ScL, Proc., vol. 40, 1891, p. 
 417. 
 
 The Pleistocene history of northeastern Iowa. U. S. Geol. Survey, llth 
 Ann. Rept., pt. i, 1891, pp. 199-557, pis. i-lxi, figs. 1-120. Abstracts: Am. 
 Geol., vol. xi, 1893, pp. 178, 179; Am. Jour. ScL, 3d ser., vol. xlv, 1893, p. 
 71. 
 
 Rock gas and related bitumens. Introduction to "The natural gas field 
 of Indiana," by A. J. Phinney. U. S. Geol. Survey, llth Ann. Rept., pt 
 i, 1891, pp. 589-616. 
 
 Reports of the delegates to the Congres Geologique International. Am. 
 Anthrop., vol. 5, 1892, pp. 45-48. 
 
 The Gulf of Mexico as a measure of isostasy. Am. Jour. ScL, 3d ser., 
 vol. xliv, 1892, pp. 177-192. Abstracts: Am. Geol., vol. xi, 1893, p. 58; 
 Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., vol. 3, 1892, pp. 501-503. 
 
 The areal work of the United States Geological Survey. Am. Geol., voL 
 x, 1892, pp. 337-379; Am. Inst. Mining Engineers, Trans., vol. 21, 1893, 
 pp. 608-617. 
 
 The field of geology and its promise for the future. Minn. Acad. Nat. 
 ScL, Bull., vol. iii, 1892, pp. 191-206. 
 
 A fossil earthquake. Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., vol. 4, 1893, pp. 411-414. 
 
 McGee, W J, with Williams (G. H.), Willis (B.), and Barton (N. H.). 
 Geology of Washington and vicinity. Int. Cong. Geol., Compte Rendu, 
 5th sess., 1893, pp. 219-251. 
 
 The Lafayette formation. U. S. Geol. Survey, 12th Ann. Rept., pt. i, 
 1892, pp. 353 T 521. Abstracts: Am. Jour. ScL, 3d ser., vol. xlv, 1893, p. 
 163; Am. Geol., vol. xiv, 1894, pp. 115, 116. 
 
 Geological map of the United States and Canada. Longman's New 
 School Atlas. New York, 1892. 
 
 Man and the Glacial period. Science, vol. 20, 1892, p. 317; Am. Anthrop. 
 vol. 6, 1892, pp. 85-95. 
 
 Note on the "Age of the earth." Science, vol. 21, 1893, pp. 309, 310. 
 
 A geological palimpsest. The Literary Northwest, vol. 2, 1893, pp. 274- 
 276. 
 
 Geological map of the United States, showing the distribution of the 
 geologic systems so far as known (two sheets). Johnson's Universal 
 Cyclopedia, vol. 3, 1893 (pp. 728-731). 
 
 Reconnaissance map of the United States, showing the distribution of 
 the geologic systems so far as known. U. S. Geol. Survey, 14th Ann. 
 Rept., pi. ii, 1893. 
 
88 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 Graphic comparison of post-Columbia and post-Lafayette erosion. Ab- 
 stract: Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Proc., vol. xlii, 1894, p. 179; Am. Geol., vol. 
 xii, 1894, p. 180. 
 
 [Classification of Pleistocene deposits.] Int. Cong. Geol., Compte Rendu, 
 5th sess., 1893, pp. 198-207. 
 
 [Correlation of clastic rocks.] Int. Cong. Geol., Compte Rendu, 5th 
 sess., 1893, pp. KO-166. 
 
 [Glacial phenomena] in discussion of paper by C. H. Hitchcock, "Studies 
 of the Connecticut Valley glacier." Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., vol. 4, 1893, pp. 
 5, 6, 7. 
 
 The prairies. Itinerary from Kansas City, Missouri, to Chicago, Illi- 
 nois. Int. Cong., Geol., Compte Rendu, 5th sess, 1893, pp. 449-452. 
 
 Preliminary geologic map of New York, exhibiting the structure of the 
 State so far as known Published by authority of the Legislature of the 
 State of New York, 1894. 
 
 Glacial canyons. Jour. Geol., vol. ii, 1894, pp. 350-364. 
 
 The extension of uniformitarianism to deformation. Bull. Geol. Soc. 
 Am., vol. 6, 1894, pp. 55-70. 
 
 The potable waters of eastern United States. U. S. Geol. Survey, 14th 
 Ann. Rept., pt. 2, 1894, pp. 1-47, figs. 1-5. 
 
 [Cenozoic history of eastern Virginia and Maryland.] Bull. Geol. Soc. 
 Am., vol. 5, 1894, p. 24. 
 
 [Extra-morainic drift of New Jersey.] Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., vol. 5, 
 1893, pp. 17, 18. 
 
 [On the Columbia and Lafayette formations.] Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., 
 vol. 5, 1894, p. 100. 
 
 [Terrestrial submergence southeast of the American Continent.] Bull. 
 Geol. Soc. Am., vol. 5, 1894, pp. 21, 22. 
 
 The topographic development of Sonora. Science, n. s., vol. 1,1895, 
 pp. 558, 559. 
 
 Reconnaissance map of the United States. Am. Geol., vol. 16, 1895, 
 pp. 113, 114. 
 
 Canyons of the Colorado. Science, n. s., vol. 2, 1895, pp. 593-597. 
 
 A miniature extinct volcano. Abstract: Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Proc., 
 vol. xliii, 1895, pp. 225, 226. 
 
 Expedition to Seriland [Mexico]. Science, n. s., vol. in, 1896, pp. 493- 
 505. 
 
 Two erosion epochs. Another suggestion. Science, n. s., vol. iii, 1896, 
 pp. 796-799. 
 
 Geographic history of the Piedmont plateau. Nat. Geogr. Mag., vol. 
 vii, 1896, pp. 261-265. 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 89 
 
 Honors to James Hall at Buffalo. Science, n. s., vol. 4, 1896, pp. 697- 
 706. 
 
 The Mississippi bed-lands. The Forester, vol. 3, 1897, p. 7. 
 
 Sheetflood erosion [Sonora district, Mexico]. Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., vol. 
 8, 1897, pp. 87-112, pis. 10-13. 
 
 Hatcher's work in Patagonia. Nat. Geogr. Mag., vol. 8, 1897, pp. 319- 
 322. 
 
 Geographic development of the District of Columbia. Nat. Geogr. 
 Mag., vol. ix, 1898, pp. 317-323. 
 
 Prof. O. C. Marsh. Nat. Geogr. Mag., vol. 10, 1879, pp. 181-182. 
 
 The pre-Lafayette [Tennessean] baselevel. Abstract: Am. Assoc. Adv. 
 Sci., Proc., vol. xlviii, 1897, p. 227; Science, n. s., vol. x, 1899, p. 489. 
 
 Fifty years of American science. Atlantic Monthly, September, 1898. 
 
 With Holmes (W. H.). The geology and archaeology of California. 
 Abstracts: Am. Geol., vol. xxiii, 1899, pp. 96, 99; Science, n. s., vol. ix, pp. 
 104, 105; Sci. Am. Suppl., vol. xlvii, 1899, p. 19313. 
 
 The lessons of Galveston. Nat. Geogr. Mag., vol. xi, 1900, pp. 377-383. 
 
 The Gulf of California as an evidence of marine erosion. Abstract: 
 Science, n. s., vol. xi, 1900, p. 429. 
 
 Occurrence of the Pensauken (?) formation. Abstract: Am. Assoc. Adv. 
 Sci., Proc., vol. xlix, 1900, p. 187. 
 
 Incomplete list of scientific writings and maps, by W J McGee, 1878- 
 1900, pp. 1-8 (printed on one side only). [Proof prepared for use of J. 
 W. Powell 1901.] 
 
 Soil erosion. U. S. Dept. Agric., Bureau of Soils, Bull. No. 71, 1911, 
 pp. 1-60, pis. i-xxxiii. 
 
 Prospective population of the United States. Science, n. s., vol. 34, Oct. 
 6, 1911, pp. 428^135; Reprint, pp. 1-15. 
 
 Principles of water-power development. Science, n. s., vol- 34, sec. 15, 
 1911, pp. 813-825; Reprint, pp. 1-28. 
 
 Wells and subsoil water. U. S. Dept. Agric., Bureau of Soils, Bull. 
 No. 92. 
 
 From Prof. Alfred C. Lane, of Tufts College: 
 
 I remember very well one of the times when I came in contact with 
 Doctor McGee, when I happened to prepare, as he said, the first paper 
 for the Geological Society of America which contained mathematics. 
 He wa's quite anxious that the paper should be a model for others and 
 took a great deal of pains in his editorial work to see that it was such. 
 
90 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 Between editor and contributors of scientific publications there is 
 ample opportunity for friction and I well remember the courteous care 
 with which he made his various suggestions. 
 
 Doctor McGee was one of a type of men whom there seems to be 
 a tendency to crowd out now, but to whom geology owes a very great 
 debt, men who without conventional academic training have brought 
 to their work the innate ability and the keen interest which surmounts 
 the obstacles that are thought to come from an early training in other 
 directions. 
 
