The Department of Geology Before 1906
The Department of Geology is, as regards the time of its founding, one of the oldest departments in the University, for as early as October, 1839, the Regents appointed as Professor of Geology and Mineralogy Douglass Houghton (A.M. and M.D. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute '29), a geologist of distinction and an outstanding personality. The appointment was made without salary stated, and service was to begin when his work for the state survey of Michigan, on which he was then engaged, should be concluded.
Although in the first printed list of the faculty his name comes second, immediately after that of Asa Gray, Professor of Botany, yet, like Gray, he never actually taught classes in the University, for on October 13, 1845, with his survey work still uncompleted, he was drowned from a Mackinaw boat during a storm on Lake Superior.
About a year before Dr. Houghton's death the Board of Regents appointed an assistant to him in the person of Silas Hamilton Douglass (A.M. hon. Vermont '47). Houghton's unoccupied chair was at this time the professorship of chemistry, mineralogy, and geology, and Douglass was an assistant to the Professor of Chemistry. It is not clear just when the actual teaching work in geology was started, for Douglass' primary interest was throughout in chemistry. Douglass' title was many times expanded. In 1845-46 he was Lecturer in Chemistry and Geology; in 1846-47, Professor of Chemistry and Geology; in 1847-48, Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Geology; in 1850-51, Professor of Chemistry, Pharmacy, and Medical Jurisprudence; in 1851-52, Professor of Chemistry, Pharmacy, Medical Jurisprudence, Geology, and Mineralogy. Whatever the title, chemistry appears to have absorbed the greater part of his attention (see Part III: Department of Chemistry). After 1855, when his connection with the professorship of geology ceased, he became Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy, Pharmacy, and Toxicology.
Throughout the decade that Douglass conducted the work in geology, it seems to have been restricted to a single three-hour course offered in the last term of the senior year. In 1855 Alexander Winchell (Wesleyan '47, LL.D. ibid. '67), who had been appointed Professor of Physics and Civil Engineering in November, 1853, and had taken up his duties in the University in January, 1854, was transferred to a newly formed chair of natural history. At this time his training had been in mathematics, and his geological experience had been limited to the collecting of fossils in the South with Professor M. Tuomey of the University of Alabama. Since the natural history work occupied a portion only of his time, Winchell taught also elementary mathematics and served as Secretary pro tem of the Board of Regents, though this position he resigned in 1856. In 1859 he was appointed state geologist of Michigan for one year and in 1869 again for two years. In 1859, when he received from the survey a salary of $1,000 for six months' work (Merrill, p. 207), he requested of the Board of Regents the appointment of an assistant to take over his teaching for these months, and the request was granted, though he retained his full University salary.
Although the training in geology of Dr. Winchell was very deficient, he was a man of remarkable capacity for work, and while he continued to lecture and write on many subjects outside his field of teaching, he eventually became widely recognized as a leader in geological science. The Geological Society of America was founded in 1890, and in 1891 Winchell was elected the second president of the Society in immediate succession to Professor James D. Dana of Yale University. He was an orator of great power, and his lectures to classes reflected this ability rather more than instructional quality. Filibert Roth ('90), former head of the Department of Forestry, was a student in Professor Winchell's classes, and once related to the author that Professor Winchell would enter the classroom, open his text at random, and, his eye alighting upon some word, would make this the text of his lecture. Soon quite absorbed in abstraction, he would be oblivious to the fact that students were slipping away, some by the door and others by the windows. He was also subject to moods in his contacts with students.
Harry B. Hutchins ('71, LL.D. '21), afterwards President of the University, related how he went to Professor Winchell and expressed a desire to prepare for a geological career. Winchell was in a happy mood and mapped out the work, so that Hutchins went away enthusiastic. When Hutchins next saw his professor, Winchell's mood had changed, the incident of the earlier meeting had been forgotten, and the student was discouraged from such a course. "So near," said President Hutchins, "did I come to the career of a geologist."
