James Dwight Dana and John Strong Newberry in the US Pacific Northwest: The Roots of American Fluvialism

Jim E. O’Connor*

US Geological Survey, 2130 SW 5th Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97201, USA

ABSTRACT Recognition of the power of rivers to carve landscapes transformed geology and geomorphology in the late nineteenth century. Wide acceptance of this concept—then known as “fluvialism”—owes to many factors and people, several associated with exploration of western North America. Especially famous are the federal geographic and geologic surveys of the US Southwest with John Wesley Powell and Grove Karl Gilbert, which produced key insights regarding river processes. Yet earlier and less-known surveys also engaged young geologists embarking on tremendously influ- ential careers, particularly the 1838–1842 US Exploring Expedition with James Dwight Dana and the 1853–1855 railroad surveys including John Strong Newberry. Informed but little constrained by European and British perspectives on landscape formation, Dana and Newberry built compelling cases for the erosive power of rivers, largely from obser- vations in the US Pacific Northwest. They seeded the insights of the later southwestern surveys, Dana by his writings and station at Yale and his hugely influential Manual of Geology, published in 1863, and Newberry by becoming the first geologist to explore the dramatic river-carved canyons of the Southwest and then a forceful proponent of the federal surveys spotlighting the erosional landscapes. Newberry also gave Gilbert his start as a geologist. Although Dana and Newberry are renowned early American geologists, their geomorphic contributions were overshadowed by the works of Powell, Gilbert, and William Morris Davis. Yet Dana and Newberry were the first ardent American proponents of fluvialism, providing strong roots that in just a few decades transformed western geology, roots nourished in large measure by the geologically fertile landscapes of the US Pacific Northwest.

Introduction Rivers carve landscapes. Geologists, geographers, 1859), William Buckland (1784–1856), Charles Lyell and National Park interpreters preach this without (1797–1875), Louis Agassiz (1807–1873), and Charles pause. It is the starting premise for the vibrant field Darwin (1809–1882).DescribedbyCuvieras of fluvial geomorphology even though details are still “burst[ing] the limits of time,” these men—enabled being worked out, and other planets have joined the by easier travel and communication—created a new field. The power of rivers seems obvious now. Two science of Earth history (Rudwick 2005, 2008). hundred years ago, it was not. In subtle yet direct Hutton published Theory of the Earth; with Proof ways, this transformation and widespread understand- and Illustrations in 1795 and Agassiz Études sur les ing of relations among rivers and landscapes owes Glaciers in 1840. These works bookend a period of to exploration of the US Pacific Northwest. intense dialog and debate—Cuvier and Hall’sdeluges Geology flourished in the early nineteenth cen- and earth revolutions versus Lyell’s uniformitarian- tury, inspired by European and British naturalists ism; Hutton and Playfair’s fluvialism against Buck- and travelers. These included James Hutton (1726– land’s diluvianism; strongly directional or contingent 1797), Horace de Saussure (1740–1799), John Playfair geotheories, such as Werner’s global subsidence and (1748–1819), Abraham Werner (1749–1817), Sir James Darwin’s theory of evolution, contrasting with the Hall (1761–1832), Georges Cuvier (1769–1832), William more timeless steady-state or cyclic views of Hutton, Smith (1769–1839), Alexander van Humboldt (1769– Playfair, and Lyell. Finally, Agassiz’s Ice Age opposed Buckland’s catastrophic floods and Lyell’s drifting icebergs. Manuscript received May 11, 2017; accepted October 10, 2017; electronically published January 26, 2018. The contentions of these divergent views partly * E-mail: [email protected]. hung on whether rivers carved landscapes. Could

[The Journal of Geology, 2018, volume 126, p. 229–247] q 2018 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0022-1376/2018/12602-0005$15.00. DOI: 10.1086/695701

229 230 J . E . O ’ CONNOR streams cut their surrounding valleys in accordance power of surficial drifts and raised beaches, was unques- with the premise of Lyell’s (1830–1833) “causes tionable evidence of the power of ordinary rainwater, now in operation,” or did valleys require some sort given time, to slice through thousands of feet of rock. ’ of cataclysmic opening that rivers and streams then There could be little doubt, according the explorers fell into? Could rivers have transported all the miss- accounts, that the river could remove the detritus sup- plied to it from above. (Tinkler 1985, p. 140) ing strata from the mountains and filled the deposi- tional basins? And if so, how was there enough time? Fluvialism does indeed owe to southwestern US Despite Hutton, Playfair, and Lyell (at first) making exploration. These surveys produced tours de force strong cases that streams indeed could do this work, of river processes and landscape evolution such as protests persisted (Chorley et al. 1964; Tinkler 1985, G. K. Gilbert’s Report on the Geology of the Henry p. 94–96): If rivers cut valleys, why then deep lakes Mountains (1877), John Wesley Powell’s Explora- and fjords instead of smooth valley profiles? What tion of the Colorado River of the West (1875), and about marine erosion? Why all the hanging valleys in Clarence Dutton’s Tertiary History of the Grand the Alps, violating Playfair’s doctrine of accordant Canyon District (1882b). And perhaps more im- junctions? Why the congruence of river valleys and portantly, they dramatically publicized key concepts structural lineaments? And why the common mis- such as “base level” and “grade” that geologists match between stream size and valley geometry— quickly and widely adopted. But underlying these ex- the ubiquitous “underfit” streams in which wide plorations and reports are others now less well known. valleys contained small rivers? Such questions still In particular, North American geologists James sustained the debate. In 1840, it was not yet obvious Dwight Dana (1813–1895) and John Strong New- that rivers eroded valleys. berry (1822–1892) parlayed youthful berths as geol- By 1900, however, fluvialism—the concept that ogists on exploring expeditions of the PacificRim rivers erode landscapes—had taken hold. Most of and the US Northwest in the 1840s and 1850s into the earlier objections were now attributed to specific long-lasting and influential careers. They both fa- circumstances, such as glaciation, climate change, mously touched many topics, geologists, and scien- and valley-blocking landslides. The hugely influen- tific institutions—Dana renowned as a mineralogist, tial “geographical cycle” of William Morris Davis volcanologist, and grand synthesizer, Newberry as a (1889, 1899) and most subsequent syntheses of land- paleontologist. Both were founding officers of the scape evolution are premised on the power of rivers Geological Society of America. Neither is much re- (e.g., Ahnert 1970; Whipple and Tucker 1999; Lague membered for his insights on river processes. Yet 2014). both clearly first established an American school of Geology’sswingtofluvialism between 1840 and fluvialism—one that soon after transformed geology. 1900 can be traced in large measure to westward US Dana and Newberry accomplished this in part with expansion and the increased prominence of North their influential careers and students, but first and American explorers and geologists who studied and foremost with their observations, many drawn from publicized these landscapes (Chorley et al. 1964, the US Pacific Northwest. p. 467–648; Tinkler 1985, p. 138–144; Goetzmann 1986). Thomas Jefferson set precedent by instruct- James Dwight Dana and the ing Lewis and Clark to observe the “soil & face of US Exploring Expedition the country” among other geologic attributes dur- ing their 1804–1806 exploration to the Pacificofthe The United States Exploring Expedition (US Ex Ex) newly acquired Oregon Territory (Moody et al. 2003; launched from Norfolk, Virginia, on August 18, O’Connor 2004). Later mid-nineteenth-century ex- 1838. Captained by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, six ploration surveys had geologists attached. And the ships carried 346 officers, sailors, and civilians on a federal geologic and topographic surveys of Clarence four-year circumglobal expedition culminating in King, Ferdinand Hayden, George Wheeler, and John one of the premier exploring, charting, and scien- Wesley Powell crisscrossed the west starting in 1867, tific expeditions of all time (Stanton 1975; Viola and later merging as the US Geological Survey in 1879. Margolis 1985; Goetzmann 1986; Philbrick 2003). The comprehensive and beautifully illustrated re- The US Ex Ex had many goals. Foremost was to ports of these western surveys left no doubt of spec- enhance US maritime influence by exploring and tacular fluvial erosion. According to Tinkler, these charting the extent of the Pacific Ocean. But it also surveys and reports, particularly Powell’s, aspired to put the United States on the scientific map, a supersized version of previous British and fired the public and scientific imagination. Here, in un- European exploring expeditions that so contributed paralleled splendour, far from the complications of the to global knowledge and commerce, such as James Journal of Geology DANA AND NEWBERRY: THE ROOTS OF AMERICAN FLUVIALISM 231