 I am very glad that there is to be a meeting in commemoration of 
 Doctor McGee to call to the attention of geologists the duty which 
 they owe to the class of men represented by him, as well as by Sorby 
 and Walcott, and I am sure, too, that such a meeting, inspired by his 
 example, would impress upon us the importance of the duties we owe, 
 as men of science, not merely to science, but to the commonwealths of 
 which we are members. 
 
 From Miss Emma R. McGee, of Farley, Iowa: 
 
 In a quaint old farmhouse, in the lovely State of Iowa, near the 
 City of Dubuque, in the county of the same name, there is a library 
 containing many old volumes, some of which came over the Atlantic 
 Ocean over seventy years ago. Among others is the Good Book, 
 sacred not only on account of it being that of Holy Writ, but of its 
 Family Record in the autographs of the departed, whose forms and 
 faces are seen only in dreamland. The fourth birthdate of the eight 
 children born to James and Martha Ann Anderson McGee is this one: 
 "William John McGee, born April 17, 1853, at Farley, Iowa." The 
 writer has not yet acquired heart courage to make the record which 
 should be in this old book, viz: "Died at Washington, D. C., Septem- 
 ber 4, 1912." He was never christened, as mother was a Baptist and 
 the tenets of her church did not allow infant baptism. For some 
 reason the appellation "Don" was given him when a small child, and 
 he was ever afterwards "Don" to his family, schoolmates, and friends. 
 Don was a very sickly, delicate child. Mother often related how she 
 carried him in her arms almost night and day the first years of his 
 life. The attending physician told her he had a Daniel Webster 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 91 
 
 head. Who this physician was, or of his ability, we can not say; 
 but there is one thing certain, mother never made up that story. It 
 might have been in this case as in some others, mother love saved the 
 child when the skill of the ablest physician only played a minor part. 
 
 After he was about three years of age, his health and strength began 
 to improve, although he still had a physical defect that was afterward 
 outgrown. Possibly Doctor McGee inherited from his ancestry a little 
 of their ruggedness which helped him to overcome the extreme weak- 
 ness of childhood. His parents were of sturdy Scotch-Irish stock, 
 his great-great-grandfather on the parental side having been Alex- 
 ander McGee, of County Down, Ireland, who came early to this coun- 
 try, and on the maternal side the line leads back to Samuel Anderson 
 who was born at sea about 1740, of Irish emigrant parents. The 
 latter resided at Yorktown, Virginia, and both participated in the 
 Revolution on the American side. Grandma Anderson's maiden 
 name was Haggard, whose ancestry is traced back many generations 
 to a Welsh family of Haggards living in Wales. They are distin- 
 guished for their longevity. A first cousin of mother's, Nancy Hag- 
 gard Smith, living at Springfield, Minnesota, celebrated her ninety- 
 sixth birthday last April. She reads much without spectacles and 
 feels proud of the fact that she is related to H. Rider Haggard, the 
 novelist of England. 
 
 It has been said, "There is a divinity that shapes our ends." It 
 has often occurred to us in fancy that the beautiful place where 
 brother and I were born might have had a trifle of influence in shap- 
 ing his future career and attainment of eminence. Mother was born 
 within two miles of the great Mammoth Cave of Kentucky and had a 
 discerning eye toward the beautiful and sublime in nature. When a 
 building spot was sought on the land father had entered from the 
 Government, mother selected a site with so beautiful a landscape 
 view that it might have driven to ecstasies either poet or artist. It 
 was on an open prairie spot with a semi-circle of woodland a few rods 
 to the front of where the house was to be located. There was a fine 
 spring and large pond near it, which added to the charm of the place. 
 Directly in front of our house was the semi-circle of high forest trees 
 edged with smaller trees and shrubs that bloomed, and when the sun 
 arose in his glory and splendor seemingly from behind the great 
 
92 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 trees, the scene was certainly a perfect one. This was in the early 
 days of Iowa when forest primeval and all else showed the work of the 
 Infinite Hand that makes no mistakes. The Divine Artist is the 
 best one. 
 
 To gaze on a scene of transcendent splendor, which baffles the power 
 of human tongue to describe, especially early in life, is soul inspiring, 
 and might have wielded a subtle influence over the life of our brother 
 to aspire and achieve. 
 
 It is useless to reiterate anything about the scientific work accom- 
 lished by Doctor McGee during his life all too short. It has been told 
 and retold in scientific journals. It was asserted in the long ago, 
 "A prophet is not without honor save in his own country." The 
 following item appeared in his home paper (The Telegraph Herald, 
 published at Dubuque, Iowa) soon after his demise, which is a refu- 
 tation of the old figure of speech : 
 
 Let it be written imperishably in the records of Dubuque County that 
 one of the greatest geologists, anthropologists, and hydrologists this Nation 
 has produced was born in Dubuque County. 
 
 Doctor W J McGee, whose death occurred in Washington last week, 
 was born near Farley, of poor parents. He created his own educational 
 opportunities, and he wrote his name among the men first in the knowledge 
 of sciences wholly by his own unaided efforts. 
 
 There are brain records which time can never efface. This is one 
 of them. 
 
 When my brother left home to enter his duties on the United States 
 Geological Survey, it was with a heavy heart that we bade him good- 
 bye, for there was a premonition at the time, which was afterward 
 realized, that he was gone never to return as a link in the chain of the 
 family circle. No more could we go to him for counsel, or to obtain 
 information on any subject, as was our wont. He frequently came 
 home afterward for a short visit, and it was our habit to go part way 
 with him when he departed. If the weather was inclement mother 
 objected to our going out; but father said to mother: "Let her go," so 
 we went. Life has never been quite the same to his only sister since 
 Don has been taken from it. Probably a little sooner will she cross 
 the Mystic River than had he tarried longer. In closing, we will 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 93 
 
 repeat a little parody on the lines of Scott, which expresses our 
 sentiments : 
 
 Brother rest, thy life work o'er, 
 
 Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking; 
 
 Dream of troubled times no more, 
 Morn of toil nor night of waking. 
 
 From W. C. Mendenhall, of Washington, D. C. 
 
 Doctor W J McGee had mastered and advocated the fundamental 
 principles of Conservation long before the majority of those now 
 most active in the movement had come to appreciate the real mean- 
 ing of the word. He was one of the founders of this movement, was 
 at all times one of the most stimulating thinkers in its councils, and 
 in him Mr. Pinchot found one of his most loyal supporters and 
 friends. Doctor McGee was the personification of strength and 
 steadfastness in the pioneer period of Conservation, when the mean- 
 ing of the word was unknown to the multitude, and when the mere 
 suggestion that our natural resources are not inexhaustible, but 
 may be depleted to the vanishing point by wasteful use, was regarded 
 as a wild heresy. During the sessions of the National Conserva- 
 tion Congress he was its accepted authority on problems involving 
 that most widespread and universally distributed of our natural 
 resources water. He has dealt with this resource from the points of 
 view of transportation, of irrigation, and of power, and from the 
 standpoint of biology, in which it is recognized as fundamental in all 
 life. 
 
 Doctor McGee's mind was of the type of the intellectual pioneer, 
 intensely individual and original. He was masterful in the alignment 
 of facts and stimulating in the recognition and boldness of his ex- 
 pression of the generalizations and far-reaching conclusions to which 
 his marshalled facts pointed. Like most men of brilliant imagina- 
 tion, he was at times impatient of the slow processes of research, or 
 let us say rather that his impatience was with that timidity in reaching 
 conclusions so often displayed by those engaged in research, rather 
 than with the process itself. He believed that the scientist's practi- 
 cal rule of life should be the acceptance, as a basis of action, of the 
 
94 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 conclusions indicated by such facts as are known, even though those 
 conclusions may not at present be definitely established. 
 
 Doctor McGee's death at the Cosmos Club on September 4, 
 1912, removed from the domain of science and from the forum of 
 public discussion one of its leading personalities. His career em- 
 braced an unusually wide range of activities, and in each of these he 
 attained distinction. As a geologist he was one of the group assem- 
 bled by Major Powell during the formative period of the United 
 States Geological Survey, a group which made American geology 
 classic and its leaders world-leaders in their science. In this field 
 McGee's name is associated with the names of Powell, Button, Gil- 
 bert, Holmes, Emmons, and Hague. Later, with the establishment 
 of the Bureau of Ethnology, into which he followed Major Powell, 
 he became a pioneer in ethnological research, although retaining con- 
 tinually his interest in geologic and geographic problems. At the 
 time of his death and for a few years prior thereto, he was the erosion 
 and hydrologic expert of the Department of Agriculture, his immediate 
 connections with that department being through the Bureau of Soils. 
 His last years are distinguished by a number of papers on the subject 
 of Conservation, in which he was so vitally interested; these articles 
 are broad in their scope, thoroughly original and stimulating in their 
 expression, and point out fearlessly some dangers of present practice 
 and suggest methods of remedy. But a few days before his death 
 he completed the correction of the galley proofs of the last of his 
 papers, faithful to his work and to his duty even while descending 
 into the Valley of the Shadow. 
 
