Memorial to Bailey Willis (1857-1949)

MEMORIAL TO BAILEY WILLIS (1857-1949) AARON C. WATERS The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. INTRODUCTION The varied and interesting career of Bailey Willis came to an end in a hospital in Palo Alto, California, on February 19, 1949. Born on May 31, 1857 at Idlewild-on-Hudson, New York, he had lived al- most 92 years. During this long life Willis achieved much, and as an imaginative and thought-provoking scholar he left lasting impressions on many of the earth sciences. His work encompassed such wide and varied activities as civil and mining engineer, explorer, diplomat, civic planner, government geologist, university professor, artist, and popular author—all in addition to his principal profession— which was that of field geologist and theoretician with special interests in structural geology and seismology. Soon after Willis' death The Geological Society of America arranged for a memorial to be written, but circumstances prevented its completion. When in June 1961 the Society asked me to prepare this notice I gladly consented, even though my acquaintance with Bailey Willis had started on a warm autumn afternoon in 1930 when he was 73 years old and I was 25; therefore my direct knowledge of his career embraced only the last 19 years of his life, and it began 8 years after his retirement, at the age of 65, from his post as Chairman of the Department and Pro- fessor of Structural Geology at Stanford University. This meeting, by the way, went off quite differently from the way I had expected. It took place the very first day I arrived at Stanford, armed with a fresh PhD from an eastern university and with all the brashness that goes with it, to take up the teaching of courses in structural geology that Professor Willis had given so illustriously before his retirement. Hardly had we been introduced than he turned to me and said: "When your class comes to Chapter V in my textbook . ." I interrupted—much too hurriedly and thoughtlessly—for this was a situation that I had anticipated months before my arrival at Stanford, though I certainly had not expected it to come up at our very first meeting. "Oh, I do not intend to use your textbook," I blurted out, and then stumbled nervously into a carefully rehearsed explanation, warming up a bit at the end as I ran through the familiar reasons—heartily approved by my former professors— that I had given when I outlined to them a plan not to use any textbook whatever; P55 Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/73/7/P55/3427542/i0016-7606-73-7-P55.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 P 56 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY and certainly not Willis', a book which was on a different and more imaginative level from the "solid stuff" in the structural geology courses on which I had been nurtured at Yale! Well, eventually my well-rehearsed speech ran out. Willis had listened politely and attentively without interrupting; now his turn to reply had come, and I braced for the shock. But he merely stood there in silence, his pale- blue eyes fixed on me a bit quizzically for perhaps half a minute—though it seemed much longer. Then a warm smile came over his face and he said, ' 'I am so glad you have come to Stanford. We will have wonderful times together." Then, taking my arm, he added, "But come along, let me show you the University. We will talk about geology textbooks another time." I tell this anecdote to show a fundamental trait of Willis' character: the discon- certing gentleness of his answer illustrates the fact that one could rarely provoke him to battle—and never on any terms except his own. Many times in the years that followed I have seen geologists disagree vigorously with things that Willis had written or said. If the differences of opinion were such as he thought could be reconciled by additional information, Willis would give this information and dis- cuss it freely, but, if that course did not seem likely to be effective, he would adroitly but graciously turn the conversation into other channels. Looking back over the lapse of 32 years I am thankful that he ignored my dismissal of his textbook, for we immediately began to have those wonderful times together that he had promised. Neither of us mentioned structural-geology texts for about four more years, and I hoped he had forgotten the episode. Then one morning he came into my office, plunked down a copy of his text and said: ' 'The first words you ever said to me were that you didn't approve of this book. Now the publishers want a new edition, and you must sit down and mark the pages I am to rewrite, and tell me why." During this four-year interval some of the "solid stuff" that I learned in graduate school had collapsed; moreover I had also perceived the glimmerings of a more imaginative as well as a more judicial approach to structural geology. So, even though Willis and I always differed fundamentally on many topics, I look back over the ensuing discussions as among some of the most interesting and stimulating of our association. SCHOOL DAYS IN GERMANY Bailey Willis' habit of turning aside useless controversy may have arisen partly from events that occurred during his none-too-happy early school years in Germany. Willis' father, a poet and journalist, died when Bailey was only ten. Financial reverses then compelled his mother to close the estate on the Hudson where little Bailey had spent happy years romping with two faithful dogs among the cliffs and glens. The family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they remained three years. Here Bailey's maternal grandfather, the Arctic explorer, Joseph Grinnell, outlined a program for his grandson's education that was more demanding than the one favored by the boy's mother. Plans for school, however, were temporarily interrupted by a serious bout with scarlet fever. This illness and the medical com- Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/73/7/P55/3427542/i0016-7606-73-7-P55.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY P 57 plications that followed endangered the boy's life over a period of many months, but his recovery was complete, and for the rest of his life Willis enjoyed excellent health. After this illness a brief interlude of traveling in England and Switzerland with his mother and sisters followed before Bailey, then thirteen years old, was separated from his family to begin schooling in Germany. At first he lived with a Polish-Prussian family in a partly restored castle dating back to the eleventh century. He was then enrolled in German boarding schools where he came under the stern discipline of Prussian schoolmasters. This abrupt change from the sparkling literary atmosphere and freedom of expression that had prevailed within the Willis household compelled a rigorous readjustment both in the way of life and in the manners of the growing boy. Concerning these boarding-school days Willis has written: "The school . was said to have excellent discipline, and I would say that it had, by Prussian standards. You did as you were told and you did it in- stantly. ... In arithmetic twenty boys took down an example to work. You stepped out into line when you had it correctly. At the end of three minutes those who had not given the right answer held out the right hand as the teacher distributed the encouragement of a blow with a split rattan to each one. Two minutes more was the grace allowed to get the answer, failing which you held out the left hand. My German schooling taught me one invaluable lesson: to concentrate upon my studies." But young Willis was learning other lessons as well; he developed not only a thorough distaste for stupidity, brutality, and petty tyranny masked beneath the guise of authority; he also acquired the skill, determination, and guile necessary to expose and circumvent their practitioners. His reminiscences relate occasions when a bullying older classmate, and once when even a pompous and dogmatic teacher, were brought unexpectedly to physical disaster by a skillfully planned and carefully co-ordinated attack. Willis learned to concentrate on his studies, it is true; but he also learned the habit of determined, purposeful rebellion against senselessly used authority. His own evaluation of school days in Germany is interesting: "The results greatly influenced my whole life, though it would be hard to say whether for better or for worse." In 1874 Willis returned to the United States and entered the School of Mines at Columbia University, where his formal education was completed. He was there awarded the degree of Mining Engineer in 1878 and of Civil Engineer in 1879. COAL BEDS, FORESTS, AND VOLCANOES While he lay ill with scarlet fever as a twelve-year old boy, Willis' mother had fired his imagination by reading aloud accounts of various explorations, among them the records of the Grinnell expeditions to the Arctic. These had a special interest for both because of his grandfather's having led them. Moreover, his studies at Columbia were completed at a time when his interest in exploration had good op- portunities for realization. The early geologic reconnaissances of the western United States under the direction of F. V. Hayden, G. M. Wheeler, Clarence King, and Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/73/7/P55/3427542/i0016-7606-73-7-P55.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 P 58 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY J.

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