G.K. GILBERT, LAKE BONNEVILLE, AND SCIENCE

G.K. Gilbert (1843-1918) was one of the greatest of American geologists. His fundamental education was primarily in Greek, Latin, mathematics, English, and physics, and his geologic education came largely "on the job" (at Ward's Natural Science Establishment, as a volunteer assistant geologist with the Ohio Geological Survey under John Strong Newberry, with the Wheeler Survey West of the 100th Meridian, and with John Wesley Powell and the U.S. Geological Survey). Gilbert's research was far-reaching and influential. Among his many contributions to geology, four of his publications, on the Henry Mountains, Lake Bonneville, hydraulic mining debris in California, and Basin and Range structure, are considered to be classics of geologic literature.

Gilbert began working in the Great Salt Lake region in the early 1870s, but "Lake Bonneville" was not published in complete form until 1890 (as USGS Monograph 1). As others have noted, "Lake Bonneville" is truly a masterpiece, and is far more than a report of investigations. "Lake Bonneville" includes chapters on lacustrine shorezone processes and geomorphology, the shoreline and sedimentary records of Lake Bonneville, volcanic eruptions in the basin, the history of the Bonneville basin, and Lake Bonneville and diastrophism, among other topics. The monograph is comprehensive, but more importantly it is a clear expression of Gilbert's view of the nature of scientific inquiry -- that explanatory hypotheses come from analogies and that multiple hypotheses should be tested and rejected or accepted based on available observations. He also believed that all scientific conclusions are tentative. If we follow his example, we find that the most valuable and enduring legacy of Gilbert's Lake Bonneville work is not that he "got it all right," but that he showed us how to ask the right questions and search for meaningful answers, and that when more observations become available, the questions we ask and the answers we find will probably change. Gilbert's straight-forward writing style mirrored and complemented his science by demonstrating his honesty and avoidance of egotism.