 This very brief sketch would not be complete without expressed 
 recognition of the fact that Doctor McGee's attitude in the face of 
 death was in accordance with the best traditions of the science to 
 which his life had been devoted and was as admirable and as deeply 
 stirring and stimulating as any act of his career. For a year or more 
 he had recognized the fact that he was afflicted with cancer and that 
 his days were numbered. He faced this fact calmly and prepared pa- 
 tiently for the inevitable by carefully completing all work on hand 
 and by disposing by will of his body and his brain to his friend and 
 fellow scientist, Doctor Spitzka, to be used in the way most likely to 
 be beneficial to humanity. So long as his faculties remained un- 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 95 
 
 dimmed, he maintained the same keen interest in scientific questions 
 and current affairs that had marked his career at its height. Those 
 of his friends who visited him during the last few weeks of his life 
 heard not a single complaint nor an expression of regret, but found 
 themselves chatting easily with an old and honored friend who gave 
 no indication of the fact that he knew definitely that his career was 
 soon to be stayed by the hand of Death. Thus, rising superior to the 
 weakened pain-racked body, he met with philosophic calm and 
 sublime courage the final inevitable test. It is not given to man to 
 do more than this. 
 
 \ 
 From Doctor George P. Merrill, of the United States National 
 
 Museum : 
 
 Though I can not claim to have been intimate with Doctor McGee, 
 my acquaintance covered practically the entire period of his connec- 
 tion with the government bureaus. Our relations were always 
 friendly, if not confidential. I remember him as uniformly courteous, 
 always ready and willing to give consideration to any worthy question 
 brought forward, open to suggestions, frank in criticism. He had an 
 unusual capacity for adapting himself to a wide range of work and 
 conditions. This is illustrated to some extent by his published 
 bibliography, but which gives little clue to his capacity for organi- 
 zation and his abilities as an editor, both of which found ample scope 
 during the early years of the Geological Society of America. 
 
 He had also a remarkable faculty for absorbing and utilizing in- 
 formation on subjects not directly connected with his own special line 
 of work. To illustrate this I need only call attention to his article 
 on " Fifty Years of American Science," published in the Atlantic 
 Monthly for September, 1898, or his Vice-Presidential address before 
 Section H of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 
 for the year previous. 
 
 Were I to advance a criticism it would be to the effect that his plans 
 were often detailed and comprehensive beyond a possibility of ac- 
 complishment. This trait was brought forcibly to my attention in 
 connection with a fragmentary manuscript relating to a history of 
 American state geological and natural history surveys to which I 
 
96 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 fell heir. So far-reaching and detailed was the general scope as out- 
 lined in his synopsis, it would have been impossible of execution even 
 had the original leaders in the various organizations remained to par- 
 ticipate. In short, the plan seems to have fallen through from its 
 own weight. But such a failing was perhaps a necessary consequence 
 of an almost super-abundance of ideas, and it was by no means without 
 its compensating features. 
 
 Were I to attempt a summation of his chief characteristics as they 
 impressed themselves upon me, and this in the few words that I feel 
 can be allotted me here, I would say that for wide interest in scientific 
 matters, fecundity of ideas and mental vigor, he was by all odds one 
 of the most remarkable men with whom it has been my lot to associate. 
 
 From Senator Francis G. Newlands of Nevada: 
 
 I greatly regretted that I was not able to speak at the Memorial 
 meeting, and to pay my tribute to the character and memory of our 
 dear friend, Doctor McGee. I had always had a great admiration 
 for his scholarship, knowledge, and attainments, but I never got a real 
 insight of his nature and character until we served together with him 
 on the Waterways Commission appointed by President Roosevelt. 
 
 Our long journey over the waterways of the country was illuminated 
 by his vast information, resourcefulness, imagination, humor, and 
 practical judgment. Self-effacement is not an uncommon quality in 
 those who delight to serve the public, but I have never known such 
 self-effacement as that of our friend McGee. The question of personal 
 credit or repute never seemed to enter his mind. A sense of service 
 was his controlling impulse, and that without any thought whatever of 
 selfish reward either in fame or emolument. 
 
 I saw him several times during his last illness. The sense of its 
 incurability would have depressed the mental activity of others, but 
 it did not seem to affect the operation of his great humane and kindly 
 mind. His self-obliteration was as apparent in illness as it was in 
 health. 
 
 I have missed his aid and cooperation in the great work that we 
 have been engaged in, that of the conservation of our waters for 
 every useful purpose and the mitigation of their destructive effects, 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 97 
 
 thus turning our floods from a menace into a blessing. No greater 
 domestic question is before the country today for its consideration, and 
 it is a great misfortune that we have not the advantage of his energetic 
 cooperation and of his strong and lovable qualities. 
 
 From Governor E. F. Noel, of Mississippi: 
 
 During my term of four years as Governor of Mississippi, 1908-12, 
 and to some extent before and afterwards, I participated in a number 
 of gatherings in which the investigation, development, and conserva- 
 tion of our national resources were among the leading themes. On 
 many of these occasions, Doctor McGee was present as an honored, 
 useful, and exceedingly efficient member. When absent, his indus- 
 trious researches and reports constituted one of the valuable and 
 frequently utilized resources for data and argument. 
 
 In 1910, upon invitation of the legislature and Governor of Missis- 
 sippi, Doctor McGee delivered in the Legislative Hall of our State a 
 very able and interesting address as to the character and utilization of 
 our State's natural resources, doubtless the strongest and clearest dis- 
 cussion of that subject ever made. His treatment, masterly and prac- 
 tical, proved his thorough knowledge of all of its phases, and his 
 ability to picture it in an instructive and convincing manner. There 
 and everywhere his services ranked him high among our Nation's 
 patriotic and effective workers, entitling him to lasting and grateful 
 remembrance. 
 
 In behalf of Mississippi and of Mississippians, we gladly join in 
 acknowledgment of his high worth and of our being his appreciative 
 debtor. 
 
 From Mr. M. W. Patterson, Secretary to Doctor McGee: 
 
 Having been intimately associated with Doctor McGee in the ca- 
 pacity of private secretary during the last five years of his life, I was 
 afforded an opportunity to observe certain personal characteristics, 
 evidenced in his habits and methods in every-day life and work, a 
 reference to which may not be without interest. Doctor McGee was 
 a hard, persistent worker, and while the work was trying and difficult 
 at times, I look back to my experience with him with no little satis- 
 
98 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 faction. The period during which I was associated with him was 
 made pleasant by the kindness and the charming personality of the 
 man, profitable by the training received under his elevating educa- 
 tional influence, inspiring by the magnitude of his interests, and dis- 
 tinctively interesting throughout by the diversity and originality of 
 his work. 
 
 On intimate acquaintance Doctor McGee could only be regarded 
 as a big-hearted, clean, liberal-minded gentleman. His very ap- 
 pearance reflected an inherent dignity; his deliberate determined 
 manner, together with his honesty of purpose, inspired respect. Yet 
 beneath the apparent sternness and austerity of the man there was a 
 certain simplicity, a genuine sincerity, an unfailing courtesy, which 
 aroused the admiration and love of a host of friends. I was always 
 impressed by his uniformly amiable disposition. Throughout my 
 connection with him he never addressed a cross or unkind work to me; 
 in the place of criticism or complaint, entirely justifiable at times per- 
 haps, there was only such encouragement and constructive suggestion 
 for those assisting him as to inspire diligent and conscientious effort. 
 Doctor McGee was a man of almost austere personal habits, yet 
 always ready to find excuse for the faults of others. 
 
 In his work his methods were distinctive. Referred to as eccen- 
 tric by some, these very eccentricities were merely indicative of that 
 originality which is one of the characteristics of constructive genius. 
 Although his ideas were remarkably broad and comprehensive, he 
 gave particular attention to the smallest details. A chaotic arrange- 
 ment of materials the mass of literature and correspondence which 
 he insisted on keeping on his desk presented an appearance of con- 
 fusion. Yet the orderly prosecution of his work was in itself an 
 evidence of a well developed, well balanced, and, above all, a sys- 
 tematic mentality. Every subject apparently was carefully studied 
 and digested and stored in an orderly arrangement in his brain, and 
 this probably explains his wonderful memory, even for details. He 
 met each task as it came, and concentrating his efforts on the par- 
 ticular matter at hand continued his work uninterruptedly, often dis- 
 regarding the passage of hours or days, until it was brought to a 
 satisfactory conclusion. 
 
 His writings were dictated, always without references before him, 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 99 
 
 and after revision of the first rough draft the second transcript 
 usually represented the finished product, a third or fourth copy sel- 
 dom being necessary. Yet his writings were noteworthy for their 
 sustained elevation of tone and purpose no less than for their form, 
 their completeness and conciseness, made possible by an unparalleled 
 vocabulary. His dictation was extremely slow and careful. In pre- 
 paring articles for publication he often dictated continuously for sev- 
 eral hours, alternately pacing the floor and sitting at his desk, fre- 
 quently continuing the day's work at the office for a few hours in the 
 evening at his club; yet the transcription of the matter dictated 
 might require only a few minutes. He indicated paragraphing and 
 punctuation, and after his final reading of the manuscript nothing 
 remained for the editor but to indicate to the printer that it was to be 
 followed literally. In his correspondence, even the shortest letters, 
 this same care was observed. His every letter reflected formality and 
 courtesy. It was his unfailing habit in making reference, whether 
 complimentary or otherwise, to third persons to send duplicates of 
 the letter written to all parties interested. 
 