Cook’s 1768–1784 exploration of the Pacificand Couthouy (conchologist), and James Dwight Dana Alexander von Humboldt’s 1799–1804 travels to South (geologist). Couthouy was dismissed from the expe- America (Goetzmann 1986). dition in 1840, leaving Dana with responsibility for An additional high priority of the US Ex Ex was Crustacea. Some of the posttrip reporting and anal- exploration of the northwestern United States and a ysis was carried on by renowned scientists not on the survey of the Columbia River—a view from the sea expedition, including John Cassin of the Academy of the far-ranging Oregon Territory to complement of Natural Sciences, Asa Gray of Harvard, Spencer the continental explorations of the 1804–1806 Lewis Baird of the Smithsonian, and Louis Agassiz, then at and Clark expedition and the soon-to-follow 1842– Harvard (his immense volume on fish, completed in 1845 expeditions of John C. Frémont. Since 1818, the the last years of his life, was never printed, but the Oregon Territory had been jointly occupied by the Smithsonian Institution has the unpublished man- United States and Great Britain. The main presence uscript). in the southern part of the territory was the British James Dwight Dana (fig. 1) boarded the US Ex Hudson’s Bay Company, which had outposts at Fort Ex in 1838 at age 25, recently graduated from Yale Vancouver (near present-day Vancouver, WA) and College in 1833 under the tutelage of the natural Fort Nisqually (near Tacoma, WA), but Americans scientist Benjamin Silliman. Between 1833 and 1835, trickled in with increasing numbers, pressuring a he taught mathematics and science aboard a US na- decision on a fixed border between the two countries. val ship, providing him views of eruptions of Vesu- Proposals ranged from as far north as 54740′,northof vius in the Mediterranean (Dana 1835; Gilman 1899; Vancouver Island, to the British proposal promoted Pirsson 1919). Beginning in 1835 and until his ap- by the Hudson’s Bay Company to place it south along pointment with the US Ex Ex, Dana was back at Yale, the Columbia River, now separating the states of assisting Silliman in his laboratories. During this Oregon and Washington. The US Ex Ex signified a US time he published the first edition of A System of military presence as well as a source of information Mineralogy (Dana 1837), a title still in print today. He to support treaty negotiations. was, however, looking for additional experience as a Although beset with drama, the expedition was geologist outside of the laboratory, and the opportu- successful scientifically. The US Ex Ex produced nity to join the US Ex Ex was the opportunity of a 23 volumes of trip narratives and scientific reports, lifetime. including hundreds of maps, charts, and illustrations Dana made the most of this opportunity and was (Stanton 1975; Goetzmann 1986; Philbrick 2003). perhaps the most prolific of the US Ex Ex scientists. Most of this material is available online in the Smith- Upon returning in 1842, he authored three of the sonian Institution Libraries Digital Collections (www 15 scientific volumes eventually printed: Zoophytes .sil.si.edu/digitalcollections/usexex). The narratives (1846), Geology (1849), and Crustacea (1852). To- and reports are bolstered by tens of thousands of ar- gether these totaled more than 3000 pages. Despite tifacts and specimens and reams of meteorological, the harsh “naval servitude” for the scientifics (Dana astronomical, oceanographic, and ethnographic data. to Asa Gray, May 6, 1839; in Stanton 1975, p. 137), it The US Ex Ex collections became the basis for the launched his career as one the most influential Smithsonian Institution. American geologists of the late 1800s (Stanton 1975, The scientific success in part owed to Wilkes, a p. 369–372; Natland 2003). Dana’s volumes were narcissistic leader but an inquisitive and energetic some of the best of the expedition; Charles Darwin observer (Goetzmann 1986; Philbrick 2003). He wrote Dana, “Why, if you had done nothing else supervised data collection and reporting of meteo- whatever, it [the Crustacea volume] would have rology (Wilkes 1851), hydrography (Wilkes 1861), been a magnum opus for life” (in Gilman 1899, and physics (not published), in addition to five vol- p. 318). Likewise, Louis Agassiz wrote Dana in an 1847 umes of trip narrative (Wilkes 1845; Overstreet, n.d.). letter (in Gilman 1899, p. 318), “I began studying The narratives contain many wonderful accounts your Zoophytes, but it is so rich a work that I proceed and observations of landscapes and cultures before slowly. For years I have not learned so much from a they were overrun by Western influence but also book as from yours.” And Alexander van Humboldt cringe-worthy grandstanding and unsavory racism. described the geology volume as “the most splen- The scientific success of the expedition, however, did contribution to science of the present day” (in mostly owes to the seven accompanying “scien- Stanton 1975, p. 372). Dana’s geologic contributions tifics,” as the civilian scientists were known. These famously include distinguishing and asserting the were Horatio Hale (linguist), Titian Peale (natural- permanence of continental and oceanic terrains; ist), Charles Pickering (naturalist), William Bracken- confirming and expanding upon Darwin’sideasof ridge (botanist), William Rich (botanist), Joseph P. the origin and evolution of coral reefs; descriptions of 232 J . E . O ’ CONNOR