In 1865 a two-year curriculum in mining engineering was offered (R.P., 1864-70, p. 108), and a few students in that field were later actually graduated. In 1875 the state legislature was memorialized and passed an act to provide for a School of Mines to be located at the University, with professors of mining engineering, metallurgy, and architecture and design, together "with the necessary assistant instructors." The sum of $8,000 was appropriated for salaries and $2,500 for equipment for each of the two years 1875-76 and 1876-77. William Henry Pettee (Harvard '61) was appointed Professor of Mining Engineering, and Silas H. Douglas,* Professor of Metallurgy.
Financial support was not continued beyond this two-year period, and though Pettee and Douglas gave the courses for two more years, the project was then given up. The lack of continued support from the legislature was due in part to the rivalry between the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of the state, and in part to the lack of confidence in the University, and especially in its Professor of Metallurgy, occasioned by the Douglas-Rose scandal within the Department of Chemistry (see Part I: Douglas-Rose Controversy). A School of Mines was located in 1885 at Houghton in the Upper Peninsula.
Almost from his arrival at the University in 1854, Dr. Winchell became involved in a bitter controversy with Dr. Tappan, the President, and was charged by the latter with attempts to oppose his authority and obstruct his policies.
In 1873 Dr. Winchell accepted a call to the chancellorship of Syracuse University. Three years before his departure, that is, in the summer of 1870, Mark Walrod Harrington ('68, A.M. '71, LL.D. '94) had been appointed Instructor in Mathematics and Assistant Curator of the Museum of Natural History, but with the title changed in June, 1872, to Instructor in Geology, Zoology, and Botany. When Winchell departed for Syracuse the Regents called to his chair Eugene Woldemar Hilgard (Ph.D. Heidelberg '53) from the University of Mississippi. His title was Professor of Geology, Zoology, and Botany. Harrington was at the same time promoted to the rank of assistant professor in the same three departments. Thus, for the first time at the University, the Department of Geology was provided with a staff of two who were making it their special line of teaching. This earnest of a stronger department was to prove disappointing, for the next year Harrington was transferred to the Department of Zoology and Botany, and Hilgard himself within two years had accepted a call to the University of California.
For the two years 1875-77 the chair of geology was to remain vacant. In the meantime Pettee continued as Professor of Mining Engineering, and though Joseph B. Steere was made Assistant Professor of Paleontology in 1876, he did no teaching in geological science. In 1877 the Regents appointed Dr. Pettee Professor of Geology in charge of Mining Engineering, and for the next two years he was to conduct the mining engineering work.
In 1879 Dr. Winchell was called back to the University as Professor of Historic Geology and Paleontology, and the title of Dr. Pettee was then changed to Professor of Mineralogy and Economic Geology. Winchell's title the following year was changed to Professor of Geology and Paleontology, and this chair he held until his death at Ann Arbor on February 19, 1891. Professor Pettee had continued to give courses in economic geology and in the geology of the United States. Thus, for the second time, the department included more than one teacher. Winchell gave a course in elements of general geology (lectures two hours weekly and oral exercises one hour additional) throughout the year; one in paleontological investigations (three to five hours weekly) throughout the year; the teachers' course in the elements of geology (two hours weekly), and a course in mining engineering (five hours weekly) throughout one semester.
When Winchell died in February 1891, William Hittell Sherzer ('89, Ph.D. '01) was teaching at Houghton. He was called as Instructor in Geology and taught the geology courses for the three months still remaining. At the June meeting of the Board of Regents he was reappointed with the same title for the year following (1891-92). He introduced two new courses: Macroscopic Petrography and Microscopical Mineralogy and Petrography.
In May, 1892, Israel Cook Russell (C.E. New York University '72, LL.B. ibid. '97) was called to succeed Professor Winchell, with the title of Professor of Geology. At first he offered but three courses: Elements of Geology (a three-hour course throughout the year), Physical and Glacial Geology (a three-hour course), for one semester, and Paleontology, likewise a three-hour course for one semester. Later he offered four courses each semester, but most of these were not given, and, in fact, could hardly have been given satisfactorily by a one-man department without even an assistant.