 His courteous manner and his generous disposition were, I think, 
 the most striking of his personal characteristics. Doctor McGee was 
 absolutely devoted to the public service, and it was in this connection 
 that his generosity was most impressive. At all times willing to 
 make any sacrifice for any cause designed to subserve the public in- 
 terest, he was absolutely indifferent to personal gain, desiring only the 
 opportunity to pursue with a free hand the work in which he was 
 most interested. While he received a fairly substantial salary, he 
 used only about a third of his income for personal expenses, the re- 
 mainder being set aside for the use or benefit of others under condi- 
 tions which to most men would have carried no sense of obligation. 
 His work was not directed toward personal advancement. With a 
 supreme confidence in his own carefully formulated ideas, his greatest 
 function in life seemed to be in the education and inspiration of other 
 workers to train their efforts toward effectuating the broad and far- 
 sighted plans he outlined in blazing new trails, opening new fields 
 of research, and pointing out the enormous possibilities involved in 
 following these new lines of endeavor and in all adding materially 
 to organized knowledge. 
 
100 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 The breadth and comprehensiveness of his convictions are best illus- 
 trated by the policies of waterway improvement which he advocated 
 and very largely initiated; his ability to grasp and to make clear prob- 
 lems of far-reaching complexity is shown by his manner of dealing 
 with complicated conservation questions; and these were the two great 
 things with which Doctor McGee was most deeply concerned. Work 
 which he had outlined for himself was often neglected in order that 
 he might take time to help another. Whenever asked for criticisms 
 or suggestions, they were always given freely and frankly, without any 
 evidence of jealousy of the results of his own efforts, and were always 
 either constructive in their nature, or merely offered in the form of 
 commendation. It was in this phase of his work that the remarkably 
 wide field his interests covered was indicated ; he seemed interested in 
 practically every branch of science. The material published over his 
 own name represents but a part of his work. A great number of con- 
 tributions were made by him in the form of interviews with other 
 writers or material prepared for the use of co-workers, so that for an 
 enormous amount of work the Doctor himself never received personal 
 credit. He never hesitated to depart from beaten paths, conse- 
 quently he was not without enemies, who, however, in most cases 
 seemed by directing criticism toward a mode of approach or a single 
 step in a far-reaching plan merely to emphasize their own limitations. 
 
 Physically Doctor McGee was a big, strong, well-preserved man. 
 His energy and endurance were remarkable; even during periods of 
 temporary inactivity he reflected a dormant potentiality. Although 
 apparently in excellent health, he had noted for twelve or fifteen years 
 certain physical infirmities, the nature of which he never definitely 
 understood until during the summer of 1910 he submitted to an opera- 
 tion. At this time the true nature of his trouble was discovered. 
 After this operation his health failed steadily, and in June, 1912, he 
 suffered a fall, which, to use his own expression, put him on his back 
 and gave the great trouble its innings. It was seen then that it was 
 only a matter of weeks when the end would come; and it was during 
 this last sad chapter of his life that his true character was most clearly 
 shown. Confined to the room at his club which he made his home, 
 attended by a few friends only, and neglected by those who by all the 
 laws of nature should have been nearest him, the courage and cheer- 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 101 
 
 fulness of the man throughout were truly remarkable None real- 
 ized more clearly than he the hopelessness of his case, or knew better 
 when the end might be expected. It was a painful experience to be 
 called on to assist in the systematic closing of his affairs. He care- 
 fully directed from his bed the completion of the work he had under 
 way at the time of his accident, resigned his active positions in various 
 organizations, and advised friends and colleagues of the anticipated 
 end. He dictated his will, which is convincing evidence of his abhor- 
 rence of waste, his absolute devotion to science and the public interest, 
 and of his thoughtfulness of others. 
 
 Owing to his wonderful vitality he lingered longer than the at- 
 tending physicians anticipated, passing away quietly and peacefully 
 during a period of unconsciousness in the early morning of September 
 4, 1912. 
 
 Much has been said by Doctor McGee's associates to indicate the 
 loss to science, to progress, and to humanity his death entails, and 
 it is a privilege to add this testimony that his greatness as a scientist 
 was enhanced by his admirable personal characteristics. 
 
 From Doctor R. A. F. Penrose, Jr., of Philadelphia: 
 
 My first recollection of Doctor McGee was when he went to Ar- 
 kansas in 1891 or 1892 to study the tertiary deposits of the southern 
 part of that State. I was at that time assistant geologist on the 
 Arkansas Geological Survey under Dr. J. C. Branner, who was State 
 geologist. I met Dr. McGee in Little Rock and accompanied him 
 for a few days on his trip through the southwestern part of the State. 
 His wonderful energy and his quick grasp of the salient features of the 
 geology of the region in which he was traveling left a lasting impres- 
 sion on me. I was at that time working on the geology of the iron 
 ores of the same region, and the kindly interest Dr. McGee took 
 in my work, as well as his pertinent suggestions, were a great stimulus 
 to me in these investigations. 
 
 This trip in Arkansas was the only time that I ever traveled with 
 Doctor McGee, and I never had the good fortune to be associated 
 with him in any of his other work, but I often met him afterward in 
 Washington and at geological meetings. He was always the kind, 
 
102 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 considerate man that I had met first in Arkansas, always taking an 
 interest in the work of the younger geologists, and encouraging them 
 by good advice and suggestions. It was in these later years that I 
 learned to appreciate his remarkable versatility, which enabled him 
 to apply his strong intellectual powers to widely separated scientific 
 subjects, so that he was a welcome member at all discussions, and a 
 much sought advisor in many an intricate question. 
 
 In the death of Doctor McGee, I feel that the world at large has 
 lost an able scientist, and that those who knew him have, in addition, 
 lost a sincere and sympathetic friend. 
 
 From Mrs. A. E. Ford-Reel, of the United States Forest Service: 
 
 When I promised to send something for the McGee memorial 
 volume it seemed that the preparation of such a paper would be the 
 simplest and easiest thing conceivable; but I find myself, after in- 
 numerable attempts, still utterly unable to crystallize and place on 
 paper in cold, bare words the wealth of fragrant memories which 
 abide with me. You see, Fourth Dimensional things won't go into 
 Third Dimensional words. So I shall just write somewhat freely 
 and informally some of the characteristic little things I recall; 
 leaving to his nearer friends and to his colleagues all record of the 
 Doctor's work, his attainments, and his place in the world of Science. 
 
 There is so much that ought to be said of him just as the man, the 
 friendly, courteous, human self of the man; and to those of us who 
 saw him constantly, day after day, every day, month after month and 
 year after year, that rare and radiant memory must in the last analysis 
 completely overshadow or outshine all other sides of a great and 
 many-sided personality. When the Doctor first came to St. Louis, 
 early in 1903, to take up for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition the 
 stupendous task of organizing and vitalizing a Department of An- 
 thropology, he wrought against seemingly hopeless odds. You know 
 how brilliantly he succeeded in this work, bringing together the most 
 extensive concourse of the world's peoples ever planned, but no one 
 outside his office could know what herculean force it took, during the 
 formative period, to carry out this tremendous undertaking. The 
 marvel of the man was his persistent energy, his untiring patience, his 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 103 
 
 definite holding to purpose, his accomplishment of the impossible in 
 the face of hopeless inertia, supreme lack of interest, and utterly in- 
 adequate financial support. But he did it! And with it all, kept 
 sweet ever serenely kind, ever quietly and gently determined, ever 
 the uniformly courteous, steadfastly righteous, victoriously efficient 
 leader and chief. 
 
 We always called him "the Chief" the name fitted him as no 
 lesser title could. And how all the queer folk loved him, the gentle, 
 sweet-natured, responsive Ainu; the chattering, pranksome Pygmies; 
 the grave, stolid Tehuelche, and even the passive, undemonstrative 
 Indians of every tribe. They all adored him, just as we did for his 
 was "the understanding heart." Never shall I forget the picture all 
 these strange folks made as they straggled back across the fields to the 
 Exposition grounds from some fiesta held at Delnar Race Track to 
 which the Doctor had taken his flock one summer Sunday during the 
 exposition period. Led by the Chief, with whom walked old Geroni- 
 mo, they trailed along in the heart of the sunset over the hills, In- 
 dians and Ainu, Pygmies and Patagonians, Japanese and Filipino, 
 red, black, yellow, and white, each in his own tongue and in his own 
 way going over the afternoon's fun surely the most startling and 
 never-to-be-forgotten procession of primitive peoples in all America. 
 
 He was so kind to them, and to all of us. He was so just and con- 
 siderate. He thought straight. He "never even knew the name of 
 fear." He was of all men one who saw life clearly, and saw it whole. 
 He never spared himself, never thought of self. Never, in all the 
 years I served him, never once did I know him to think or say or do 
 an inconsiderate, or an unjust, or an unkind thing. And yet no man 
 could be so stern and so relentless toward the wrongdoer, if neces- 
 sary. There was no excuse for any wrong, or any mistake. He de- 
 manded the best and he got it, for he gave the best. He had the 
 rare faculty of inspiring and holding devoted personal loyalty and 
 unswerving allegiance. More than anyone I have ever known 
 he exemplified the incomparable, indomitable courage of William 
 Vaughan Moody's "Fire Bringer." 
 
