- '' A '. ? ■ LIFE OF W J McGEE Dr. W J McGee LIFE OF W J McGEE 
DISTINGUISHED GEOLOGIST, ETHNOLOGIST, 
ANTHROPOLOGIST, HYDROLOGIST, ETC., IN 
SERVICE OF UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT 
WITH 
EXTRACTS FROM ADDRESSES AND WRITINGS 
BY HIS SISTER 
EMMA R. McGEE 
PRIVATELY PRINTED 
FARLEY, IOWA 
NINETEEN FIFTEEN COPYRIGHT 1915 BY 
EMMA R. MCGEE 
THE TORCH PRESS 
CEDAR RAPIDS 
IOWA PREFACE 
This book makes no claim to literary merit. In it 
perhaps may be found the sentimental, the bombast, 
the flowery, the too strongly marked personality, or 
other defects; but it was meant for a simple, unpre- 
tentious account of the life of a dearly beloved 
brother, published by his only sister as a tribute of 
her undying affection for him, with the feeling that 
the printed record of a life so prominent in scientific 
circles and so distinguished in the services of the 
United States government, with some extracts from 
writings, addresses, and reports, which are only 
samples of the splendid and indefatigable work he 
did, might be of interest to his many relatives, 
friends, and others who knew him personally or 
through the good he did or tried to do for the cause 
of science and humanity; nor was there any hope or 
desire of obtaining pecuniary or other advantages 
from the publication of the work. Nothing in the 
book can add anything more to the name or fame of 
W J McGee; but if these reminiscences will brighten 
ever so little the luster of that name and deepen the 
memory of the man in the minds of those who read 
its pages, the author can not feel otherwise, than 
happy and well-paid for her pleasant labor of love. 
Emma R. McGee CONTENTS 
Chapter I Birthplace 9 
Chapter II Parentage 15 
Chapter III More Remote Ancestry . . 27 
Chapter IV Incidents in Life ... 37 
Chapter V Education 51 
Chapter VI Marriage 61 
Chapter VII W J's Life Work ... 67 
Chapter VIII Death 73 
Chapter IX Extracts from Writings . . 83 
In the Desert .... 83 
The Conservation of Natural 
Resources 88 
The Seri Indians . . . 105 
The World's Supply of Fuel . 167 
Desert Thirst as a Disease . . 178 
The Cult of Conservation . . 186 
The Five-fold Functions of Gov- 
ernment 194 
Flood Plains of Rivers . . 211 
Symtomatic Development of 
Cancer 228 
Bibliography 233 CHAPTER I 
In a quaint, old farmhouse in the lovely state of Iowa, 
near the city of Dubuque, in the county of the same name, 
there is a small library containing many old volumes some 
of which almost a hundred years ago came from a far-off 
land beyond the sea. Among these is the Good Book, 
sacred, not only on account of its being the inspired Word 
of God, but also on account of its containing the family 
record of births and deaths, the forms and faces of the de- 
parted seen only in dreamland. 
The fourth birth-date of the nine children born to James 
and Martha Ann Anderson McGee is this one: William 
John McGee, born April 17, 1853, near Farley, Iowa. 
' ' The hills are dearest that our childish feet have climbed 
the oftenest and the flowers most sweet, ' ' and the memories, 
too, of these scenes are the longest retained. These hills 
and dales, so richly adorned and beautiful, cannot fail to 
impress and to inspire one who is in sympathy with nature. 
I am convinced that our home environs had no little in- 
fluence in shaping my brother's career, by developing 
in him the desire to probe into the mysteries of nature and 
to bring to light and to record her secrets. I am convinced, 
too, that they placed him more intimately in harmony 
with her workings and deepened in him an inherent taste 
for the beautiful. 