William H. Hobbs
The Department of Geology from 1906 to 1940
During the second semester of 1905-6 Professor Russell died, and in the late summer William Herbert Hobbs (Worcester Polytechnic Institute '83, D.Eng. ibid. '29, Ph.D. Johns Hopkins '88, LL.D. Michigan '39) was appointed Professor of Geology and Director of the Geological Laboratory in the University. With his appointment there began a very notable expansion of the work in geology. When he entered upon his office the department occupied two rooms in the attic of the old Museum Building (now the Romance Language Building) with an exhibition room and a share, with other departments, in the lecture room on the first floor of the building. During the year Irving Day Scott (A.B. Oberlin '00, Pd.B. Albany State Normal '01, Ph.D. Michigan '12), who was then pursuing his work in the department and was afterward advanced through the several grades to become Professor of Physiographical Geology in 1930, was appointed as an assistant. At the Regents' meeting of September 1907, Ermine Cowles Case (Kansas '93, Ph.D. Chicago '96) was appointed Assistant Professor of Historical Geology and Paleontology, and in succeeding years instructors were added to the department to teach other branches of the science.
In the year 1905-6, 131 students had been enrolled in the department. When Professor Hobbs retired, in 1933-34, there were ten members of the instructional staff, including two professors, three associate professors, four assistant professors, and one instructor, with a number of assistants, and the enrollment of students in the department was 1,035, of which number seventeen were in the Graduate School. The department had taken over ample quarters for its work in 1915 in the new Natural Science Building.
In 1907 Irving D. Scott was appointed Instructor in Geology. He developed courses in physiography, including Meteorology. He also conducted large freshman classes in introductory geology and in 1935 took charge of the work in physical geology.
Rolland Craten Allen (Wisconsin '05, A.M. ibid. '08), was appointed Instructor in Geology to develop the work in economic geology in 1908, and this work he carried on for a year and then became state geologist of Michigan, but he continued to give lectures on certain special phases of economic geology until 1913.
To find room for the expanding department within the antiquated Museum Building the geological collections upon the first floor were crowded closer together, and a part of the space was converted into a laboratory for the students. Small offices were also found for some of the staff in this room.
In 1908 Frank Leverett (Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts '85, Sc.D. hon. Michigan '30), distinguished glacial geologist and long a member of the United States Geological Survey, was appointed to the staff as Lecturer in Glacial Geology, and in that capacity he conducted lectures and took charge of excursions until 1928, when he retired from the department.
Up to the year 1906, or during the first sixty-seven years of the history of the Department of Geology at the University, the instruction in geology was carried on either entirely by one professor, other departments sometimes utilizing a part of his time, or, for brief intervals (1871-73 and 1879-91), by two men of whom one gave full time to it and the other only part time. During Professor Russell's incumbency, which terminated with his death in 1906, he labored without assistance.
In the study of geology at the University of Michigan there is imposed a certain heavy handicap in the fact that all save the latest of geological formations are buried deep under glacial deposits. The rocks of the earth constitute a large part of the equipment of any geological laboratory, and to find them exposed one must go far from the University. Even some of the simplest of geological processes are illustrated in the vicinity only by abnormal examples. This handicap has been met in part for the elementary courses by extended excursions and by newly devised laboratory apparatus. For the advanced students the handicap is particularly serious, for they must undertake their individual studies of geological problems by time-consuming and extended journeys to somewhat remote areas.
The instructional work within the growing department was organized upon a plan to meet the needs of different classes of students. There were, first, general introductory courses which constituted a part of the liberal education, for the freshmen and for upperclassmen, the latter course conducted by the head of the department and required for certain groups of engineering students and for all forestry students. There were courses for teachers of earth science in secondary schools. To meet the needs of students who were planning to take up economic geology, an intensive undergraduate course was provided with curriculums arranged at some sacrifice of cultural courses, but with concentration on special lines of economic geology, particularly oil geology and geology of the metals and nonmetals. Graduates in these curriculums were given a special certificate in geology and have been very successful in obtaining positions, particularly in the large field of oil geology. Built upon the introductory courses of the department were the advanced courses for the training of professional geologists in the several fields of structural, dynamical, glacial, and economic geology and paleontology.