 He didn't preach, he just lived all the things he expected from us. 
 I shall never forget his saying, .toward the close of one particularly 
 turbulent Saturday, "Now remember the Golden Text for.tomor- 
 
104 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 row, is 'Patience, and Tolerance, and Reticence."' Seems to me 
 that's a pretty fair "Golden Rule" in itself. It has stood by me 
 many a time when the hasty word almost spoke itself. 
 
 No one was ever so royally generous of his time, of his unparalleled 
 store of knowledge, of himself. Although never really well from the 
 time I first knew him over ten years ago, he never spared himself 
 even when suffering. He seemed able to inhibit the personal ele- 
 ment, to eliminate the personal equation. In thought and theories 
 he was fifty years ahead of his times, but when associated with great 
 movements he never cared to have his own name featured, but with the 
 modesty of the truly great soul he quietly pursued his upward way, 
 inspiring and carrying onward with him all who came to him for 
 counsel and courage. 
 
 In his writings he possessed the most remarkable felicity of ex- 
 pression, choosing unerringly the one right word. The strain of Irish 
 blood showed in the vein of poetry the vein of sadness, which are 
 born at a birth with Irish humour and Irish wit. It was more than a 
 liberal education to work for him and with him, for he was more than 
 an unusually remarkable man; he was a rare wonder of a man, an 
 all-round, every-sided marvel of a man. 
 
 His far-sighted, clear-headed grasp of things, his knowledge and 
 force and high hopefulness, were nay, are an inspiration to all who 
 fathered the Conservation movement, and to all whose lives he 
 touched. Rugged, and simple, and strongly individual in his whole 
 life, nothing so gloriously proclaims the rare quality and great white 
 soul of the man as the manner of his leaving this life. 
 
 Whether or not he himself believed in "ultimate continuity" (as 
 Sir Oliver Lodge has it) as essential to science, we who so truly love 
 and reverence the splendid memory of this invincible spirit, this tri- 
 umphantly victorious soul must needs know (with Sir Oliver) "that 
 memory and affection are not limited to that association with matter 
 by which alone they can manifest themselves here and now, and that 
 personality persists beyond bodily death." And though we said 
 "Artemidorus, farewell!" we can not credit that so valiant a soul 
 could die, could pass to that last strange change, could perish from 
 itself and cease to be. Surely his departure from our sight is but 
 another step forward in the unceasing progress. 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 105 
 
 From Doctor Oswald Schreiner, of the United States Bureau of 
 Soils: 
 
 I knew Doctor Me Gee only during the last few years of his life so 
 rich in experience and attainments. Recognizing his great personal 
 force and his devotion to lofty ideals, to broad conceptions of science, 
 and to the men who like himself labored for these things, it became a 
 matter of regret to me that I had not had the inspiration of his 
 guidance earlier. His charming personality, his truly wonderful 
 power of expressing himself, and his great ability to see the inter- 
 relationship of things, had the effect of inspiring me with a renewed 
 energy to labor on the difficult problems we were discussing, although 
 I could not always subscribe to the deductions made. Though in- 
 terested to some degree in the controlled results of modern laboratory 
 science, he concerned himself much more with the broad philosophies 
 based on observations in nature's own laboratory. He was a pro- 
 found student of the great out-of-doors; he was a close observer, and 
 had a retentive memory for even the minutest details of observations 
 made as far back as his boyhood days in Iowa, as I had occasion to 
 discover when we were discussing the occurrence and origin of the 
 black coal-like fragments of soil organic matter. His ideas on soils I 
 found extremely suggestive and helpful, though in the cold light of 
 experimental science they seemed sometimes to go beyond the demon- 
 strated facts. 
 
 As the science of chemistry is by nature a laboratory study, he 
 seemed less in sympathy with chemical philosophy than with those of 
 other sciences. Atomistic concepts of matter seemed to appeal little 
 to him. From such discussions he would wander to the broader con- 
 ceptions of the structure of the universe, and thus give a cosmic in- 
 terpretation to all concepts of matter. His cosmic concepts inter- 
 ested me, almost charmed me by their boldness, yet I must frankly 
 confess that at times his philosophy was not very clear to me. To 
 inanimate matter he appeared almost to attribute functions and even 
 motives of action. Although admittedly an agnostic, yet he seemed 
 at times on the very verge of pantheism. 
 
 Doctor McGee was a constant source of inspiration and he gave 
 freely of his vast learning to all who came to him with earnestness 
 
106 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 of purpose, proving himself always a sympathetic critic and counsellor. 
 His great devotion to the public interest, which was evident in all his 
 actions and showed itself in all his plans, needs no especial comment 
 from me. In his duty to the public, he always served to the best of 
 his ability. I deem it a great privilege to have been counted among 
 his friends, and my good fortune to have been his colleague in related 
 lines of scientific inquiry. 
 
 From Doctor Eugene A. Smith, State Geologist of Alabama: 
 
 Doctor McGee visited Alabama and was my guest many times 
 when our Coastal Plain work was in progress. That was during the 
 " eighties." I found his suggestions of the very greatest value, and 
 was most thoroughly in sympathy with him in his contention that the 
 lithologic and stratigraphic characters of our Coastal Plain formation 
 were entitled to as much weight as the Paleontological, and that a 
 geological map should show all these characters and subdivisions 
 wherever they could be consistently followed out. In other words, a 
 geological map should not necessarily, and in many cases not even 
 desirably, be a paleontological map. 
 
 The Atlantic Coast equivalent of Hilgard's Orange Sand was named 
 by McGee Appomatox, but since by the rulings of the United States 
 Geological Survey the use of a descriptive name for a formation was 
 forbidden, he agreed to leave to Doctor Hilgard, who had years before 
 described this formation the selection of a name which would pass 
 muster at headquarters. After a conference between Hilgard, Le- 
 Conte, Loughridge, and himself at Berkeley, the name Lafayette was 
 selected, the type locality being in Lafayette County, Mississippi, in 
 the eastern part of which the most characteristic occurrences of the 
 Red Sand, pebbles and other beds, are to be found overlying the 
 Eocene everywhere, capping the hill tops, and unconforrnable to the 
 Eocene in every case. 
 
 At the Lunch Club of the younger members of the United States 
 Geological Survey McGee was the subject of a good deal of good-nat- 
 ured chaffing for having surrendered his name Appomattox, the favor- 
 ite quotation being "We've met the enemy and we are their'n." 
 Everybody will agree that Doctor Hilgard was entitled to considera- 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 107 
 
 tion in this matter, but how many would have had the unselfishness 
 to do the right thing at the sacrifice of a little personal credit. 
 
 Another incident might be cited as showing a characteristic of the 
 man. A few months before his death I invited him to join me at 
 Oxford, Mississippi, for the purpose of going over together some of the 
 exposures of the Lafayette in that county, since some doubt had been 
 thrown upon the age of some of the occurrences. He wrote that he 
 would be very glad to join me in this trip, the details of which we could 
 arrange a little later. A few days after this I received another letter 
 from him in which he said that in his first letter he had not perhaps 
 been sufficiently frank with me, since he was suffering from some in- 
 ternal trouble which would certainly take him off in a very short 
 time, but whether in a few weeks or a few months he could not say. 
 I think he died within a month. 
 
 Regarding McGee's work on the Lafayette, while we may not all 
 agree with him in his conclusions, and while he may have included in 
 his monograph some things that were not Lafayette, yet I think all 
 must agree that this treatise on the Lafayette in the Twelfth Annual 
 Report of the Director of the United States Geological Survey will 
 always remain one of the classics of our Coastal Plain geology. 
 
 From Professor J. W. Spencer, of Washington: 
 
 His mathematical paper relating to the Glacial Theory was that 
 which first attracted my attention to Doctor McGee. His early 
 pages on the "Forest Beds" and the geology of northeastern Iowa 
 opened other fields to me, as my earlier studies had been in the region 
 of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River. I was then living in 
 the west. Our friendship began at the time of a visit to Washington 
 in 1883. 
 
 McGee's laborious investigations in Iowa contributed largely to the 
 foundation of the present views of the Glacial history of the Missis- 
 sippi Valley, and of America generally. However, his farthest-reach- 
 ing researches were those of the Coastal Plain, extending all the way 
 from New Jersey to Mexico, and covering an area of 300,000 square 
 miles. The same features have since been observed by me for an- 
 other thousand miles in Mexico, thus extending the work of McGee. 
 
108 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 Outside of the earlier studies of Professors E. W. Hilgard and E. 
 A. Smith, in the Gulf States, very little was known of these wide-spread 
 mechanical deposits, in which much confusion was likely to arise. 
 Many writers were speculating upon the Glacial phenomena of the 
 north, while few were interested outside of their own limited fields, 
 much less caring for the geology of the south, although Professor Dana 
 had been interested in the subject. 
 
 McGee's work upon the coastal plain was not a revision with even 
 variations, but a new chapter in geology as great as the area covered. 
 This investigator did not fail to appreciate the rights of others, but 
 consulted with them, and adopted the term "Lafayette," which had 
 been used by Hilgard. 
 
 In Doctor McGee's studies of the soils, the same originality is found 
 in an old but unexplored field. The last time I heard him speak was 
 upon the subject of water being at lower levels in the soil than before 
 its cultivation, so that the water-supply in soils would limit the density 
 of population. 
 