When a building spot was sought on the land my father 
entered from the government, my mother selected a site 
BIRTHPLACE 10 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
with such a beautiful landscape view, that it might have 
driven to ecstacies either poet or artist. Several rods in 
front of the house was a semicircle of woodland. It was 
not in the ' ' dim old forest, ' ' that enraptured the poetically 
inclined Cory sisters, but just the right distance to lend en- 
chantment to the view. Here stately monarchs of the forest 
reared their graceful branches heavenward, interspersed 
with undergrowth of smaller varieties of trees and hazel- 
brush. In many places the semicircle of large trees was 
edged with wild plum and wild crab-apple trees and to the 
south was a pond and an open space. Over this pond and 
the edge of the timber land as it appeared to us, a beautiful 
rainbow often appeared in rainy weather, and when the days 
were clear and bright, we could look out of the door of the 
house in early morning, and see the sun just peeping over 
the trees and rising in all his splendor and glory. Nature 
seldom makes mistakes. The Divine Artist is the best we 
have. In all this grand panorama of rainbow and sunshine, 
of forest and open space, making such a gorgeous landscape 
effect, no improvement could possibly be thought of. No 
human artist could come near doing justice to the scene. 
It was especially beautiful in springtime and in autumn 
when Jack Frost began to assert his sway and to leave his 
brilliant markings and harmonious blending of colors on 
the forest leaves. Beyond our woodland, hills and vales 
succeed each other, the hills gradually rising in height 
until on the banks of the great Mississippi River they break 
off in precipitous bluffs. To the westward, vast rolling 
prairies extended almost uninterruptedly to the muddy 
waters of the Missouri, crossed only by the noble rivers 
which flow across the state. One of the great delights of 
our Iowa rivers, rills, hills, vales, and woodlands, was the 
abundance of wild flowers found in and near them. I have 
traveled over Uncle Sam's territory east to the "Hub" BIRTHPLACE 
11 
and west over the Rockies to the Pacific Coast; I have 
caught glimpses of some of the belongings of other nations, 
but never yet have I found anything which, to my mind, 
could compare with the beautiful Iowa, in the way particu- 
larly of lovely woodland and native flowers. I have viewed 
a most magnificent sunset from the deck of an ocean steamer 
on the coast of California; and as the vessel moved slowly 
out of the harbor and away out into the deep, blue sea, the 
soft light of evening fell upon the smooth, placid waters 
of Humboldt Bay and a long gleam of light from the sun 
as it was sinking below the horizon, showed the grandeur 
and sublimity of ocean, coast, and mountain. What words 
could picture the beauty of such a scene! I have looked 
with admiration upon the Sequoia gigantia and other trees 
which grow with it near the Pacific Coast. The giant for- 
ests of California and Oregon; the cascades, rapids, water- 
falls, lofty mountains, deep gorges, the fauna and flora of 
the Rocky Mountains have filled me with wondering awe and 
dread; but all these sights and sounds, and even Niagara's 
thundering roar, have not impressed me in the same way, 
nor filled my soul with the consummate joy I felt, in view- 
ing the sights and scenes of Iowa in the days of her pristine 
splendor. Hers was not the wild and rugged grandeur of 
the Rocky or Himalaya regions, which is apt to fill the mind 
with awe and dread, but the calm, peaceful, and delicate 
beauty that inspires trustfulness, reverence, and adoration. 
Here were gently sloping elevations of land, covered with 
nature's most beautiful green and decorated with innumer- 
able wild flowers most varied in hue, most diverse in variety, 
and in fragrance most intoxicating. Between these ele- 
vations, cool and shady ravines wound along, through 
many of which flowed tiny streams of clear, cold, spring 
water which gushed forth from rocks imbedded in these 
little hills. To describe adequately these scenes of nature's 12 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
primitive, transcendent glories, would baffle the power of 
human tongue. 
Iowa's poet, the Honorable Eugene Secor, has composed 
a little poem about the Building of Iowa, which I here 
transcribe for it is thoroughly in accord with the ideas I 
have of my beloved land. 
THE BUILDING OF IOWA 
"The plows of the Infinite One, 
By giants Herculean drawn, 
Made ready the soil for this garden, 
Before thy fortunate dawn, 
My Iowa - beautiful land. 
"From far away frozen regions, 
In layers of generous till, 
The hoary ice-king spread deftly 
The grist of his adequate mill, 
For Iowa - beautiful land. 
"The Gulf with full buckets came flying 
To water this garden of God; 
And lo ! a confessed miracle - 
An undefiled carpet of sod 
For Iowa - beautiful land. 