After the resignation of R. C. Allen in 1909, Charles Wilford Cook ('04, Ph.D. '13), who had been acting as an assistant in the Department of Mineralogy, was appointed to carry on the work in economic geology. He advanced to the rank of professor in 1925 and was especially successful in training men within his field, as clearly shown by the positions they have occupied. His lamented death occurred in 1933.
In 1919 George Marion Ehlers ('13, Ph.D. '30) joined the staff as Instructor and gave especial aid in the assembling and care of the geological collections, as well as in developing courses of instruction in invertebrate paleontology. His advancement to his present rank, the associate professorship, came in 1934.
Up to the year 1912 the subject of geography had not been taught in the University. However, as the need for such work became increasingly apparent, Carl Ortwin Sauer (Central Wesleyan '08, Ph.D. Chicago '15) was appointed to the staff of the Department of Geology in 1916. The name of the department was at the same time changed to the Department of Geology and Geography. Having been promoted in 1918 and again in 1920, Sauer was appointed to a full professorship of geography in 1922. Kenneth Charles McMurry (Wisconsin '15, Ph.D. Chicago '21) was added to the staff as Instructor in Geography in 1920 and was made Assistant Professor in 1921. In 1923 Preston Everett James (Harvard '20, Ph.D. Clark '23) was added to the staff as Instructor in Geography, and in the same year, when Professor Sauer resigned, Dr. McMurry became acting head of the newly organized Department of Geography, made up of all the geography work previously under the joint Department of Geology and Geography (see Part III: Department of Geography).
To secure for all students of the Department of Geology and Geography that important field training which is a first essential, a Summer Field Course in camp was established in 1920 at Mill Springs, Kentucky, with Case in charge of the courses in geology and Sauer in charge of those in geography. Sauer was in 1920 appointed director of the camp. In the next year George M. Ehlers took charge of the courses in geology, and in 1924 he became director of the camp in place of Professor Sauer. In 1924 Irving D. Scott took charge of the courses in physical geology at the camp and for many years thereafter conducted the work. The Summer Field Course was continued in connection with the Department of Geography at the Mill Springs station in Kentucky until the summer of 1936, when the camp was divided. At this time the Geology Field Course was established at State Bridge, Colorado, with Ehlers as director and with Belknap and Eardley added to the staff of instruction.
Russell Claudius Hussey ('11, Ph.D. '25), Associate Professor of Geology since 1931, became a member of the instructional staff of the department in 1921 to teach general and historical geology. After 1929 he carried the courses in historical geology independently and developed an introductory course in paleontology. From 1931 to 1936 Hussey served as Assistant to the Dean of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, in an advisory capacity to students, though continuing a part of his work in the Department of Geology. He also developed strong courses in the extension work of the University.
It was in 1921 that Laurence McKinley Gould ('21, Sc.D. '25) was appointed Instructor in General Geology, and he was an associate professor at the time of his resignation in 1932; his last four years were spent on leave in connection with exploring expeditions, the latest that of the first Byrd Antarctic expedition. In 1932 he became Professor of Geology and Geography at Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota.
Miss Ellen Burden Stevenson ('20, M.S. '30), later Mrs. George M. Stanley, entered the department in 1923 as Instructor in Geology, was raised to an assistant professorship in 1931, and resigned to take up other work in the University in 1933. For a considerable time preceding this retirement from the department she had given but half time to her geological work.
In 1924 Walter A. Ver Wiebe (Cornell '13, Ph.D. ibid. '18), was made Instructor in General Geology, and retained this position until 1927, when he resigned to become Professor of Geology in the Municipal University at Wichita, Kansas. Ralph Leroy Belknap ('23e, Sc.D. '29), who joined the department in 1923 as Instructor and has been Associate Professor since 1939, has devoted his time to general geology, and especially to geological field surveying. Lewis Burnett Kellum (Johns Hopkins '19, Ph.D. ibid. '24) was in 1928 appointed Instructor in Paleontology and Petroleum Geology. His work in Mexico previous to his appointment had directed his attention to the structural problems there, and he returned during the summers for successive years, either alone or with colleagues and assistants from this or other universities. He attained his present rank of associate professor in 1937.