 McGee's labors in these and other fields show that he had no su- 
 perior among his contemporary geologists, and some of his achieve- 
 ments were monumental. 
 
 To me it was a source of regret that his geological researches were 
 restricted by his diversion to anthropology, although this branch 
 added to his versatility. Yet I never heard him express himself up- 
 on this point, as he seldom showed his feelings, being guarded in his 
 speech. 
 
 In his ethics, he had regard for the rights of others. He had been 
 an independent and also an official investigator, realizing the difficul- 
 ties of both classes. He was tolerant of the theoretical views differing 
 from his own. Seeing the necessity of promoting independent re- 
 search, he attended the organization meeting of the Geological Society 
 of America, which Society was founded for that purpose. I believe 
 that he was the only representative of the United States Geological 
 Survey present. It was under his editorship that the Bulletin as- 
 sumed its admirable form. So also he avoided the introduction of 
 useless controversies, as in a case where an adverse criticism was 
 appended to a paper. The editor sent the whole proof to the author, 
 who replied, having the facts and logic on his side. This led the critic 
 to withdraw his remarks, as did the author his reply. 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 109 
 
 Another side of his character should not be overlooked, his grati- 
 tude and loyalty, which raises his character as high as his scientific 
 attainments. I was informed of the following incident only after his 
 death. The names will be omitted unless made known by my in- 
 formant, who conveyed to Doctor McGee the offer of a very distin- 
 guished position. His reply was "Oh, how I should like to accept it. 
 I should prefer it to any other in the country, but I can not take it, 
 for the old man (Major Powell) needs me. Yet I should like to have 
 it, but I can not leave the Major." By way of explanation it should 
 be added that Major Powell's health was failing, and he would have 
 been compelled to retire, if McGee had abandoned the sinking ship, 
 although it meant his own future and life. Louis Agassiz was once 
 asked what his greatest work had been, and replied that it had been 
 the making of five observers, although four had become his enemies. 
 McGee would not have been in that list. 
 
 Here may also be stated what is not generally known. It was 
 McGee who suggested to Major Powell the name of the one whom he 
 nominated as his successor in the Directorate of the United States 
 Geological Survey, and who was thereupon appointed. 
 
 From Dr. J. J. Stevenson, of New York: 
 
 During a visit to the Survey building in Washington, about thirty 
 years ago, it was suggested that I might be interested in the outcome 
 of an attempt to piece together the recently published county maps 
 of the Pennsylvania Geological Survey. That outcome was not 
 comforting to me, as a former member of that organization, but I was 
 greatly interested in the sturdy young man who had patched together 
 the, as my guide termed it, "crazy quilt." This young man was 
 W J McGee, who had just completed at his own expense a Pleistocene 
 survey of northeastern Iowa. He had little to say and his conver- 
 sation gave no hint of that fluency of speech and abundance of knowl- 
 edge, which in later years were so painful to his opponents in dis- 
 cussion. What he did say was pithy, direct; he recognized the 
 bearing of every question and gave the answer without waste of 
 words. 
 
 During frequent visits to Washington in immediately succeeding 
 years, I met McGee in such a way as to bring about a certain degree 
 
110 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 of intimacy. It must be conceded that the interviews were not always 
 as comforting as I had hoped, but confession must be made that they 
 were always profitable. He seemed to have read almost everything 
 within his reach. His memory was unusually retentive, and his power 
 of assimilating knowledge was surprising. Some men have a great 
 stock of information, but the items appear, for them, to have no 
 inter-relations they hang around the walls of their memory like 
 hams in a meat-shop, all complete but wholly disconnected. 
 
 Not so with McGee. His knowledge was arranged, it was his own, 
 and had received his impress. He made his debut as an authority 
 on questions in geology at a meeting of the American Committee on 
 the Geological Congress in 1888, which he attended as representing 
 Major Powell. At that meeting, the reports of the several subcom- 
 mittees were read, beginning with that on the oldest rocks. Each 
 member present had come with a document which he regarded as 
 typically good. McGee discussed most of the reports earnestly, 
 courteously, and with such evident accurate knowledge as to be 
 discomforting to some of the authors. One, who had suffered most 
 severely, besought me to build a levee to close the crevasse and to 
 save us from drowning. All were convinced that McGee would be a 
 power to be reckoned with. 
 
 Somewhat later, after organization of the Geological Society, I 
 was thrown for a time into somewhat closer relations, and saw the man 
 from a different standpoint. He showed peculiar efficiency as an 
 organizer; he knew not only what he wished to do or to have done by 
 others, but also how it should be done. He was not satisfied with 
 planning, he set himself to the accomplishment of the plan. One 
 instance out of many suffices. He was dissatisfied with methods of 
 publication prevailing in scientific societies. At an early meeting of 
 our Society a committee was appointed on his motion to consider the 
 matter. He prepared an elaborate report, accompanied by a printed 
 example. The form was approved, and he was chosen Editor with 
 authority to enforce the rules and he enforced them. It is quite 
 possible that at times he used less of suamter in modo and morefortiter 
 in re than was agreeable to authors, who felt that their importance 
 deserved more of consideration ; but he certainly succeeded in bringing 
 about a reformation. Prior to his installation, authors too frequently 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 111 
 
 paid little attention to the form of their manuscript, and the burden 
 of rendering it clear to the printer was left to the editor, who, in too 
 many cases, was compelled also to rearrange the material. Not in- 
 frequently, the manuscript was in such shape as to add to the cost 
 of composition. But McGee made sharp differentiation between the 
 several duties of the society, the editor, and the author; and his sys- 
 tem was adopted more or less closely by many other societies. After 
 a service of two years, when the precedents had become firmly estab- 
 lished, he retired from the work, with high reputation as a dictator 
 to whom the geologists were greatly indebted. 
 
 McGee was, in complete sense of the term, a self-made man. It is 
 very certain that he regarded his success in this work with some 
 degree of complacency, which occasionally aroused not wholly good- 
 natured criticism. He had acquired a vast stock of well-digested 
 knowledge and had added greatly to the world's stock of new knowl- 
 edge; comparing himself, in these respects, with many others who had 
 enjoyed the advantages of scholastic training as well as those coming 
 from early associations, he found no reason for shamef acedness. There 
 is no doubt that the conditions led him to express himself in debate, at 
 times,with undue positiveness and without full regard to his opponents. 
 But no one of us need be in haste to cast stones at another. We are 
 all too ready to forget that a generous Providence has endowed us 
 with a liberal supply of defects and are too ready to denounce the 
 faults which we see in others, but which, thank God, do not exist in us. 
 Yet McGee never seemed to entertain ill-will against any on his own 
 account; I never heard him speak disparagingly of other geologists, 
 though he did not hesitate to discuss their work. He always seemed 
 to feel that the world is large enough for all. 
 
 Reference has been made to McGee's memory and to his pride as a 
 self-made man. He recognized that he was a strong man, and that 
 he was not alone in that recognition. He was so strong that he saw 
 no discredit in acknowledging indebtedness to those who had helped 
 him up the ladder when he was struggling at the foot. He was not 
 ashamed to be grateful and was ready to prove gratitude by self- 
 denial. This characteristic was proved on one occasion, to which 
 reference may be made here as both principals are dead. Prof. James 
 Hall, who, for a period of two generations, was state geologist of 
 
112 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 New York, had reached the age when his physical forces were yielding 
 to the strain at Albany, where during his long career he had been 
 amazingly successful in antagonizing state officials by defeating their 
 efforts against him. He felt that it would be well for him and for 
 the work if a younger man could be put in charge while he could 
 still control the appointment of a successor. Several men were con- 
 sidered and at length he decided that, if McGee would take the place, 
 he would retire at once. 
 
 Within a few days later, I had occasion to visit Washington and 
 took advantage of the opportunity to lay the matter before McGee, 
 then connected with the Bureau of Anthropology, of which Major 
 Powell was the head. He was assured that the appointment was 
 certain, if he desired it; he knew perfectly well the conditions and 
 burdens of the position; they were such as appeal to an aggressive 
 self-confident man. After the matter had been laid before him, he 
 was asked for an answer. Tears were in his eyes and some had found 
 their way to his cheek. "That is what I have wanted^what I have 
 hoped for; but I can't go; the Major needs me." That was all; the 
 answer was final. Major Powell had become unable to perform the 
 duties of his office, and McGee was one of the few who knew it. He 
 was doing double work, the Major's and his own, for the Major's sake, 
 because years before Powell had recognized the young man's ability 
 and had given the opportunity to prove his worth. 
 
 McGee's loyalty to his friends was intense, almost a weakness. 
 He seemed little capable of fighting a battle for himself and appeared 
 practically indifferent to attacks upon himself; but he resented with 
 almost hatred what be believed to be injustice to one whom he knew 
 to be his friend. In such cases he was betrayed into a harshness of 
 language which startled those who knew him best. But, as I well 
 know, the inherent manliness of the man led him to regret such 
 outbursts, and to repent in sackcloth and ashes. 
 