"The clear, fishful lakes were teeming, 
And bordered with consummate art; 
The deep-valley'd rivers ran seaward 
Through arbors of green - all a part 
Of Iowa - beautiful land 
'1 Sof t-verdured with nutritive grasses, 
The blue-stem that sped the swift deer 
O'er leagues of bright flowers, varicolor'd BIRTHPLACE 
13 
Ere the plowshares of toil silvered here 
In Iowa - beautiful land. 
' ' But God wanted men for thy building - 
Strong men who were fit pioneers 
To plant here the seeds he had garner'd 
And sifted through long trying years, 
My Iowa - beautiful land. 
"They came - the brave sons of the forest; 
They came - the picked manhood of toil; 
They came - the best samples of Europe; 
They came to raise men on thy soil, 
My Iowa-'beautiful land." 
But they ruthlessly cut down the forests; 
Unwittingly they trod on the flowers; 
Without ever a thought of the future 
They destroyed thy beautiful bowers, 
Oh Iowa! beautiful land. 
[This verse inserted by writer] 
"They planted the school and the chapel, 
They planted a liberal code, 
They planted the altar and ingle, 
They planted the epic and ode 
In Iowa - beautiful land. 
"Here flourish the seedlings of Progress, 
Here Law and Religion are in bloom, 
Here Art and Belles Lettres are budding, 
Here grow the rich fruitings of Home, 
In Iowa - beautiful land. 
"The dear fragrant flowers of memory, 
That comfort the spirit like wine, 14 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
The red rose of love and sweet friendship, 
All to tether this glad heart of mine 
To Iowa -• beautiful land. ' ' 
The house in which my brother was born was a very 
modest structure made of logs which were cut from the 
trees in our own woods. The lumber used for finishing the 
cabin, my father purchased from the Dubuque and Sioux 
City Railroad Company, the railroad now known as the 
Illinois Central, which was then in process of construction. 
They used little frame shanties to house the men em- 
ployed on the road, and as there were no sawmills at that 
early date, to cut the trees into lumber, my father was glad 
to obtain one or two of these small buildings to aid in the 
construction of a humble home in which to rear his family. 
It lacked all the sumptuousness and most of the conveni- 
ences of the modern home; but round about it, on the out- 
side, luxuries, that no modern home can buy, were spread in 
rich profusion far and wide. I have had this dwelling pre- 
served as a memento of my childhood's earliest home, just as 
from my earliest years, I have tried to preserve the native 
plants and trees about the place from the ruthless touch of 
man and beast and other adverse elements; but in spite of 
my solicitous care and labor, some of the noblest trees have 
perished and some of the most delicate and rare flowering 
plants have been destroyed. Yet it pays to try to save the 
lives of these organisms, for in many respects they are truly 
living organisms as much so, in fact, as animals, and most 
of them respond to good treatment just like an animal and 
like the animal they resent all bad or indifferent treatment 
or neglect; being like grateful children, they bring rich 
filial returns and they compensate a thousandfold for all 
the care and toil they cost. The House in which W J McGee was Born CHAPTER II 
PARENTAGE 
The food one eats, the air he breathes, the clothes he 
wears, the darkness, dampness, dryness, the sanitary condi- 
tions and beauty of surroundings, are all so many factors, 
determining to some extent at least, whether or not his life 
shall be a success or failure; but these are not all. The 
changing moods and tempers of the members of the family 
circle are interwoven in the characters of each and every 
one, determining whether he shall be an unstable character 
under the sway of passion and impulse, or a self-regulated 
man or woman directed by an intelligent and reasoning 
will. It is, however, the mother more than anyone else, 
that largely settles what the child's after life shall be. If 
she is intellectual and her mind is active in the pursuit of 
useful knowledge, if she lives in an atmosphere of thought 
and conversation above the average gossip and scandal of 
every day social life, her children's minds will be more apt 
to be formed by the same high ideals; even one's far-distant 
ancestry may be all-powerful educators in exerting a mold- 
ing influence upon their posterity. Man's inherited talents 
are in his blood and they will in all probability assert them- 
selves and compel him to seek their development; but latent 
faculties will sleep unless aroused and stimulated by educa- 
tion or other means or influences brought to bear upon them. 