In 1928 the University Museums Building was completed, and the collections of fossils were moved to that building. Those members of the staff directly connected with paleontology were given quarters in the new building, which left much-needed space in the Natural Science Building. With this additional space and with new facilities it became possible to provide long-needed instruction in paleobotany, and Chester Arthur Arnold (Cornell '24, Ph.D. ibid. '29) took charge of this work, dividing his time between the Museum of Paleontology and the Department of Botany.
In the planning of the Natural Science Building, provision had been made for instruction in soil geology, and in 1927 Maurice William Senstius (M.S. '19, Sc.D. '28) took charge of that work and was later advanced to Assistant Professor. In 1930 Armand John Eardley (Utah '27, Ph.D. Princeton '30) was appointed Instructor to teach some of the courses in general and economic geology during Gould's absence in the antarctic. Upon the latter's resignation in 1932 Eardley became a permanent member of the staff, with his work largely in the field of structural geology. He has held an associate professorship since 1939. It was in 1930 also that George Mahon Stanley ('28e, Ph.D. '32) was appointed Instructor in General Geology, to continue certain courses in glacial geology formerly taught by Leverett.
In 1934, when he reached the compulsory retirement age of seventy years, Hobbs was made Professor Emeritus of Geology and was succeeded by Case as head of the department. The same year Thomas Seward Lovering (E.M. Minnesota '22, Ph.D. ibid. '24) was appointed to take charge of economic geology, work in which had been carried by other members of the staff since the death of Cook in 1933.
Extensive graduate work within the department has been carried on only within the last thirty years. Up to 1906, when the period opened, but two master's degrees and two of the doctorate of philosophy had been conferred — one of the latter on Mary E. Holmes in 1887 and the other on W. H. Sherzer in 1901. Even after the expansion had begun, it was of necessity a considerable number of years before the degrees could be conferred upon those who had been working in the department. Within this period and for some years thereafter, or until the department included a fair number of mature scholars, students were quite generally advised to continue beyond the master's degree at the better-equipped universities elsewhere. From the beginning, however, the degree of master of science or master of arts within the department was given only after a considerable amount of graduate work and upon completion of a thesis approved by the department. These theses in many cases have been of such value as to warrant their publication as definite contributions to the science.
Ermine C. Case
Research and Exploration
Of scholarship there has been no lack among the occupants of the chair of geology. Dr. Houghton, who, although he did no regular teaching, contributed to the geological collections and was a distinguished geologist of the pioneer period.
Dr. Winchell, though he had come to the University without training in geology and was probably better known through his lectures and writings as an orator and a great popularizer of science, contributed in important ways to the geology of the state. When state geologist, he worked out the basin structure of the Paleozoic formations of the Lower Peninsula and the stratigraphy of the Marshall group of the Mississippian. To the geological journals he contributed articles on more general problems of the science. His published books and papers make up a list of titles, which covers thirteen pages; the wide range of topics includes education, religion, and administration.
His better-known books were Preadamites (1880), Sparks from a Geologist's Hammer (1881), World Life (1883), and Walks and Talks in the Geological Field (1886). Winchell's writings and lectures, more than those of any other representative of science in America, were responsible for the growing liberality of thought toward the great doctrine of evolution.
It is probably not widely known that Dr. Winchell started the regular recording of daily meteorological observations at the University of Michigan, a pioneer in this respect for the country. Winchell's series, begun in New York in 1848, were reported to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. In 1854 his request to the Regents was approved to make these observations regularly at the University with his own instruments (R.P., 1837-64, p. 575).
Mark Walrod Harrington, Instructor in Geology, Zoology, and Botany in 1872, became in 1879 Director of the Detroit Observatory at the University and started its series of meteorological observations, founded the American Meteorological Journal in 1884, and became Chief of the United States Weather Bureau in 1892 (see Part III: Meteorological Instruments and the Teaching of Meteorology).