 It would be impertinent for me to speak about the scientific worth 
 of McGee's work, as for the most part it concerns portions of the 
 geological column outside of my restricted area; but one thing is cer- 
 tain, he saw phenomena clearly and recorded his observations hon- 
 estly, in such fashion that, if he had made errors in observation or 
 conclusion, the reviser would find no difficulty in discovering them. 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 113 
 
 I have had occasion to study very closely several of his contributions, 
 and respect for his method increased with the reading. 
 
 I would lay a double wreath upon his tomb ; one to the friend whom 
 I have lost, the other to the student who has left an abiding impression 
 upon several branches of American science. 
 
 From Professor J. E. Todd, of the University of Kansas. 
 
 My thought goes back to a day in 1878, when I first met Doctor 
 McGee at a St. Louis meeting of the American Association. We 
 each of us presented our first papers before the Geological Section. 
 We were both from Iowa. He had a retiring, almost bashful, man- 
 ner, and I took pleasure in introducing him to several acquaintances 
 whom I had met while studying in the east a few years before. 
 
 In 1881, while spending a winter at Washington, I received a letter 
 from him asking me to make some inquiries from Major Powell, then 
 Director of the United States Geological Survey, concerning some 
 formations in northeastern Iowa. During our interview, Major 
 Powell volunteered the remark that he considered McGee a very 
 promising young man. This I naturally repeated to McGee. I can 
 not doubt that that remark had much to do with his going to Wash- 
 ington a few years after and with his brilliant career there, which dis- 
 tinguished him over all the world. I have met him several times at 
 various scientific meetings, and have often been impressed with his 
 native ability, his quiet confidence, his resourcefulness, and the 
 uniform success which rewarded his efforts. 
 
 He made mistakes and made enemies; from many of these I 
 have often thought a thorough education would have saved him. 
 He deserved great credit for having achieved so much despite the 
 disadvantages of his early life. Few have done so well. I have 
 always found him a genial companion and a faithful friend. 
 
 From Doctor Thomas Wayland Vaughan, chief, section of Coastal 
 Plain investigations, United States Geological Survey: 
 
 McGee's most important geologic contributions were those he made 
 to the geology of the Atlantic and eastern Gulf Coastal Plain while 
 connected with the United States Geological Survey, which he joined 
 
114 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 in 1883. He was placed in charge of the Potomac Division of geology 
 in 1885 and the scope of the territory over which he exercised super- 
 vision was gradually extended until in 1890 it comprised most of the 
 Atlantic Coastal Plain and the part of the Gulf Coastal Plain east of 
 Mississippi River. His study of geologic problems was commensurate 
 with the limits of the region, and in his publications he devotes atten- 
 tion to it throughout its extent from Cape Cod to the Mexican border 
 and from the Gulf of Mexico to southern Illinois. 
 
 McGee is one of a series of investigators in this region, and should 
 be considered in relation to his predecessors, to his contemporaries, 
 and to his successors. Among his predecessors were H. D. Rogers 
 and Cook in New Jersey, Tyson in Maryland, W. B. Rogers in Vir- 
 ginia, Emmons and Kerr in North Carolina, Tuomey in South Caro- 
 lina and Alabama, Hilgard in Mississippi, Safford in Tennessee, 
 Loughridge in Kentucky, and Hilgard and Hopkins in Louisiana. 
 Besides those mentioned, other geologists, prominent among whom 
 were Lyell and Conrad, had made notable contribution to the geology 
 of the Coastal Plain. Among his contemporaries were Salisbury in 
 New Jersey; Fontaine, Ward, Darton, Kerr, and J. A. Holmes in the 
 Middle Atlantic slope; Smith, Dall, L. C. Johnson, and Langdon, in 
 the eastern Gulf Coastal Plain; Hill and Call in Arkansas; and Hill 
 and Penrose in Texas. The contemporaneous investigations by mem- 
 bers of the United States Geological Survey, from Maryland south- 
 ward to the Mississippi River, except those by the paleontologists Fon- 
 taine, Ward, and Dall, were under his supervision. Excellent as was 
 the work of many of these geologists, among whose names are those 
 of men of great distinction, its scope was mostly areally limited, 
 and the attempt had scarcely been made to correlate geologic phe- 
 nomena throughout the vast extent of the entire region. 
 
 There was in all of McGee's work on the Coastal Plain a dominant 
 motive to which a large part of his influence on succeeding investi- 
 gations is to be attributed. This motive was to discover the genetic 
 principles underlying the geologic phenomena to which he paid 
 attention, and to base his classifications on homogeny. 
 
 He gave particular consideration to physiology, stratigraphy, and 
 physical geologic history. In treating the physiography, besides de- 
 scribing the relief of the land surface, the drainage courses, and the 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 115 
 
 shore lines, he made an attempt to ascribe the various land forms and 
 the peculiarities of drainage and shore line to the causes that had 
 produced them. These lines of investigation led to a proposed genetic 
 classification of physiographic features. The influence of Powell, 
 Gilbert, and Chamberlin is acknowledged in this phase of his work. 
 The genetic principle was also fundamental in his stratigraphic work. 
 He was not satisfied with the mere description of stratigraphic units 
 and physically tracing them as far as possible, but he also tried to 
 reconstruct the conditions under which sedimentation took place, 
 and to ascertain the source whence the sediments came. He was led 
 to study the record of sedimentation with reference to the degrada- 
 tion of adjacent land masses and to consider the diastrophic move- 
 ments whereby the limits of areas of sedimentation and degradation 
 are reciprocally shifted. He developed the principle of homogeny 
 as a basis for geologic correlation and applied it extensively. He 
 endeavored to write geologic history in terms of diastrophism, sedi- 
 mentation, and degradation, his aim being to reconstruct the physical 
 history of the Coastal Plain. 
 
 McGee is largely known to geologists because of the attention he 
 paid to those Coastal Plain formations in which marine fossils are 
 not known. He proposed the name Potomac formation for the non- 
 marine Lower Cretaceous sediments of Virginia and Maryland; he 
 gave the name "Appomattox" formation to certain gravels and 
 loams unconformably overlying the Miocene, and unconformably 
 overlain by geologically later deposits of Pleistocene age in Virginia; 
 and he applied the name Columbia formation to extensive terrace 
 deposits along rivers or facing the coast and to sands or loams on 
 divides. 
 
 He attempted, in his consideration of the Potomac formation, which 
 has subsequently been subdivided into four formations, to recon- 
 struct the geologic history antecedent to its deposition and the phys- 
 ical conditions under which its deposition took place. According 
 to him, the deposition of the " Appomattox" (for which the subse- 
 quently proposed name Lafayette of Hilgard was substituted in 1891) 
 took place during a period of regional depression which lowered the 
 land in amounts ranging from 100 to 1,000 feet below its present 
 altitude. The depression, which was accompanied by crustal warp- 
 
116 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 ing, was followed by uplift and subaerial erosion. The post-Lafayette 
 uplift and erosion was succeeded by subsidence, which, although not 
 so great in amount as the preceding Lafayette subsidence, was like- 
 wise accompanied by differential crustal movement. Three phases 
 of the Columbia formation, the fluvial, interfluvial, and low-level, 
 were recognized. 
 
 McGee's work on the Lafayette was preceded by Hilgard's on the 
 "Orange Sand" of Mississippi, and the concept underlying the treat- 
 ment by each author was to a considerable degree similar. Numerous 
 observations previous to his own had also been made on both fluvial 
 and coastal Pleistocene phenomena. Since McGee's publications on 
 the "Appomattox" or Lafayette and the Columbia formations ap- 
 peared, the late Tertiary and Pleistocene geology of the Coastal Plain 
 had been studied in every coastal state from New York to the Mexican 
 border and throughout the Mississippi Embayment. The investiga- 
 tions are still in progress and their end is not yet in sight. As might 
 have been expected, many of McGee's conclusions have already been 
 greatly changed and it is evident that still further modifications are 
 necessary, but notwithstanding these changes in interpretation the 
 value of his influence on the progress of these researches has been so 
 great that to overestimate it would be difficult. By calling attention 
 to the similarity of phenomena throughout the area of the Coastal 
 Plain, by his attempt to treat these phenomena in a comprehensive 
 and connected way, by his proposing a valuable working hypothesis, 
 and by his attempts to correlate the fluvial and coastal terraces of 
 the non-glaciated areas of the south with phenomena in the glaciated 
 areas of the north, he has greatly contributed to the advancement of 
 geologic research. 
 
 McGee's efforts were not confined to elucidating the geologic his- 
 tory revealed by those formations mentioned, for he endeavored to 
 trace in the Coastal Plain all the different geologic formations or 
 their stratigraphic equivalents throughout their extent, to interpret 
 conditions of sedimentation, to ascertain the source of the sediments, 
 and to correlate the record of sedimentation with that of the degrada- 
 tion of adjacent land masses. By aid of the information procured 
 from these different lines of inquiry, he endeavored to reconstruct the 
 geologic history of the Coastal Plain region from the end of the long 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 117 
 
 period of uplift preceding the subsidence initiating the Lower Cre- 
 taceous to Recent time. He recognized that the aim of historical 
 geology is to present a consecutive coordinate account of the history 
 of the earth, and that geologic progress demanded an attempt to pre- 
 sent such an account. McGee made it, and he did well, especially 
 well .when the meagerness of information twenty years or more ago 
 is borne in mind. 
 