W J McGee's parents were of sturdy Scotch-Irish parent- 
age. Our father, James McGee, was born in County Ar- 
magh, Ireland, in 1808. He came to America in 1831. Like 16 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
many young men from the Old Country, he wended his way 
westward, coming to Iowa in 1832. He did not locate here 
permanently until the following year, but worked, in the 
meantime, in the lead mines of Galena, Illinois. When he 
came to Dubuque, there was a. mining camp and only one 
house, which, it was said, Julien Dubuque had built. This 
was all there was at that time of the beautiful and populous 
city of Dubuque. In 1842, he entered a tract of land from 
the government which became his home and where he re- 
sided until he died on November 13, 1893, the year of the 
great World's Fair in Chicago. At the time of his death he 
was past eighty-five years of age. His death was deeply la- 
mented by his many friends, who considered him a kind and 
benevolent man, and a good and agreeable neighbor. He used 
to give glowing accounts of events that took place during the 
Blackhawk War. He was present at the capture and death 
of the famous chief of the Sac and Fox Indians and he saw 
the sword that had been presented to Blackhawk by Andrew 
Jackson. This sword the Indian warrior constantly carried 
with him and when he died it was laid beside him in the 
grave. He was buried just across the Mississippi, in the 
Illinois country, on the farm of Captain A. Jordan. Later 
Blackhawk's body was stolen from the grave with the sword. 
The Jordan family recovered the sword and presented it to 
the Masonic Temple at Keosauqua, Iowa. This building was 
destroyed by fire in 1873 and the sword again disappeared. 
After a search of three years, it was found by D. C. Beaman, 
of Denver, Colorado, who ordered the noted relic to be given 
to the Iowa Historical Society, of the State University of 
Iowa. I remember Mrs. Jordan well. She was a friend 
and she lived to be over one hundred years old. She took 
a little Indian girl to raise and called her Kate. Some of 
Kate's descendants are now living in East Dubuque. Mrs. PARENTAGE 
17 
Jordan believed her to be the equal in every way of the 
white race. Mrs. Jordan, however, was a woman, who as 
Longfellow wrote, believed ' ' every human heart is human. ' ' 
Her sympathies were entirely with Blackhawk whom she 
considered a good man fighting bravely for the rights of his 
people. In her zeal for the poor red man of the west, she 
was not surpassed by Penn, Eliot, Williams, and others, 
who at a much earlier date labored so earnestly in educat- 
ing and christianizing them and seeing that full justice was 
meted out to them. 
My father was a member of the Methodist Church, very 
strict with himself in his attitude toward religion, but 
tolerant in this regard in his family. We all went regularly 
to church and Sunday school. During the last years of his 
life, he spent most of his Sundays in reading and studying 
the Bible. Nothing could drive his mind from this fascin- 
ating occupation, except the visit of his little grandson, 
Milo McGee, who, with his father living nearby, came fre- 
quently to our house on Sunday afternoons. When the 
child came into the house, the grandfather, who was ex- 
tremely fond of children, particularly his grandchildren, 
was obliged to put away the Sacred Book and his spectacles 
and to spend the rest of the day in entertaining the young 
man, by dancing him upon his knees, carrying him out un- 
der the trees, or taking him to the barnyard to see the cows, 
pigs, chickens, and horses, or for a stroll through the woods, 
in summer time. 
Our mother's name was Martha Ann Anderson. She was 
born near the great Mammoth Cave, in Kentucky. It was 
near where she lived, that many of the facts in Uncle Tom's 
Cabin which Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote, were obtained. 
Her uncle, William Chambers, was personally acquainted 
with the Selbys, noted characters in Uncle Tom's Cabin. 18 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
Mrs. Stowe, in the novel, had Uncle Tom killed by whip- 
ping but mother said he died in his own little cabin. 
My mother never knew any cruelties to be perpetrated up- 
on the negro slaves in the place where she was born. It 
was just as Mrs. Stowe said in her book, that slavery in 
Kentucky was seen in its mildest form. 