Hilgard, who had held the chair of geology from 1873 to 1875, had, in contrast to Winchell, gone through a rigorous technical training and held an earned degree of doctor of philosophy. He thus represented somewhat more of the solid reputation in scholarship. A specialist in soils, his complete bibliography is very extensive, and includes 243 titles. This pre-eminence in scholarship was recognized by the conferment of the honorary degree of doctor of laws by the Universities of Mississippi, Michigan, Columbia, and California, by a gold medal from the Academy of Sciences in Munich, and by election to the National Academy of Sciences.
Russell, who succeeded Winchell in 1892, was a pioneer explorer-geologist of the Great Basin region of the West; he became a specialist of wide reputation on glaciers and was the author of a wide range of semi-popular books on North American Lakes (1895), Glaciers (1897), Volcanoes (1897), Rivers (1898), and on North America with Reference to Its Geography (1904). His Quaternary History of Lake Lahontan, published by the United States Geological Survey, is a quarto monograph of 288 pages and forty-four plates, and his correlation paper on the Newark System, also issued by the United States Geological Survey, is a comprehensive monographic report of 344 pages.
He was in 1906 elected president of the Geological Society of America. His published papers number 122. He led two scientific and climbing expeditions to Mount Saint Elias, arrived near its summit on the second expedition, and pointed out the route to the Duke of Abruzzi, who finally succeeded in reaching the summit. In the exploring field Dr. Russell was a member of the Transit of Venus expedition of 1874 to New Zealand and Kerguelen Island in the Antarctic; in 1878 he took part in the government surveys west of the one-hundredth meridian (Wheeler Survey), in 1880-83 in surveys of the Great Basin region for the United States Geological Survey, from 1885 to 1888 in studies of the southern Appalachians, and in 1889 in exploring work for the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey along the northeastern boundary of Alaska. In 1902, after the grand eruption of Mount Pelée, he went with the National Geographic Society's expedition to the scene of the disaster.
The research work of Professor Hobbs before coming to the University was largely in the field of structural geology and petrography, with nearly a score of field seasons in western New England for the United States Geological Survey. After entering upon his duties at the University it has been within the field of dynamical geology, with emphasis on earthquakes, glaciers, and atmospheric circulation in its relation to continental glaciers. He has published four treatises: Earthquakes (1907), Existing Glaciers (1911), Earth Evolution (1921), and The Glacial Anti-cyclones (1926); a textbook, Earth Features (1912 and 1931); two narratives of exploration, Cruises Along ByWays of the Pacific (1923) and Exploring About the North Pole of the Winds (1930); a war history, The World War and Its Consequences, with an introduction by Theodore Roosevelt (1918); three biographical works, Leonard Wood (1920), Peary (1936), and Explorers of the Antarctic (1941); and also government and other reports and monographs. His published papers number 264 titles. Hobbs was in 1922 exchange professor at the University of Delft and in 1931 Russel lecturer at the University of Michigan (see Part II: Research Club). He is a member of the American Philosophical Society. He organized and led three scientific expeditions to Greenland from the University in 1926, 1927-28, and 1928-29, and was director of another in 1930 — all chiefly for the study of glacial and meteorological conditions.
Professor Case has done his principal research work in the field of vertebrate paleontology, which has required collection of the material on exploring trips in various areas of the western United States. In all, no less than thirty of these arduous collecting expeditions have been carried through, and in 1923 he traveled throughout the world for study of Permian areas. Professor Case is today an authority on the vertebrate life of the Permian and Triassic ages. The published material has been brought out in eight monographs by the Carnegie Institution of Washington. These have been: No. 55, Revision of the Pelycosauria; No. 145, Revision of the Cotylosauria; No. 146, Revision of the Amphibia and Pisces of the Permian; No. 181, Permo-Carboniferous Vertebrates of New Mexico; No. 207, The Permo-Carboniferous Red Beds; No. 283, Environment of Vertebrate Life in the Late Paleozoic; No. 321, New Reptiles and Stegocephalians from the Upper Triassic; and No. 375, Environment of Tetrapod Life in the Late Paleozoic of Regions Other than North America. His published papers are represented by 144 titles. He is a member of the American Philosophical Society and was Russel lecturer at the University in 1934. He was in 1929 president of the Paleontological Society of America.