Figure 1. A youthful James Dwight Dana. Drawing from Wikimedia Commons, modified from a version originally in Popular Science Monthly (1872, v. 1, facing page 362). volcanism, the formation and erosion of volcanoes, deep precipitous gorges which cut through the high- including linear trends (and age progression) in the est mountains almost to their bases” in a Novem- mid-Pacific; and recognizing that the PacificOcean ber 22, 1838, letter to Edward C. Herrick (in Gilman was surrounded by a “grand volcanic border” (Dana 1899, p. 97). Possibly enlightened by watching the 1847; Igler 2010). These later observations, of course, consequences of a torrential mountain downpour in predate plate tectonics by more than a century, yet Tahiti, Dana (1849) argued for the efficacy of fluvial Dana recognized that these patterns are from a “sin- erosion, writing that “rapid declivities . . . give force to gle system” (1849, p. 678). descending torrents” (p. 10) and “if we remember that Throughout his reports, Dana emphasized the these mountain streams at times increase their vio- ability of streams to erode valleys, addressing head- lence a million-fold when the rains swell the waters to on the still uncertain role of rivers in carving land- a flood, all incredulity on this point [erosion] must be scapes (Dana 1849, 1850a,1850b). Early in the removed” (p. 388–389). He described the erosion of journey, near Rio de Janeiro, Dana described “the oceanic islands in the Pacific, positing that the degree Journal of Geology DANA AND NEWBERRY: THE ROOTS OF AMERICAN FLUVIALISM 233 of valley incision related to orientation to prevailing Geology, contain many nuggets of regional geology, weather directions and, for the Hawaiian Islands, to fluvial processes, and landscape evolution. relative age (Dana 1849, p. 380–390; 1850b). On the topographic control of rivers, he offers three But Dana’s most insightful and comprehensive observations that anticipate Powell’s (1875, p. 163) statements regarding fluvial erosion and landscape categorization of “antecedent” (rivers flowing across evolution are in the final 68 pages of Geology, sum- structure) and “consequent” valleys (those following marizing and synthesizing his observations during structure)—even using the term “in consequence”: his July 18–November 2, 1841, explorations in the The influence of the position of the mountain ranges on Pacific Northwest. fi the course of the rivers, is worthy of attention. . . . Dana literally crashed into the Paci c Northwest. We observe therefore that the arrangement of the The ponderous sloop-of-war the Peacock grounded mountains has given the remarkable expansion and length on the Columbia River’s treacherous entrance bar to the Oregon rivers. . . . on the evening of July 18, breaking up over the next So the Cascade Range, without the Coast Mountains, two days. Dana, three other scientists, and the rest of would have given rise to a number of little streams, with the crew of about two dozen were rescued, saving small and narrow alluvial flats, flowing with few turns to nothing but the clothes on their backs and some of the coast. But with the existing features of the surface, the the scientists’“public documents” (Dana to Charles streamlets collect into the larger rivers; and these flow fi Wilkes, July 30, 1841; in Gilman 1899, p. 130–131). long distance north or south, to nd their exit either into fl The crew recovered on the shore of Baker Bay on the the Columbia or the Bay of San Francisco. They ow, too, in consequence of this arrangement, notwithstanding the river’s north side, then at Astoria on the south side. ’ ’ general slopes of the country, lying at almost a uniform Neither Dana s accounts nor Wilkes s(1845)Narra- distance from the ocean, and they there spread alluvial ’ tive specify Dana s movements, but as inferred from plains to the great improvement of the country. The Wil- Dana’s reports and Wilkes’s Narrative, he spent the lammet Valley is a striking example of this, and the Sac- next several weeks exploring north along the coast to ramento and Joaquin, with their broad alluvial lands, are Grays Harbor and south to Saddle Mountain in the others. (Dana 1849, p. 616–617) Oregon Coast Range. Later, Dana moved 107 miles Powell goes further in discussing implications upriver to Hudson Bay’s Fort Vancouver, venturing regarding the relation of the valleys to structural his- upstream to the Hudson Bay Company’s grist mill at tory, but Dana adroitly discusses the geomorphic (and river mile 115 and possibly as far upstream as Cape human) consequences of the long and winding con- Horn, at river mile 128. sequential routes. As Tinkler (1985, p. 52) notes, this Most of Dana’sPacific Northwest observations idea was not totally original; Hutton (1795, 2:370) were during an overland trip that left Fort Van- concluded from map patterns that the Appalachian couver in late August or earliest September 1841 ridges directed the courses of rivers such as the Po- and traveled south, arriving in San Francisco on tomac. October 24 (fig. 2). This group, led by Lieutenant The following three passages from Dana are among Emmons, ascended the Willamette Valley, crossed several describing the natural levees rimming the the Umpqua, Rogue, Shasta, and Klamath valleys floodplains and islands of the lower Columbia River. draining west from the Cascade Range, and went His pattern was to first describe the feature and then down the Sacramento valley, paralleling today’sIn- infer causes. After describing, he poses several mech- terstate 5 (fig. 2). It was an arduous and somewhat anisms of natural levee formation that mirror mod- hurried trip, marked by tension with the Native ern understanding (e.g., Klasz et al. 2014): Americans near the California border (Wilkes 1845, 5:230–266). In compiling his geology report for The Columbia, below Vancouver, abounds in alluvial Oregon and northern California, Dana mainly re- islands as well as submerged flats. The islands have gen- lied on these observations, but because he arrived erally the same height as the lower prairie, but are usually on the late-arriving Peacock and did not travel as depressed at centre. From the broad line of cottonwood widely in the Pacific Northwest as other crew mem- and willows which borders them, the surface gradually fl bers, he supplemented his Pacific Northwest assess- declines inward to a low at, sometimes below low water level, though generally somewhat above it. . . . ment with reports from all the various US Ex Ex ex- The lower prairies of the [Columbia] river, like the al- plorations in the region. These included surveys of luvial islands, are generally highest along the shores, and Puget Sound and inland expeditions of what became covered with a forest line, while the surface back is much eastern Washington, northeastern Oregon, and west- depressed, and a bare meadow. . . . ern Idaho. The less height of the land back from the shores may be Dana’s geologic observations on Oregon and north- owing to the following causes: the fact that the waters ern California, the seventeenth and final chapter of flowing along tend to heap material on the banks, from 234 J . E . O ’ CONNOR

Figure 2. Map showing general routes and timing of the Pacific Northwest explorations of James Dwight Dana and John Strong Newberry. Topographic base from National Geographic. the counter-currents produced along the shores; that the raise the surface by adding their own bulk to that of the shores are covered with shrubbery and trees, which are soil; that the plain, back from the shores lies for some calculated to entangle or stop the floating leaves and time under water during freshets, which exerts a pressure branches of the river, and secure a conservable part of its upon the material below, and may render it more com- detritus; that the vegetation of the shores is contributing pact than the alluvium of the shores. (Dana 1849, p. 666– to the accumulations; that the roots, also for the trees 667) Journal of Geology DANA AND NEWBERRY: THE ROOTS OF AMERICAN FLUVIALISM 235

Dana’s insights here were likely aided by Wilkes’s the mouth of the Sacramento. . . . If the reader will bring observations of the Columbia River in flood in late before him the necessary circumstances attending such May and early June: phenomena, the impossibility of this mode of forming these facts will be evident. But we are not left to this kind of ev- I witnessed the Columbia at its greatest and least heights, idence alone. and no idea can be formed of it unless seen at both these These terraces on the Sacramento [fig. 3] occur to a epochs. The flood is a very grand sight from the banks of distance of at least one hundred and fifty miles from the the river at Vancouver, as it passes swiftly by, bearing sea; thus far, they were examined by the writer; and they along the gigantic forest trees, whole immense trunks appeared to extend up the larger branch, as far beyond as appear as mere chips. They frequently lodge for a time, in the eye could reach. At the point here referred to, they which case others are speedily caught by them, which were as high as any point lower on the river, having nearly obstructing the flow of the water, form rapids, until by a the same elevation, in all parts examined, above the ex- sudden rush the whole is borne off to the ocean, and in isting level of the river. The flats were many miles in time lodged by the currents on some remote and savage width, until reaching the Caquines Straits, near the Bay of island, to supply the natives with canoes. I also witnessed San Francisco, and here is the only place where any bar- the undermining of large trees on the banks, and occa- rier could have existed. In the first place, a permanent sional strips of soil: thus the does the river yearly make barrier of at least four hundred feet would be required to inroads on its banks, and changes in its channels. hold the waters back so as to cover the upper terrace one The waters of the Columbia have no fertilizing quali- hundred and fifty miles above the mouth of the river; and ties. . . . It is, when taken up, quite clear, although it has a in the second place, such lake should have its surface turbid look as it flows by. Quantities of fine sand are slope like the present bed of the river, for that is the fact however borne along, and being deposited in the eddies, with the level of the terrace,—of course an impossibility. rapidly form banks, which alter the channel in places to a Wherever the bed of the river was four hundred feet above great degree. (Wilkes 1845, 4:360) the sea, there the terraces should die out, or have the level of the present lower flat, instead of having a correspond- Dana’s (and Wilkes’s) discussion is one of the first ing height along its whole course, or perhaps, a greater on the formation of natural levees. Moreover, it one in the upper part of the valley. fl extends his treatment of uvial systems beyond ero- It is therefore impossible that one or many lakes should sion to depositional processes, evidently inspired by accomplish such a result as we have before us; it is the examining several sections of floodplain and terrace proper effect of river floods, and the terraces must be re- stratigraphy during the course of the overland trip. ceived as indicating a change of level in the country. Especially relevant to geomorphology and fluvial- The utter inability of the lake or barrier theory, will ism are the six and one-half pages in a section titled be farther evident when the extent of terraces over the “Evidence of Change of Level in the River Ter- United States, east of the Rocky Mountains is under- races.” This text dances, awkwardly, with the key stood. Unfortunately, this branch of American geology concepts of grade and base level: has not yet received the attention it deserves. . . . Was this change of level an abrupt one, or was it slow Another epoch in the geological history of Oregon is in- and gradual?. . . If a country rises abruptly, the river will dicatedbytheriverterraces....Thereappeartobebut commence to work itself to a lower level, and proceed two ways of accounting for these river terraces: either with rapidity, ending finally in attaining the very gradual lakes have existed along the rivers, which have burst their slope of ordinary rivers, a descent of one to two feet per barriers, or the rivers have excavated the country in mile. At the same time, in the seasons of floods, the river consequence of an elevation. . . . would wear into the former alluvium, (now its banks,) Rivers cut out their channels by a gradual process, as and widen its surface; and this widening would go on a country is raised above the ocean, forming, with few every successive freshet, till the river had a new lower exceptions, a complete drainage of the land. Lakes could plain on its borders. The material being easily worn away, not, therefore, exist to the universal extent implied by the these results would not require a long time. This effect— facts, except, perhaps, as the result of a sudden rising of the formation of a river plain for the river to meander the land from the ocean. through—we have shown on the valleys of the Pacificand The formation of such lakes, by an abrupt elevation, in those of Australia, to be a necessary result of flowing a region having the ranges of heights parallel with the waters. coast, as in Oregon, is certainly a possibility. But the But would not the effect be the same during a gradual water, to make the alluvial accumulations, must be run- rise? As the country rose slowly, the excavation of the ning water, and it must be in operation in its channels river’s bed and the lateral widening during freshets would for a long period. And how long would such lakes exist go on gradually with the same results, producing a deeper after an elevation? If the violence attending the change of bed and a new lower flat, both of which would change as level did not at once open for them a passage, the accu- the change of level progressed. If the lower flat in the mulation of water on during a single flood, would break a course of its changes resisted removal in any part, the part passage through such soft sandstone beds as occur about left standing would form a subordinate terrace between 236 J . E . O ’ CONNOR