Our mother had better advantages than our father and 
was consequently much more studious, and better educated, 
and she certainly had a very discerning eye for all that is 
beautiful and sublime in nature. The poet has said, '1 There 
is a divinity that shapes our ends," and it has often oc- 
curred to me in fancy, that my mother's attitude toward 
nature in all its varying scenes and her oft told, vivid de- 
scriptions of garden spots where she had lived at different 
periods of her life may have had at least a trifle of influ- 
ence in shaping my brother's career, by bringing his mind 
more frequently and directly into harmony and sympathy 
with nature, and instilling into it aspirations to add even 
a little bit to the world's sum total of human knowledge. 
When my mother was a young girl, she came with her 
father first to Indiana and later to Sherrill's Mound, in 
Iowa. Sherrill's Mound was certainly at that time one of 
nature's own beauty spots. Here were the green, grassy 
mound, the sylvan spring, the trickling stream, with its 
mossy banks, the stately trees, and the soft clinging vine, 
and flowers everywhere bloomed in their wonderful loveli- 
ness as they must have bloomed in Eden, all which could fill 
one only with exulting gladness and awaken in one's spirit 
soft echoes of anthems which continually over God's Para- 
dise roll. 
The first time I saw Sherrill's Mound my brother W J 
and I were riding along by it, on a bright moonlight night. 
He pointed out the place to me and it surely was a vision of PARENTAGE 
19 
unsurpassed loveliness. Every corner, every opening, 
seemed to be illuminated by the soft beams of the yellow 
moon. The greensward stretched away everywhere tO' the 
bases of strange, spectral forms of trees, outlined against a 
starry sky, while a tiny, silver thread of spring water went 
singing down a gentle slope from its rocky source - all 
making an almost perfect bower abounding in so much that 
nature can supply. This was one of eastern Iowa's most 
picturescpie places. 
Today scarcely a trace of this primitive beauty remains. 
As was indicated in Mr. Secor's poem above, man's de- 
structive proclivities wrought its ruin. It is unfortunate 
that the material and immediate interests of the early set- 
tlers influenced them to such an extent, that they became to- 
tally oblivious to the fact, that trees are the grandest and 
most necessary product of nature, and that flowers form the 
finest drapery that adorns the earth in all lands, and that 
from a utilitarian and scientific viewpoint, their value can- 
not be estimated. Those men never seemed to realize that 
the preservation of the trees and flowers and especially the 
care of the trees, is one of the most important subjects that 
can engage the mind of man; for truly they are one of the 
greatest benefactors of the human race. If their universal 
destruction should take place, this fair earth would become 
a desert waste on which no life could live. While they at 
once yield a vast amount of products necessary to civilized 
man, if managed properly, they would yield a greater bene- 
fit, in the long run, to the individual owner, to the commun- 
ity, and to future generations. 
With all due respect and honor to those early pioneers 
who braved the hardships of frontier life and suffered its 
privations, one cannot but regret, that they should have 
deemed it necessary to destroy so much beauty and grand- 20 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
eur and utility, and that they should have looked upon 
forests with no other design than that of getting the greatest 
amount of immediate benefit or profit from them. Even 
today many do not regard them of much use, except as 
sources of certain paying products, under the name of 
lumber, tan-bark, charcoal, woodpulp, resin, tar, turpen- 
tine, etc., giving no consideration to the effects they have 
upon climate, rainfall, droughts, floods, health, or the beau- 
ty or the attractiveness of a region. These early settlers 
here and elsewhere, cleared off in the cheapest way great 
forests of the finest trees, which if standing now, would be 
worth more, far more, than the ground upon which they 
stood can ever be worth for farming. 
As all know, trees and flowers have been the admiration 
of the greatest and best men of all ages. The ancients 
fully understood the economic and hygienic value of trees. 
The cedar of Lebanon was justly the pride of the Jews and 
it appeared to them the emblem of strength and beauty. 