Frank Leverett, for a score of years (1908-28) Lecturer on Glacial Geology, is an outstanding authority on the Pleistocene glaciology of North America. This has been recognized by his election to the American Philosophical Society and to the National Academy of Science and by the conferment upon him of the honorary degree of doctor of science by the University of Michigan in 1930. His greater monographs, all published by the United States Geological Survey, include The Illinois Glacial Lobe (1899), Glacial Formations and Drainage Features of the Erie and Ohio Basins (1902), and (with Frank Taylor) The Pleistocene of Indiana and Michigan and the History of the Great Lakes (1915). His published papers number 170 titles.
Charles Wilford Cook (1908-33), Professor of Economic Geology, was a specialist on deposits of salt, oil, gas, and molybdenum minerals and published some nineteen scientific papers.
Laurence McK. Gould (1921-32), Instructor, Assistant Professor, and Associate Professor in the department, has played an important part in scientific exploration. He was geologist and second-in-command of the first University of Michigan Greenland expedition (1926), geographer and topographer and second-in-command of the Putnam arctic expedition (1927), and senior scientist and second-in-command of the first Byrd antarctic expedition (1928-30).
Lewis B. Kellum, Associate Professor of Paleontology (1928 — ), has directed six scientific expeditions to Mexico in the years 1930 to 1935. They have been devoted to a geological study of eastern Durango, southern and southwestern Coahuila, the San Carlos Mountains, and northern Zacatecas. The expeditions have been financed by grants from the National Research Council, the Geological Society of America, and the University of Michigan. Geologists from the faculties of Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, and Rochester universities, and Michigan State, Rutgers, and Texas Technological College have taken part in these expeditions. Kellum's most important contributions are: "Paleontology and Stratigraphy of the Castle Hayne and Trent Marls in North Carolina" and "Evolution of the Coahuila Peninsula, Mexico."
Ralph L. Belknap, Associate Professor of Geology (1923 — ), has made four expeditions to Greenland, all sponsored by the University of Michigan. He was a member of the first expedition (1926), in charge of surveys, second-in-command of the second (1927) and third (1928) expeditions in like capacity, and he led the Michigan-Pan-American expedition to northwest Greenland in 1932.
Irving D. Scott, Professor of Physiographical Geology (1906 — ), is a specialist in the study of lakes and of dune formations. His scientific papers comprise eleven titles.
George M. Ehlers, Associate Professor of Geology (1914 — ), has specialized in Paleozoic paleontology and is credited with sixteen scientific papers.
Thomas S. Lovering, Associate Professor of Economic Geology (1934 — ), has studied especially the rocks of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, structurally and with regard to the ore deposits. His published papers number twenty-nine titles. The most important are: "Geology and Ore Deposits of the Breckenridge Mining District, Colorado," and "Theory of Heat Conduction Applied to Geologic Problems."
In view of the importance of the mineral deposits in the Upper Peninsula of the state, early made known by Douglass Houghton, the small development of the geological sciences at the University during its first half-century is remarkable. For this there are several causes. A lack of confidence arose out of the Douglas-Rose scandal within the Department of Chemistry, for Douglas was in charge of all the geological work for the first ten years and for an even longer time for the work in mineralogy. However, the rivalry between the two peninsulas of the state and the location of the mineral deposits within the Upper Peninsula developed a local pride which was only satisfied when the School of Mines was finally established at Houghton, more than forty years after the founding of the University. This, as well as the location of the State College of Agriculture at the state capital, caused a division of state appropriations and a diversion of federal support when the Morrill Act was passed in 1865.* The needless triplication of personnel and laboratory equipment, which these unwise decisions of the state legislature brought about, greatly handicapped Michigan and Iowa, which had much the same experience, among the state universities.