Figure 3. Dana’s depiction of terraces traced for several days travel along the Sacramento River. The terrace above the riser labeled “M” was “between two and three hundred feet above the river.”“N” and “O” are lower discon- tinuous terraces with risers of 6–8feet.“A” represents the river bank. From Dana’s Geology (1849, p. 663). the upper level, or that of the plain before the rise began, dicating that they were formed by flowing rivers and the lower level, or that attained when the elevation “attaining the very gradual slope of ordinary rivers, ceased. a descent of one to two feet per mile” (p. 673). These If this be a true statement of the effects, a terrace slope observations and inferences anticipate the more thor- might be formed by a gradual elevation; and also without ough treatments of river profile development by geol- any intermission in the process, there might be inter- ogists Powell (1875, 1876), Gilbert (1877), and Mackin mediated terraces in some parts of the same region. We cannot therefore consider a terrace in an alluvial region (1948), while drawing on earlier engineering treat- fi certain evidence of an abrupt rise of the country,—or, ments of river pro les, such as that of French civil what is the same in its results, an abrupt sinking of the sea engineer L. G. Du Buat (as summarized by Chorley level. (Dana 1849, p. 672–674) et al. 1964, p. 88–90). Dana concludes that the terraces owe to “eleva- Dana seems to develop his thinking as he writes, tion” or “change of level” to which the rivers re- possibly derived from new observations and insights spond by incising. Although not as lucid or as fully as he traveled south. The river-flanking surfaces are developed Powell’s (1875, p. 203–204) “base level of “flats,”“prairies,” (p. 619) or a “plain” (p. 660) in the erosion,” its meaning is essentially the same: that Willamette Valley but are mostly “terraces” in the rivers incise profiles graded to a controlling eleva- Umpqua River valley and south (p. 662). He also tion—in Dana’s case, the ocean—and that changes seems to apologize for the incompleteness of thought in this level lead to new profiles. Dana makes clear development by suggesting that this topic needs more in these passages that erosion below the ocean sur- attention. face is untenable because erosion needs the energy Nevertheless, Dana introduces the concept of of flowing water. Dana also notes that the changes in graded profiles here in a geologic context, partly level, whether rapid or slow, can produce the same based on his earlier observations in the south Pacific. outcome and that it is the relative change in level, To discount the lake theory, Dana notes the constant rather than absolute change, that controls the re- height of the terrace surfaces above the present slop- sponse—land uplift or sea level fall will produce the ing rivers and their sand and gravel composition, in- same results. Journal of Geology DANA AND NEWBERRY: THE ROOTS OF AMERICAN FLUVIALISM 237

Dana then applies this concept in attempting to un- routes to the west coast. By then, the United States derstand the high-latitude fjords mapped by the US had consolidated its expansion to the Pacific Ocean: Ex Ex: on the north by the 1846 treaty with England agree- ing on the forty-ninth parallel boundary (informed In the course of our remarks on the general features of ’ fl by Wilkes s quick report to Congress of the naval Oregon, we have brie y mentioned the narrow channels fi which cut into the coast to a great depth, like artificial bene ts of Puget Sound) and to the south with the canals, occurring in great numbers, from Puget’s Sound to Mexican cession of California in 1848. Congress was Behring’s Strait. The origin of these channels is an in- anxious to connect the two coasts, spurred in part by teresting inquiry. . . . the gold- and land-rush-fueled peopling of the west These fiords must have formed, in general, either by (Albright 1921). marine denudation,bysubaerial denudation,orbyrup- The federal railroad surveys consisted of five sep- turings of the earth’s crust [Dana’semphasis].... arate explorations between 1853 and 1855. Four in- Subaerial denudation is our last cause, the only other vestigated east-west alignments, ranging from the mode of origin to which we can appeal. And this implies northern US border between the forty-seventh and that the land was higher above the sea when subjected to forty-ninth parallels to one following the thirty- this wear; and also that the fiords were originally the second parallel, near the US-Mexico border. A fifth valleys of the land. The subsidence of a country, contin- fi ued till its alluvial region along the coast is submerged, survey, conducted in 1855, was speci ed by Con- will necessarily make deep bays of its long linear valleys; gress to investigate a north-south route connecting and this is the view to which we are directed by the in- the Sacramento Valley with the Columbia River vestigation of this subject. (Dana 1849, p. 675–676) (Albright 1921). The survey reports, consisting of trip narratives and summaries of topography, geology, With this, Dana neatly applies the concept of base fi — zoology, and botany, are available online from the level to de ne a global question the apparent sub- University of Michigan (http://memory.loc.gov:8081 sidence of the continental margins in the high lat- /ammem/ndlpcoop/moahtml/afk4383.html; accessed itudes. He does not have an explanation for a mech- Nov. 13, 2016). anism, but this passage illustrates his propensity for Lieutenant R. S. Williamson directed the survey wide-ranging thinking, particularly his zest for global between the Sacramento Valley and the Columbia (as well as spiritual) connections, encapsulated in the River. Second in command and author of the final final sentence of Geology: report was Lieutenant Henry L. Abbot, who later These observations bear us on to the grand conclusion, studied river hydraulics and sediment transport on that the changes on our globe have not been produced by the Mississippi River (Humphreys and Abbot 1861). any fitful earthquakes or local changes of limited cause, The survey mustered in San Francisco in May 1855 but rather that they belong to a single system,—the same and proceeded up the Sacramento River valley, into system which, under a Divine hand, originated the great the Klamath Basin, and then via the Deschutes lineaments of the earth, giving shape to its continents, River basin to The Dalles. The survey separated in and courses to its mountain chains. (Dana 1849, p. 678) places to search for passes over the Cascade Range Quite a transformation for a man who joined the US into the Willamette Valley. They traveled north- Ex Ex as a crystallography expert. ward and mostly were east of the Cascade Range— well east of Dana’s US Ex Ex southward trip west of the range (fig. 2). They completed their fieldwork, reaching Oregon City, on October 19 (Abbot 1857). John Strong Newberry and “Explorations and Like Wilkes’s (1845) narrative, Abbot’s (1857) trip Surveys, to Ascertain the Most Practicable and account is fascinating reading, detailing the trials Economical Route for a Railroad from the of overland travel through the arid, broken land- Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean” scapes and dense, mountainous woods of the Pacific The US Ex Ex returned to the New York Harbor in Northwest. After a hard day’s bushwhacking, “We the summer of 1842. By then, John C. Frémont had were all fully convinced that wandering amid ‘forest already started his 1842–1845 overland explorations primeval’ in poetry, and among the Cascade moun- of the Rocky Mountains, Great Basin, Oregon, and tains, are two essentially different things” (Abbot California. Although lacking a geologist, Frémont (1845) 1857, p. 98). described geologic conditions, and some of his maps John Strong Newberry served as physician, geol- were incorporated into the atlas produced by the US ogist, botanist, and zoologist for the expedition (fig. 4). Ex Ex (Wilkes 1844). The next set of US Government– Newberry was born December 22, 1822, in Windsor, sponsored expeditions with geologists on board were Connecticut, but the family soon moved to Ohio the 1853–1855 surveys to explore potential railroad (Kemp 1893; Waller 1943; Aalto 2010). He earned degrees 238 J . E . O ’ CONNOR