The palm was almost reverenced by the Hebrews. In tree 
planting, the Egyptian, the Greeks, and the Romans were 
most proficient. Hence Thebes, Memphis, Athens, Carth- 
age, Rome and Pompeii and Herculaneum, as their ruins 
still show, had their shaded streets or parks. More than 
2000 years ago, the richest Romans maintained rural 
homes as does the wealthy Londoner, -Viennese, and Berliner 
today and their ancient villas were lavishly adorned with 
shrubs and flowers and trees. The Paradise of the Persians 
was filled with trees and roses. The taste for beautiful 
gardens was transplanted from Persia to Greece and the 
Greek philosophers held their schools in well-kept gardens 
or groves. The devastation of parks, the destruction of 
shade trees, the neglect of public gardens and private 
grounds, the decay of rural tastes and the utter slights of PARENTAGE 
21 
home adornments were clearer proofs of the lapse into bar- 
barism than the vandalism which destroyed the proud 
monuments of classic art and literature. The terrible 
European War today is destroying not only human life but 
beautiful churches and other works of art which date away 
back in the Middle Ages and whose mode of construction, 
in many cases, and the colorings, carvings, and decorations 
can never be reproduced, for the secret of their formation 
died with the men that made them. But even the effects of 
these destructions by war, great as they are and deplorable 
in the extreme, are not comparable to the deleterous effects 
of the destruction of forests upon future generations. But 
there are signs, not only in the state of Iowa but in every 
state in the Union, of the growth of popular interest in 
this subject as evidenced by the creation of the National 
Forestry Congress, the formation in many states of associa- 
tions of horticulture and agriculture, Park and Forestry 
Commissions and other measures, calculated to awaken in 
the minds of the people at large, the vast importance of 
planting and preserving forests and adorning the waste 
places with shrubs and flowers, as well as the surroundings 
of their homes and schools and even extensive planting by 
the wayide. Mr. Peabody spoke truly when he said, "The 
debt of the present is to future generations. We owe it to 
those that follow us to leave our lands the better for our 
tillage and tree-planting and floriculture and we wrong 
ourselves and them if our fields and yards and highways 
are impoverished by our improvidence." 
Our mother began teaching school at Sherrill's Mound 
and later in the vicinity of Dubuque. At this time, the 
people in eastern Iowa were having troubles with the In- 
dians. Northward from Dubuque the plank road was built 
upon which they were obliged to pay toll. Mother called 22 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
this road "along the Coulie." This word comes from the 
French word couler meaning to drain. It was very low 
and wet at that time along this plank road. Couler Avenue, 
in Dubuque, got its name from this road and it is about in 
the same place. Some men, who afterwards became quite 
prominent citizens of Dubuque, went to school to my mother 
at this time. Mr. James Marble, a Frenchman still living 
in Dubuque, is, so far as known, the only surviving person 
who in those early days, was one of her scholars. I spent 
one whole day in February, 1915, at the home of Mr. Mar- 
ble who is now an old man eighty-three years of age but 
who is remarkably well preserved both mentally and phy- 
sically. His parents died when he was very young and his 
uncle, Antoine Lorr, also a Frenchman, took him to raise. 
The place Lore was named after Mr. Lorr although they 
changed the spelling from Lorr to Lore. Mr. Lorr em- 
ployed my mother as governess to teach his nephew and a 
negro ward of his. 
Mother related an incident to us which occurred at that 
time and created much excitement. Such incidents are apt 
to happen in new countries thinly settled and where law 
and order are not properly enforced. A man named Tea- 
garten sold the Indians some whiskey and under the in- 
fluence of the liquor they killed Teagarten. Mrs. Tea- 
garten was from home at that time. There were two chil- 
dren in the house whom the Indians struck. They pur- 
posely fell to the floor and pretended to be dead. The chil- 
dren were not seriously hurt but they bore the scars made 
by the tomahawk till their dying days. As soon as the In- 
dians left the house, the children went in search of their 
mother. The Indians were arrested and lodged in jail which 
was an insecure log cabin heated by a stove. While await- 
ing trial one of them killed the other with a stick of stove PARENTAGE 
23 
wood and then made his escape. The weather was extreme- 
ly cold and after a very short time, he came back to the jail 
and begged to be incarcerated again saying, '4 Me cold! ' ' 
Our parents were married August 7,1844, and soon after- 
wards they came to live on the farm previously obtained by 
my father from the government. Nine children were born 
to them. The oldest died in infancy. The next was George 
Henry who remained at home until he was past twenty-one. 
