CLARENCE EDWARD DUTTON: GEOLOGIST, MAJOR OF ORDNANCE, MAN OF LETTERS

Clarence Edward Dutton has emerged from obscurity. In an authoritative recent geologic history of the Grand Canyon, the author termed Dutton, John Wesley Powell and G.K. Gilbert "Amerca's Greatest Geologists". This was high praise for a field geologist whose geological fame originally consisted of his coining the word Isostasy and championing that concept.

Dutton was a complex person. Rather than as classics of geology, university presses recently reprinted two of his USGS monographs as timeless literary journeys: the Grand Canyon and the magnificent volcanoes of Hawaii. Even earlier, Dutton was acclaimed as the writer who made the world aware of the magnificance of the canyon. In Washington, D.C. he was an insiders' insider. He served brilliantly as a military officer merely on loan to the USGS for 15 years. Late in life he quickly recognized readioactivity as a vital missing link in volcanism. His influence on American geology was both obvious and subtle; the aged James Dana surprisingly returned to Hawaii soon after publication of Dutton's "Hawaiian Volcanoes". Subsequently Dana wrote "Characteristics of Volcanoes" and was acclaimed "Father of American Volcanology". Perhaps Dutton merits this accolade.