Figure 4. A young John Strong Newberry. Image courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives; image #SIA2009– 1798 (http://vertebrates.si.edu/fishes/ichthyology_history/ichs_colls/newberry_john.html). at Western Reserve College (1846) and Cleveland October 4 (Abbot 1857, p. 96) to investigate possible Medical School (1848), where he was mentored by coal resources in Washington, returning by ship to Dr. Jared P. Kirtland, who, like Dana, was a student of San Francisco from Fort Vancouver. Newberry’s Silliman at Yale. After graduating, he spent two years (1857) “Geological Report,” part 2 of Abbot’soverall studying medicine and geology in Paris, returning to report, follows this route, appended by a section on Cleveland in 1851 to practice medicine. Neverthe- economic resources, particularly coal and gold. less, he continued his interest in natural science, Newberry’s (1857) “Geological Report” never publishing several papers on fossil plants and serving achieved the acclaim of Dana’s (1849) wide-ranging as secretary of the Cleveland Academy of Natural Geology and derivative reports (that Newberry draws Sciences. In 1855, at age 32, he gave up his successful upon). Yet it too contains key geologic insights medical practice to join the railroad survey (Kemp (Aalto 2010). Newberry’s perspective differed from 1893; Waller 1943). Dana’s, being mainly from east of the Cascade Range. Newberry traveled with the party from San Fran- And whereas Dana was enthralled by the volcanism cisco to The Dalles. He separated from the survey on of the Pacific, the ubiquitous lavas bored Newberry: Journal of Geology DANA AND NEWBERRY: THE ROOTS OF AMERICAN FLUVIALISM 239

“the monotonous prevalence of recent volcanic faction, except to conclude that it was not a burial rocks” near Mount Lassen “gives an uninteresting mound (Wilkes 1845, 4:334, 442). monotony to the geology of the surrounding region” As the expedition moved up the Sacramento (Newberry 1857, p. 30, 31). Farther north, he de- River, Newberry saw the consequences of human scribes the lava beds near Medicine Lakes Volcano alteration of the stream systems: in two places as “exceedingly monotonous” (p. 32, 37). It is thus ironic that Newberry Volcano within The water of Feather river, at the junction with the Sac- ramento, is so highly charged with sediment, derived Newberry National Volcanic Monument in central from the gold diggings on its tributaries, that it is ren- Oregon is named for him. He becomes more ani- dered quite opaque, and has a color as decided as that of mated when discussing fossils, a lifelong interest. the rivulets in the streets of our towns during a thun- And on this trip, Newberry (Newberry 1857, p. 17) dershower. was particularly intrigued by landscape development The red color of Feather river, so noticeable at its and history: “The surface is thrown into hills, often junction with the Sacramento, is for the most part, derived rising several hundred feet, but in gentle swells and from the Yuba, which have occasioned so great destruc- slopes, with smooth and graceful curves, never pre- tion of property at Marysville, have left piles of drift-wood senting a broken outline.” Here, in describing the ter- forty feet above its bed. (Newberry 1857, p. 23) rain near Benicia, east of San Francisco, Newberry de- These passages show that in the first years after the scribes rounded convex hilltops, which later stymied 1848 discovery of gold in the Sierran foothills, placer G. K. Gilbert in his monograph of the Henry Moun- mining, accelerated by hydraulic mining, had already tains (Gilbert 1877, p. 123), but which Gilbert under- aggraded river systems draining into the Sacramento stood by 1909 as equilibrium forms resulting from River. This too became an issue tackled by Gilbert, gravitational creep (Gilbert 1909). spurring his classic end-of-career studies of sediment – Newberry later (p. 46 48) describes and illustrates transport and of the source and fate of the hydraulic “ ” the opposite situation, trap stairs : harder beds, mining sediment (Gilbert 1914, 1917). cemented conglomerates, and lava flows “have in After leaving the Sacramento Valley and crossing the erosion of the cañon formed successive steps, the “monotonous” volcanic landscapes of Mount frequently thirty or forty feet in width.” This also Lassen and Medicine Lake Volcano, Newberry en- anticipates Gilbert’s “law of structure” in the Henry tered the “Klamath Basins” of the western Basin Mountains (1877, p. 115–116) and Dutton’s (1882a, and Range, and the landscape became more inter- p. 163–164; 1882b,p.62–64) assessments of slope esting: profiles. Newberry, like most subsequent explorers and geol- Like the plains of Pit river the several areas, in which are ogists in the region, was mystified by the mounded set Wright [Tule Lake basin], Rhett [Clear Lake], and the topography: Klamath lakes, exhibit the typical features of the struc- ture of the entire region with which they are inseparably Mounds.—Every day while traversing the Des Chutes connected, and which, with very imperfect notions of its basin we noticed upon surfaces occupied by trees num- character, has been denominated the Great Basin. This bers of low and rounded mounds, apparently formed by immense area, cut in various directions by ranges of low causes not now in operation. As we progressed toward mountains and hills, has, by this and other causes, been the north, they became more numerous and of larger divided into many subordinate districts. . . . size...Theyhavehereanaltitude of from three to five Of the many secondary basins which go to make up feet, and a diameter of from twenty to fifty....Although, this area, those which lie nearest the base of the mount I have examined with them with great care, I have been wall [Cascade Range], on the west, receive a larger share unable to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion in respect of the rain precipitated upon it than those which are more to their origin. . . . I have seen in California mounds not remote [to the east]. As a consequence, the supply of very unlike, but of less magnitude, formed by burrowing water received through the year is greater than the annual squirrels, but is seems impossible that this cause could evaporation, and this excess flows off in the streams have here produced them. (Newberry 1857, p. 52) which lead from them. At a period not very remote in the Newberry’s inability to explain what are now called history of our continent, the amount of water falling into the Klamath and Pit river basins was, probably, much Mima mounds in the Pacific Northwest is unsur- greater than now, and covered, to a considerable depth, prising. Geologists have long struggled with their surfaces which are now exposed. The streams which genesis in the region, to no consensus (e.g., Bretz flowed from these areas had greater volume, and flowed 1913; Newcomb 1952; Malde 1964; Washburn 1956; from a higher level than at present. To this cause we may Johnson and Horwath Burnham 2012). Wilkes also attribute the deep channels which they have cut through puzzled on these mounds in what is now known as the resistant material of the mountain barriers which Mima Prairie and even excavated one to no satis- opposed their progress to the ocean. (Newberry 1857, p. 36) 240 J . E . O ’ CONNOR

These passages describe spatial and temporal as- States, predating recognition of similar features in pects of river basin integration, particularly for the Yosemite by Clarence King in 1864 (King 1874; Moore Great Basin. Integrated drainage is more likely to 2006, p. 114). Newberry goes on to attribute the ice the west, where the systems are wetter, and during caps to either significant cooling or the mountains wetter periods, when fluvial systems are more en- having been “several thousand feet higher than at ergetic. These points relate to Dana’sdiscussionof present” (Newberry 1857, p. 43). He opts for recent the terraces of the Sacramento River, and they pre- subsidence of a once-higher Cascade Range (and west- sage Gilbert’s (1875, 1890) work in the eastern Basin ern North America), citing Dana’s conclusion of sub- andRangeandIsraelCookRussell’s (1885) investi- sidence forming the fjords and his own inference gation of the closed basins to the west. that the lower Columbia River Valley was a “trough, Newberry is also clearly relating his observations broadly and deeply excavated, and subsequently to the geologic debates of the time. Here he concludes silted up by the sediment” (p. 59). that the landscape owes in part to changed—wetter— Newberry then connects the incised canyons of conditions. It seems that in his view, this opposes the region to the evidence of extensive glaciers, not Lyell’s assertion of the earth being formed by “causes by the direct action of ice but by enhanced river now in operation” (as did the Mima mounds): flow:

We have here evidence of an amount of erosion which Origin of cañons.—The indications of the existence, in can hardly be attributed to the action of any cause now former times, of glaciers extending over large surfaces in operating. . .I can only explain it by connecting it with the the Cascade mountains is closely connected with the presence of a much larger quantity of water in this basin formation of the deep cañons, through which the streams at a former period than is found here now. (Newberry which drain these mountains and the plateau of the 1857, p. 37–38) “Great Basin” beyond uniformly flow. I think we have evidence in the magnitude of the excavation—often in Days later, Newberry finds more such evidence in the most resistant material—as compared with their the form of ice caps emanating from the Three Sisters present volume, that the amount of precipitation which region of high stratovolcanoes: formerly supplied them was much greater than now. This rock, though intensely hard and very homogeneous, (Newberry 1857, p. 42) everywhere bore the marks of the action of some power- And then he continues to connect canyons and river ful agent. It was planed down to a smooth and even sur- erosion with a powerful new argument—the ap- face, or scored into deep grooves or furrows, which were parent scaling of canyon size to the drainage area of sometimes continuous for rods. These grooves ran down the contained river: the northeast slope of the mountain . . . we traced these grooves for several miles to a point two thousand feet The Golden Gate, the Straits of Carquines, the canon of below the line of perpetual snow. . . . All the projecting thePitriver...themanycañonsofKlamathriver,those points and ridges of the older trap rock were worn down, oftheDesChutesanditstributaries...thegorgeofthe smoothed off, and cut by deep furrows, which now Columbia, the most stupendous of all, holding, as they pointed northeast toward the centre of the mountain do, such peculiar and constant relation to the areas which mass formed by the Three Sisters. . . . are drained through them, cannot possibly be regarded as We had evidence in these scratched and furrowed rocks rifts formed by volcanic action in the barriers which they of the former existence in these mountains of glaciers, traverse. The conclusion seems irresistible that they have which extended down at least 2,500 feet below the pres- been formed principally, if not entirely, by currents of entlineofperpetualsnow.... water, of which the present streams are representatives. The area over which these marks of glacial action ex- (Newberry 1857, p. 42) tend is probably very large, including the slopes of the Three Sisters, Mount Jefferson, and all the line of peaks He later marshals evidence discounting the possi- which mark the crest of the chain. And there is little bility that the Columbia Gorge had been cut by doubt that all this surface was once covered, not simply structural or volcanic rifting, leading him to “con- by lines of ice following the valleys, but by a continuous sider the gorge of the Columbia as formed, entirely sheet. . . . or in part, by water” (Newberry 1857, p. 55–56): [B]ut we can hardly suppose that while here the evi- “The Columbia drains many basins and traverses dences remain of glaciers, so wide, and extending to so many cañons before it reaches the great gorge in low a level, that they could have been produced by the which it flows through the mountains; and it came operation of local causes. (Newberry 1857, p. 41–42) to the herculean task of excavating that channel, no In these passages, besides objecting to continuous novice in the art of stone-cutting, but skilled by a operation of local causes, Newberry provides the first training begun with its birth, in the thousand moun- evidence of extensive glaciation in the western United tain streamlets which combine to form it” (p. 53), a Journal of Geology DANA AND NEWBERRY: THE ROOTS OF AMERICAN FLUVIALISM 241 clear statement of the power of rivers from a medical Dana did not work on just the expedition volumes; doctor who later became of the one of the foremost between 1843 and the 1852 publication of Crusta- paleontologists of the nineteenth century. cea, he wrote scores of papers based on his US Ex Ex observations (Gilman 1899, p. 385–394; Pirsson 1919). These included works on corals, coral islands, crusta- After the Expeditions ceans, animal classification, limestones, volcanism, Both Dana and Newberry had wide-ranging and volcanic rocks, ocean temperature patterns, the phys- prescient observations from their tours. But how ical geography of the Pacific Northwest, weathering, did these government reports influence US geology and erosion, and, forming part of his lasting legacy, he and, in particular, fluvial geomorphology? For each first postulated global cooling and contraction as a scientist it was different: as their statures grew, mechanism for generating mountain belts. Nearly all both had political influence in the highest circles of these papers were published in the American Jour- of science. Dana’s effectiveness stemmed from his nal of Science, established and edited by Benjamin prolific writing in the decades after returning— Silliman. Also during this period, he produced two Geology (Dana 1849) itself and scores of spin-offs, new editions of A System of Mineralogy and a 144-page and in 1863, the hugely influential Manual of Ge- book on coral reefs and islands. ology (Dana 1863). By contrast, Newberry’s report During this frenzy of postexpedition writing, Dana and findings from his 1855 trip are hardly known. more gracefully articulated his views on fluvial ero- But that journey was a point of departure to an ex- sion and river profile development (Dana 1850a, ceptional career—important to fluvial geomorphology 1850b; fig. 5). He hypothesized the evolution of con- by planting key conceptual seeds, then mentoring cave river profiles under the combined influence of scientists and supporting people and organizations downstream increases in stream power, attainment of that brought them to brilliant fruition. equilibrium grades where “any excavation . . . is made Dana Leverages the Journey. Dana wrote and up by the material deposited,” and downstream base- wrote. After the return of the US Ex Ex in the sum- level control—referredtoas“permanent height for mer of 1842, Dana began writing the three science the bottom of the lower valley” (Dana 1850a, p. 292). volumes he was ultimately responsible for: Zoophytes Although still not as clear and compelling as Powell, (1846), Geology (1849), and Crustacea (1852). He was Gilbert, and Mackin, nevertheless it is evident that first based in Washington, DC, as obligated by his he provided rich material for others to embellish. continued service to the expedition, but by 1844 he Dana cemented his station at Yale (beyond the was back in New Haven, in the company of his marriage) by accepting a position as Silliman Pro- books and his new wife, Henrietta Silliman, daugh- fessor of Natural History in July of 1848 (Gilman ter of his former Yale mentor, Benjamin Silliman. 1899, p. 159; Dana to Asa Gray, July 12, 1848; in

Figure 5. Reproduction of Dana’s (1850a) woodcut illustrating river profile development. His explanation: “ABCD is the rock to be cut through by the stream. Suppose denudation to produce first the course C n1. The stream is filled, as is commonly the case, by lateral channels and rills down the sides of the gorge, as well as by the main source; and the amount or depth of water is thus in constant increase, as it flows onward. Denudation is consequently most rapid farthest from the head, or towards n1.; the valley, therefore increases in depth in this part till the slope has become so gentle here as to counterbalance the greater amount of water, at which point the bottom of the valley ceases to deepen; in this condition n1 n2 becomes the bottom of the lower valley, and C n2 the steeper portion above it [de- scribed in Dana (1863, p. 636) as the “torrent portion” of the profile]. In the same manner the valley bottom continues to prolong at nearly the same slope, and C n3,Cn4,Cn5 become successively the course of the stream descending into it. And even C n6 is no exaggeration of possibilities; for many examples of it are met with” (Dana 1850a,p.293). 242 J . E . O ’ CONNOR