 No estimate of McGee's contributions to Coastal Plain geology 
 would be adequate without considering his personality. It was my 
 good fortune to make his acquaintance shortly after I joined the staff 
 of the United States Geological Survey in 1894; our relations soon 
 became friendly and so continued until his death. As I was his suc- 
 cessor in having under my direction the geologic studies in the terri- 
 tory over which he previously had supervision, it was natural that I 
 should discuss with him problems of Coastal Plain geology. Two 
 characteristics of McGee were impressive. One was an utter absence 
 of personal bias in considering his own previous work. He neither 
 belittled nor defended it. He once said to me "Each succeeding 
 generation has its own problems," intimating that he had done his 
 work and had left the continuance of the investigations to those who 
 were following him. This was not due to apathy but to the clear 
 recognition of the principles underlying scientific advance, for he was 
 interested in the progress of the researches, and discussed problems in 
 the most open-minded way. The other characteristic was his ever- 
 ready helpfulness. An instance of both of the characteristics com- 
 bined in one act may be given: In 1910, E. W. Berry found Wilcox 
 Eocene fossil plants at Oxford, Mississippi, in material cited as typi- 
 cal of the "Orange Sand" by Hilgard, and considered typical Lafay- 
 ette by McGee. As in the literature there was vagueness regarding 
 the type locality of the formation, I reported the results of Berry's 
 investigations to McGee, and requested a statement from him. A 
 copy of his reply, written with the intention that it be published, 
 may be found in the Journal of Geology, vol. 19, p. 251. The quality 
 of this act is evident. 
 
 The geologic work on the Coastal Plain antecedent to McGee was 
 detached and areally limited, although it had engaged the attention 
 of a number of geologists of a high order of ability. He was the first 
 
118 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 to treat the region as a unit and to present its geologic history con- 
 secutively from basal Cretaceous to Recent time. Although he was 
 constructive to a high degree, the data he used were not adequate 
 for a finished product. Subsequently, additional information has been 
 acquired, and his interpretations have been greatly modified, but the 
 goal of geologic investigation, as he recognized it, his own high ideal 
 of research, and the example of his open-minded generous character 
 remain unchanged, and persist to guide his followers in the field in 
 which he labored so effectively. 
 
 From Doctor I. C. White, State Geologist of West Virginia: 
 
 The writer's personal acquaintance with Doctor W J McGee be- 
 gan when the latter was so intimately connected with the late Doctor 
 J. W. Powell, Director of the United States Geological Survey. It 
 was also his good fortune to be associated with Doctor McGee on an 
 important committee of the Geological Society of America, appointed 
 at the first regular meeting of that body in Ithaca, New York, Decem- 
 ber 27, 1888. To this Advisory Committee on Publications, consist- 
 ing of Joseph LeConte, W J McGee, N. H. W'inchell, I. C. White, 
 and W. M. Davis, was referred the very important subject of mapping 
 out plans and rules to govern the publications of the newly organized 
 Society. The committee elected Dr. McGee Secretary, and he made 
 such an exhaustive study of the publication methods of all other exist- 
 ing scientific societies, culling from them whatever features seemed 
 desirable and adding new ones from his own fertile brain, that when 
 the Committee met there was but little for the other members to do 
 except to approve the work of its talented Secretary. The admirable 
 publication plan reported by Doctor McGee at the Toronto meeting 
 of the Society, August 28, 1889, was adopted almost verbatim by the 
 Council, and the wisdom and forethought of its principal author is 
 sufficiently attested by the 20 odd splendid volumes already issued 
 which place the publications of the Geological Society of America 
 fully abreast of those produced by any other similar organization in 
 the world. It was during the several meetings of this Committee 
 that the writer realized the wonderful breadth of comprehension and 
 fullness of knowledge with which Doctor McGee's master mind was so 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 119 
 
 richly endowed. This many-sided culture and apparently boundless 
 knowledge acquired through a life of toil, often for the daily necessi- 
 ties of existence, are all the more remarkable when it is considered 
 that their possessor never enjoyed collegiate advantages and that he 
 was really self educated. 
 
 The writer occupied a seat at Doctor McGee's table in the dining 
 room of the Cosmos Club for two or three days only a few weeks 
 before the fatal termination of the malady from which he was suf- 
 fering, and there learned from him the nature of his illness. His 
 clear and calm analysis of the incurable disease which was rapidly 
 sapping his vitality; his cheerful frame of mind while he stood almost 
 in the shadow of the last enemy; and his determination to fight off 
 as long as possible the inevitable day which none knew better than he 
 was near at hand, all conspired to add a new chaplet to the laurels of 
 a deathless fame, won by his own untiring efforts during a vigorous 
 and busy life. 
 
 From Doctor Harvey W. Wiley, of Washington: 
 
 My acquaintance with Doctor McGee was of long duration. I 
 met him nearly thirty years ago, and during this long period my 
 admiration and regard for him increased. His was a wholesome in- 
 fluence, manly and lasting. I knew Doctor McGee better as a man 
 than a scientist. Our specialties were far apart, but our human sym- 
 pathies close together. He was scientifically interested in man, dead 
 and living. I was working more for man, present and to come. But 
 our two fields covered all time. 
 
 Doctor McGee was wholly unselfish. A little incident shows his 
 readiness to serve in any and all circumstances. We both attended 
 the meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Science in 
 Toronto several years ago. Lord and Lady Dufferin gave a recep- 
 tion to the Association in the Parliament House. Doctor McGee and 
 I went together. After paying our respects to the Governor Gen- 
 eral and Lady Dufferin, we took our places at the side of the large audi- 
 ence room to watch the brilliant spectacle. After the reception a 
 clergyman came up to us and said to me, "I beg your pardon, but I 
 assume you are one of the visiting scientists, and I am anxious to 
 
120 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 have you fill my pulpit on Sunday evening. The clergymen generally 
 are making similar requests." At that time I had not had any ex- 
 perience in "filling pulpits" and so excused myself "but" I said, 
 "my friend here, Doctor McGee, can preach almost as well as any 
 minister." Doctor McGee came to my rescue and accepted the in- 
 vitation. I am certain no better sermon was preached in Toronto 
 that Sunday night than his. 
 
 The poignant grief his early death brought to his scientific friends 
 in Washington was not of a fleeting nature. We shall remember him 
 with love, and think of him with regret, while memory lasts. I am 
 glad to add this mite to the treasures of this memorial volume. 
 
 From Professor Henry S. Williams, of Cornell University: 
 
 It gives me pleasure to take a little part in commemorating the life 
 of our friend McGee. 
 
 His genial, optimistic, energetic personality will be recalled by all 
 who knew him in the early active days when he was right-hand man 
 for Major Powell in Washington, and doing his own part in Geological 
 Survey work. 
 
 I saw considerable of him on committees concerning the Interna- 
 tional Congress of Geologists, and in preparing for the Washington 
 Congress also in the early days of the Geological Society, and in the 
 debates in meetings of the American Association whenever the age 
 of relics of man in geological formations were at the front. He was a 
 positive man, ready to speak on his side of the question, and always 
 enthusiastic. My special field of geology gradually led me into groups 
 in which he was less often present, and I rarely met him in the latter 
 days except at the Cosmos Club in Washington. 
 
 I am sure he did much to advance the science of Geology which his 
 writing will perpetuate, but my memory recalls more strongly the 
 open, warm-hearted kindly friend we knew as McGee. 
 
 From Richard W. Young, of Salt Lake City, Utah: 
 
 My acquaintance with Doctor McGee extended over a period of 
 six or seven years a privilege that came to me through my connection 
 with the National, now the International, Irrigation Congress. For 
 
WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
 
 numbers of years past, Doctor McGee, by consensus of opinion, has 
 been the most indispensable factor in the growth and usefulness of 
 that influential organization. To his far-seeing and analytical mind 
 were due, almost entirely, the reorganization of the Congress, through 
 which its activities were extended throughout the interval between 
 sessions, and through which its direction was conferred upon a small 
 representative, and effective Board of Governors; and to his practical 
 and scientific insight was to be attributed the fact that the programs 
 of the Congress came to be of great practical worth and benefit to the 
 irrigator At the request of his- co-laborers, he read many papers and 
 delivered many addresses before the Congress, all of the greatest prac- 
 tical and technical value. There was no man upon whom the Irriga- 
 tion Congress leaned so heavily. No man has ever been identified 
 with that organization, whose loss is proving or could prove 
 serious to its welfare. 
 
 We of the Congress, loved Doctor McGee for his unf aikng courtesy, 
 appreciation, and solicitude our sorrow is not merely official, it 
 
 deeply personal . 
 
 On the occasion of his visit to Salt Lake City in February, 1 12, 
 he informed me of his serious illness and in reply to my expressed de- 
 sire to see him at the session to be held in the following October, r 
 informed me that he should not be present, adding that he had but six 
 or seven months longer to live. I told him that I was shocked at hi 
 statement and that surely there must be some mistake, 
 that there could be no mistake; that he had consulted the most skill- 
 ful surgeons and was but reflecting their experienced judgment, 
 last saw him in Washington in the summer, only a few weeks before 
 his demise. He was, as ever, patient, solicitous of the welfare of the 
 Congress, and keenly alive to the problems of the day. 
 
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