William H. Hobbs
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
"Addresses at Memorial Services in Honor of Dr. E. W. Hilgard …"Univ. Calif. Chronicle, 18 (1916): 159-90.
"Alexander Winchell, an Editorial Tribute" [with bibliography]. Amer. Geol., 9 (1892): 71-148.
Belknap, Ralph L."A Winter in Icebound Greenland."Mich. Alum., 39 (1933): 563-64.
Calendar, Univ. Mich., 1871-1914.
Case, Ermine C."Hobbs Builds Department of Geology."Mich. Alum., 41 (1934): 105-6.
Catalogue …, Univ. Mich., 1843-71, 1914-23.
Catalogue and Register, Univ. Mich., 1923-27.
"Eulogium of Alexander Winchell."Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., 3 (1892): 56-59.
Farrand, Elizabeth M.History of the University of Michigan. Ann Arbor: Register Publ. House, 1885.
General Register Issue, Univ. Mich., 1927-40.
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Geology and Geography Field Courses in Kentucky, Summer Session, Univ. Mich., 1921-34.
Hinsdale, Burke A.A History of the University of Michigan. Ed. by Isaac N. Demmon. Ann Arbor: Univ. Mich., 1906.
Hobbs, William H."Israel Cook Russell."Mich. Technic, 20 (1907), No. 1: 1-4.
Hobbs, William H."A Michigan Expedition to Greenland."Mich. Alum., 32 (1926): 395-97.
Hobbs, William H."The First Greenland Expedition of the University."Mich. Alum., 33 (1926): 51-55.
Hobbs, William H."The Second Expedition to Greenland."Mich. Alum., 34 (1927): 187-91.
Hobbs, William H."The Third University of Michigan Greenland Expedition."Mich. Alum., 35 (1928): 95-99.
Hobbs, William H."Laurence Gould — Antarctic Explorer."Mich. Alum., 36 (1930): 315-16.
Hobbs, William H."Exploration in Greenland."Mich. Alum., 37 (1931): 585-86.
Hobbs, William H."Greenland Expedition on Way Out."Mich. Alum., 40 (1933): 8.
Houghton, Douglass. Geological Reports of Douglass Houghton, First State Geologist of Michigan, 1837-1845. Ed. by George N. Fuller. Lansing, Mich.: Mich. Hist. Comm., 1928.
Kellum, Lewis B."Michigan Scientists Go Exploring."Mich. Alum., 37 (1930): 145-46.
Merrill, George P. (Ed.). Contributions to a History of American State Geological and Natural History Surveys. Washington, D. C.: Govt. Prtg. Office, 1920. Pp. 203-31.
[News notes.]Univ. Record, 1 (1891): 12-13, 35-36; 1 (1892): 84; 2 (1892): 20; Mich. Alum., 26 (1920): 232; 27 (1921): 606; 30 (1924): 392-93; 31 (1925): 521-22, 673; 32 (1926): 575, 630; 33 (1926): 158; 33 (1927): 635; 34 (1927): 14, 153, 199, 241; 34 (1928): 482, 697, 795-96; 35 (1928): 84, 211; 35 (1929): 480-81, 595, 761; 36 (1929): 159; 38 (1932): 286; 45 (1939): 260; 46 (1940): 499.
President's Report, Univ. Mich., 1853-1940.
Proceedings of the Board of Regents …, 1864-1940. (R.P.)
Smith, Eugene A."Memorial of Eugene Woldemar Hilgard" [with bibliography]. Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., 28 (1917): 40-67.
University of Michigan Regents' Proceedings …, 1837-1864. Ed. by Isaac N. Demmon. Ann Arbor: Univ. Mich., 1915. (R.P., 1837-64.)
Willis, Bailey. "Memoir of Israel C. Russell" [with bibliography]. Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., 18 (1907): 582-92.
The University of Michigan, an Encyclopedic Survey ... Wilfred B. Shaw, editor. Pages 584 - 594