Gilman 1899, p. 160). He did not actually start teach- so long. Yet his lectures inspired: James T. Gardner, ing until February, 1856, after his US Ex Ex reports a boyhood friend and Yale classmate of Clarence R. were finally published. Although tremendously set King, wrote to his mother, exclaiming, “We had a back by mental breakdowns after this intense spate of splendid lecture yesterday on volcanoes. . . . Dana activity (Gilman 1899; p. 177; Pirsson 1919), Dana has wonderful power of description—setting before continued to write; most articles derived from his US on the most vivid pictures of scenes from his ex- Ex Ex experiences, but he also produced new System tended travels.” (June, 12, 1862; in Moore 2006, of Mineralogy editions, articles on the geology and p. 19). Some of the notable students mentored by geomorphology of the eastern seaboard (including the Dana over his 24 years of active teaching included Taconic orogeny), and several articles on the relation Othaniel C. Marsh, Clarence R. King, Charles D. of geology and religion (Dana was strongly religious, Walcott, Arnold Hague, and his son Edward S. Dana advocating that geology told the story of an omnipo- (Gilman 1899, p. 166). tent hand continuously and progressively shaping the Yale student Clarence King was in particular globe for human benefit; Dana 1874, p. 345). He also enchanted by Mount Shasta, thought then perhaps returned to Hawaii in 1877, resulting in Character- the highest mountain in the nation (Moore 2006, istics of Volcanoes: with Contributions of Facts and p. 24). Dana had sketched and described the volcano Principles from the Hawaiian Islands (Dana 1890). during the overland component of the US Ex Ex, Especially influential was Dana’s 1863 Manual using his observations as lecture material. Spurred of Geology. This book usurped Lyell’s(1830–1833) by a letter describing an 1862 climb of Mount Shasta Principles of Geology in North America and be- by earlier Yale graduates William Brewer and Josiah came the dominant geology textbook for the re- Dwight Whitney, King became set on becoming a mainder of the nineteenth century (Pirsson 1919; geologist and going west (Wilkins 1988, p. 40; Moore Chorley et al. 1964, p. 367–370; Tinkler 1985, p. 92). 2006, p. 25). He “read and reread Dana’s new Manual This book unabashedly advocates fluvialism, partly of Geology” (Wilkins 1988, p. 410) and then went to in the opening chapter on “Physiographic Geology” California, first joining the California State Survey but more fully in the final section on “Dynamical under Whitney in 1863, where a year later he mapped Geology.” He affirms Newberry’s fluvial origin of evidence of glaciation in Yosemite Valley. Then, in valleys in the western United States and further 1867, King, at age 24 and supported by letters from explains valley form and profile, using Du Buat’s Dana and Agassiz, initiated and led the Geologic hydraulic principles and river-profile diagrams such Expedition of the Fortieth Parallel. This was one of as figure 5. This work systematically joins together the four federal geologic and geographic surveys be- fluvial hydraulics, erosion, sediment transport, and gun in the late 1860s. King’s (1878) publication of the deposition (Dana 1863, p. 632–647). Its holistic yet 803-page Systematic Geology was an important step rigorous treatment of fluvial systems reminds me of in the ascendancy of North American geology. He Leopold, Wolman, and Miller’sclassicFluvial Pro- embraced Dana’s fluvialism and, like Newberry, doc- cesses in Geomorphology, published 100 y later umented the great changes to the hydrologic sys- (Leopold et al. 1964). The fourth edition of the tems and landforms of the Great Basin. He described Manual of Geology was printed in 1895, the year of the “age of water catastrophe,” the ice-age flooding Dana’s death. of the large closed basins of the west. Systematic Dana’s writings were probably the most influen- Geology has had lasting influence, particularly for tial aspect of his career in promoting fluvialism, its early synthesis of Cordilleran tectonics (Wilkins particularly in North America, and established him 1988, p. 206–229). Its contribution to fluvialism was as “the first great American fluvialist” (Chorley et al. not as direct, yet still played a key role by placing the 1964, p. 359). Yet his growing role as a teacher and American West into the realm of academic science science leader was also important. He was a founding (Goetzmann 1966, p. 466; 1986, p. 399–405) and by member of the National Academy of Sciences in establishing precedent for the comprehensive and 1863 and of the Geological Society of America in beautifully illustrated government geologic reports, 1888 (and its president in 1890), served as an editor for including the forthcoming reports documenting flu- American Journal of Science between 1846 and 1875, vial landscapes in “unparalleled splendour” by Gil- and was a member of the Academy’s committee ap- bert, Powell, and Dutton (Tinkler 1985, p. 140). pointed to consider consolidation of the four western Although Dana later continued to advocate in his surveys in 1878 (Stegner 1954, p. 235). writings for the efficacy of fluvial systems and in his As a teacher, Dana forged few long-lasting men- politics for the western surveys, the Manual of toring relationships with students, perhaps because Geology and Clarence King were Dana’s critical and his compromised health curtailed his activities for fundamental contributions to American fluvialism. Journal of Geology DANA AND NEWBERRY: THE ROOTS OF AMERICAN FLUVIALISM 243

