Grove Karl Gilbert: A Great Engine of Research (9781587296185): Stephen J. Pyne

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Grove Karl Gilbert: A Great Engine of Research

by Stephen J. Pyne

University of Iowa Press, 1980
Paper: 978-1-58729-618-5 | eISBN: 978-1-58729-754-0

ABOUT THIS BOOK

As Stephen Pyne reveals in his biography, few other scientists can match Grove Karl Gilbert’s range of talents. A premier explorer of the American West who made major contributions to the cascade of new discoveries about the earth, Gilbert described two novel forms of mountain building, invented the concept of the graded stream, inaugurated modern theories of lunar origin, helped found the science of geomorphology, and added to the canon of conservation literature.
Gilbert knew most of geology's grand figures--including John Wesley Powell, Clarence Dutton, and Clarence King--and Pyne's chronicle of the imperturbable, quietly unconventional Gilbert is couterpointed with sketches of these prominent scientists. The man who wrote that "happiness is sitting under a tent with walls uplifted, just after a brief shower,", created answers to the larger questions of the earth in ways that have become classics of his science.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Stephen Pyne is Regents Professor and historian in the School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, and the author of many books and articles on the history of exploration and environmental history. In 1995 he was awarded the Robert Kirsch Award from the Los Angeles Times for his body-of-work contribution to American letters.

REVIEWS

"Stephen Pyne has chosen to emphasize the unique Gilbert blend of geology and mechanics in his treatment of Gilbert’s scientific life and career. Pyne’s fresh insights into Gilbert’s four great monographs, and his recognition of a unifying method and motivation in Gilbert’s studies, are sufficient to grant this biography a lasting place in the literature of science history. . . . Pyne’s biography will stand for many years as the definitive study of Gilbert’s scientific contributions, and it will serve as an indisputable reference for any student of nineteenth-century geology."—Annals of Science

"Stephen J. Pyne has filled a gap in the history of American geology by writing the first modern biography of Grove Karl Gilbert . . .His account places Gilbert's professional attainments squarely in the context of other developments in the coming of age of American geology"--Science

TABLE OF CONTENTS

i. In a Nutshell 3
The Education of a Classicist 5
A Clerk in the Cosmos II
Of Mastodons and Mathematics: The Cohoes Potholes 17
Cracking the Nutshell 20
2. "Astride the occidental mule" 22
A Volunteer Assistant 22
"Labels written by the Creator": John Strong Newberry 28
"Hydrographical peculiarities" 34
West with Wheeler 37
"A systematic approach": The Geology of a Reconnaissance 5 i
The Lieutenant and the Major 57
3. The Major Years 64
"The western fever" 64
By Virtue of Its Ensemble: Powell, Dutton, Gilbert 72
"Certain allied problems in mechanics": The Henry Mountains 83
Languages for a New Geology: Mechanics, Mathematics,
Literature 95
The Society of a Geologist 1o3
4. A Great Engine of Research io8
The Division of the Great Basin io8
The Revolving Chair: Chief Geologist of the U.S.
Geological Survey II3
The Scientist as Aristocrat: George Ferdinand Becker 126
Lake Bonneville 134
Time's Ratio: The Meaning of Geologic History 145
"A little daft on the subject of the moon" i52
The Great Basin Mess 16o
5. Grade 167
A "buried star" 167
The Mean Plain 179
The Inculcation of Scientific Method 186
The Text for a University Science: Thomas Chrowder
Chamberlin 193
An Elder Statesman 2o0
6. The Inculcation of Grove Karl Gilbert 203
Geophysics in the Giant Forest 203
Gilbert the Glaciologist 219
Gilbert the Geophysicist 226
Gilbert the Geomorphologist 236
The Cycle of Erosion: William Morris Davis 254
A New Life 262
Notes 269
Sources 291
Biographical Memoirs 295

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