The Manual of Geology, drawing extensively from as Chair of Chemistry and Natural History at Co- his US Ex Ex experience, and King, inspired by lumbia College in Washington, DC (now George Mount Shasta, are both strongly rooted in Dana’s Washington University), followed by a Civil War overland exploration of the Pacific Northwest in (1861–1865) post with the Sanitary Commission. late 1841. After the war, he returned briefly to teaching at Co- Newberry Moves On. John Strong Newberry’s lumbia College and working at the Smithsonian. In postexpedition trajectory curved differently. He 1866, upon the opening of the Columbia School of wrote the “Geological Report” of his traverse be- Mines in New York City, he accepted a post as pro- tween San Francisco and the Columbia River (New- fessor of geology, botany, and paleontology, which berry 1857) but no more specifically on those ob- he held to his death in 1892 (Waller 1943). Newberry servations. And it seems that his Pacific Northwest is most famous for his paleontology, which was his observations have been mostly ignored, aside from focus after the expeditions and ultimately generated summaries by Waitt (1982) and Aalto (2010). his most significant publications (Aalto 2010). He But Newberry quickly moved on. He had barely was also active in the science community, serving as finished his “Geological Report” before joining the an incorporator of the National Academy, a found- War Department’s Colorado Exploring Expedition ing member of the Geological Society of America, as its naturalist. Searching for transportation routes and in 1867, President of the American Association in the American Southwest and led by Lieutenant for the Advancement of Science. He backed Powell’s Joseph C. Ives, the group of 24 men departed Yuma Colorado River exploration (Stegner 1954, p. 205; on December 31, 1857. They ascended the Colorado Goetzmann 1986, p. 412) and later served with Dana River by 54-foot stern-wheel steamboat to Black on the National Academy on the Surveys, charged Canyon, near present-day Hoover Dam. Not able to with making recommendations regarding the fed- navigate much farther upstream, Ives and Newberry eral surveys and the public lands (Wilkins 1988, and part of the group left the river, exploring the p. 257), eventually advising his personal friend, Pres- southern margin of the Grand Canyon and the Four ident Rutherford Hayes, to select King as the first Corners region, ending at Fort Defiance, Arizona, in director of the newly formed US Geological Sur- early 1858 (Ives 1861; Newberry 1861; Aalto 2010). vey in 1879 (Goetzmann 1986, p. 414; Wilkins 1988, Then, in July 1859, Newberry joined the San Juan p. 269). Exploring Expedition under Capt. H. N. Macomb to Newberry, who long maintained his household explore the upper Colorado and San Juan River basins in Ohio, was also appointed Director of the Ohio (Newberry 1876). Geological Survey in 1869. His early emphasis in The reports from these journeys, particularly the paleontology, now full-fledged, rankled the Ohio Ives expedition, attracted international attention State legislature, who cared little for thick volumes (Pyne 1980, p. 29–30). Here, where landscapes in full on fossil shells, and he was forced to resign in 1874 monty revealed much more than the forest-cloaked (Kemp 1893; Pyne 1980, p. 32). Nevertheless, this Pacific Northwest terrain, Newberry again empha- relatively short episode in his career may have sizes the work of rivers in carving landscapes: “I produced the greatest long-term contribution to flu- may say here, however, that like the great cañons of vial geomorphology. the Colorado, the broad valleys bounded by high In 1869, 26-year-old G. K. Gilbert applied for a and perpendicular walls belong to a vast system of position at the newly formed Ohio Geological Sur- erosion, and are wholly due to the action of water” vey, perhaps as a consequence of meeting Newberry (Newberry 1861, p. 45; original emphasis). And in at a mastodon dig at Cohoes Falls, Albany (Pyne his long-delayed report from the 1858–1859 San Juan 1980, p. 23). Not being from Ohio, Gilbert was de- expedition, Newberry goes further: “Even the imagi- nied the job but given a volunteer position. Over the nation itself is lost when called upon to estimate the next two years, Newberry and Gilbert developed a cycles on cycles during which the much grander close and long-lasting association. Gilbert’sbalance- features of the high table-lands were wrought from a of-forces approach to landscapes differed from New- plateau which once over-spread most of the Colorado berry’s evolutionary views, but it is almost certain Basin, burying the present Sage-plain 2000 feet be- that Newberry’s fluvialism, developed in the Paci- neath its upper surface” (Newberry 1876, p. 84). fic Northwest and sharpened in the southwest, im- The Pacific Northwest expedition, which almost printed strongly. Gilbert conducted all aspects of the certainly enabled the two southwestern trips, even- Ohio geology work and then, during the winter, as- tually led to a career of a stature similar to Dana’s sisted Newberry in New York at Columbia School of (Kemp 1893; Aalto 2010). First were brief appoint- Mines with lectures and specimen collections. Gilbert ments, beginning in 1859, with the Smithsonian and was an obvious choice in 1871 when Newberry was 244 J . E . O ’ CONNOR asked to recommend a geologist to accompany an- Newberry lurks behind the southwestern insights other army exploring trip to the Colorado River (Pyne of Gilbert and Powell. As the first geologist in the 1980, p. 22–36). Gilbert thus joined the Wheeler’sUS Grand Canyon, Newberry (1861) put the exceptional Army Geographical Survey West of the 100th Merid- erosional landscapes on the map. Newberry later ian in 1871. equipped Gilbert first with a job, then with notes and Launched in part by Newberry, Gilbert’s career maps that he had made with Ives and Macomb (Pyne took off. He spent four years with the Wheeler 1980, p. 44), and then, possibly, with Gilbert’slong- survey, then five with Powell’s Geographical and term assistant and colleague, Israel Cook Russell, Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, whom Newberry likely mentored while Russell was and 39, until his death in 1918, with the US Geo- a graduate student and junior faculty member at Co- logical Survey (Davis 1927; Baker and Pyne 1978; lumbia School of Mines between 1872 and 1878 (Gil- Chorley and Beckinsale 1980; Pyne 1980). His con- bert 1906; Lombard and D’Ooge 1906). Before de- tributions to fluvial geomorphology span this entire scending the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon in period, but the most significant ones are at the be- his 1869 and 1871 expeditions, John Wesley Powell ginning and end. Chapter 5 of his 1877 Report on the almost certainly read Newberry’s (1861) report from Geology of the Henry Mountains is a “masterpiece the Ives expedition and perhaps even the 1857 report on the dynamics of fluvial process” (Chorley and from the Williamson expedition in the Pacific North- Beckinsale 1980, p. 132). It touches on broad-scale west.AndNewberrymayhaveprovidedPowellwith erosion of the plateau country, surficial weathering, unpublished versions of his 1858 San Juan survey, river transport processes, and channel-bed erosion though Stegner (1954, p. 375) could find no specific and deposition (Chorley and Beckinsale 1980, p. 132– evidence. Nevertheless, Newberry was a supporter 135; Tinkler 1985, p. 142–143). Many of these ideas of Powell’s survey during a rocky period in 1877 had predecessors, but Gilbert’s lasting legacy is treat- (Stegner 1954, p. 205). And ultimately, it is only small ment of landscapes and processes as steady-state step from Newberry’s “stone-cutting” Columbia River systems, supported with analyses founded on “sound “skilled by a training begins with its birth, in the mechanical reasoning of a qualitative nature backed thousand mountain streamlets” (Newberry 1857, up by approximate calculations at crucial points” p. 53) to Powell’sslightlymoreflorid description of the (Tinkler 1985, p. 143). His late-career work, culmi- Colorado River in the Grand Canyon: “A million cas- nating with 1914 and 1917 reports of sediment trans- cade brooks unite to form a thousand torrent creeks; port influenced by Californian hydraulic mining, are a thousand torrent creeks unite to form a half a hun- similar masterpieces. By employing such analyses at dred rivers beset with cataracts: half a hundred roaring scales ranging from ripples to landscapes, G. K. Gil- rivers unite to form the Colorado which rolls, a mad, bert persists in awards, clubs, and legends as the turbid stream, into the Gulf of California” (Powell “geomorphologist’s geomorphologist” (Tinkler 1985, 1875, p. 29). p. 142). Gilbert’s Henry Mountains was published in 1877, Conclusions just two years after he joined the Powell survey in late 1874. Powell’s reports on the Colorado Plateau, “Not since the time of Lyell had a new body of published in 1875 (Exploration of the Colorado River thought had such an immediate effect on geomor- of the West and Its Tributaries) and 1876 (Report on phic thinking in general as was produced by the the Geology of the Eastern Portion of the Uinta work of the Western Surveys” (Chorley et al. 1964, Mountains), were also tours de force. They probably p. 591). The end effect was that by the end of the stole some thunder from Newberry’s long-delayed nineteenth century, fluvialism held sway through- report of the San Juan expedition (Newberry 1876), out the Western world. Most major geologic texts of but with Powell’s dramatic prose and broad theories, the late 1800s ascribed valleys to river erosion, many his reports would have carried the day anyway. In drawing on examples from the western United particular, Powell’s(1875,p.203–204) definition of States. And the concepts of erosion, grade, and base base level was adopted quickly and widely, as were level soared higher with the immensely influential his valley characterizations of antecedent and con- “geographic cycle” of William Morris Davis (1889, sequent (p. 163). But most of all, Powell’sbeautifully 1899). We still interpret landscapes with the lan- illustrated reports and accompanying lectures and guage of these fundamental concepts. press generated global attention to the landscapes But would fluvialism have prevailed without Dana and studies of the southwest; perhaps initiating “the or Newberry? Certainly yes, but the path and people modern science of physical geology” (S. F. Emmons, would have been different (although I can hardly in Warman 1903). imagine geomorphology without Gilbert). In this in- Journal of Geology DANA AND NEWBERRY: THE ROOTS OF AMERICAN FLUVIALISM 245 stance, as with most such leaps, some key conver- back to James Dwight Dana’s and John Strong New- gences opened the way. Foremost is that new terrains berry’s early-career exploration of the US Pacific inspire new insights—for example, Saussure’s expe- Northwest. ditions to the Alps and the age of the Earth; Darwin’s visit to the Galapagos and evolution; sea-floor map- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ping and plate tectonics (e.g., Hess 1946, 1962). Dana and Newberry were US naturalists arriving in his- This article was drafted during a residency at the tory—both of the land and the science—when the Playa at Summer Lake. I have benefited from dis- United States was expanding into western North cussions, reviews, and correspondence with many America and geology was ripe for a new direction. Newberry, Dana, and Pacific Northwest geology Offered a chance to explore, they revealed and rev- and geomorphology aficionados, including K. Aalto, eled in the river-etched landscapes. Then in different V. Baker, K. Cashman, A. Fountain, S. Garrett, ways they pushed their revelations forward, Dana G. Grant, P. McDowell, J. Roering, R. Waitt, and mostly with words, Newberry with more explora- E. Wohl. This work was hugely aided by The His- tion of more revealing places. Both leveraged their tory of The Study of Landforms (vol. 1; Chorley early journeys into prominent careers, although in et al. 1964), A Short History of Geomorphology different fields. Yet “together the mineralogist and (Tinkler 1985), and Gilman’s (1899) biography of the paleontologist founded what, by the end of the Dana. I know of no comprehensive biography for century, was clearly recognized as a distinctly Amer- Newberry. I also greatly benefited from online ac- ican school of geology, one of whose central tenets cess to the narratives and reports of the US Ex Ex was the power of fluvial erosion” (Pyne 1980, p. 30). and the railroad survey reports provided by the This fluvialism and its subsequent global accep- Smithsonian Institution and the University of Mich- tance are traceable in course and content directly igan, respectively.

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