He was very helpful to mother who often said she did not 
know how she could have managed with her work, were it 
not for him. He cheerfully rocked the other children to 
sleep, took every care of them, ran on errands, and assisted 
her in every way possible. He attended the common school 
at home, first, and then went to Cornell College at Mount 
Vernon, Iowa, and became a civil engineer. He took up 
his abode in Clearwater, Nebraska, where he died Septem- 
ber 29, 1913. His life work was mainly surveying but he 
also served several years in the Nebraska legislature. His 
funeral was the largest ever held in the county where he 
lived and most beautiful floral tributes were sent by the 
General Assembly. 
From the Clearwater Record I copy the following: 
' ' George Henry McGee was born September 30, 1848, near 
Farley, Dubuque County, Iowa. He was the eldest living 
son of the late James and Martha Ann McGee. His life 
was spent on the home farm, northeast of Farley, Iowa, un- 
til attaining his majority, except during the time he was in 
college. In 1871, he came to Nebraska, where he has con- 
tinuously resided. On July 9, 1881, he was united in mar- 
riage to Miss Adelaide Van Ostrand. To this union were 
born nine children, Emma Louise, Stella Edna, (Mrs. Mil- 
ler) Georgiana, Edward Clark, Susan Mildred, Minnie 
Martha, Janies Eugene, David Henry and Francis Marshal, 24 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
who with their mother, two brothers, David of Mission, 
Texas, and Isaac of Farley, and one sister, Miss Emma of 
Farley, survive him. Without pain or suffering, he crossed 
the great divide. The last words upon his lips were, 
1Don't worry, I'm better now.' 
11 The death of George Henry McGee removes a good citi- 
zen, a father who ruled his family by love and kindness. 
To her who was his companion he never gave an unkind 
word, filling the great end and aim of human life, 'True 
pathos and sublime makes a happy fireside clime for weans 
and wife.' He leaves to his family a name untarnished 
by any disreputable or dishonorable act either in public 
or private life. Well may they take his life as their guid- 
ing star and inspiration. When he passed to that golden 
shore the record is, he lived to love and bless his fellow- 
men. On that beautiful, September morning answering 
the summons of the grim messenger he joined 'that in- 
numerable caravan that moves to the mysterious realm 
where each shall take his chamber in the silent halls of 
death. ' His favorite hymn sung at the funeral was: 
1 ' My days are gliding swiftly by, 
And I, a pilgrim stranger, 
Would not detain them as they fly, 
Those hours of toil and danger. 
"We'll gird our loins my brethren dear, 
Our heavenly home discerning; 
Our absent Lord has left us word, 
Let every lamp be burning. 
' ' Should coming days be cold and dark, 
We need not cease our singing; 
That perfect rest naught can molest, 
Where golden harps are ringing. PARENTAGE 
25 
"Let sorrow's rudest tempest blow, 
Each chord on earth to sever, 
Our King says Come, and there's our home 
Forever, and forever. 
"For 0 we stand on Jordan's strand 
Our friends are passing over, 
And just before the shining shore 
We may almost discover." 
David, the second oldest living son, was an expert in 
physics. His mechanical faculties were extraordinarily 
well developed. He, in conjunction with his brother W J 
and a cousin, invented and patented (June 9, 1874) an im- 
proved adjustable corn cultivator. They also manufac- 
tured them for a time, but the enterprise was not financially 
successful, nor was the invention a pioneer in its class. 
David is the old bachelor of the family and he is now in 
the vicinity of Lake Charles, Louisiana, looking after his 
extensive land interests of rice plantations and orange 
grove. 
Isaac, the third remaining son, lived on a farm near the 
old home until a few years ago he moved to town to edu- 
cate his two youngest children, William Isaac, familiarly 
called Nacy, and Mary Joy. Milo, one of Isaac's older 
children, is not a prodigy of strength like the Greek Milo 
after whom he was named, but he certainly was a power 
in the land when he was a little boy, as I have already 
indicated, for managing his Grandfather McGee. He 
walked and talked before he was a year old. He and his 
sister Belle now occupy good positions as teachers in the 
public schools of Nebraska. George, Milo's older brother, 
Jost an eye in early life, which interfered with his obtaining 
an education, although he has a bright mind and is an 26 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
exceedingly good-hearted fellow. According to the opinion 
of an overloving, indulgent spinster aunt all of her sixteen 
nephews and nieces are bright, capable young people and 
they all give promise of being good, true, loyal citizens and 
noble men and women than which nothing is better. 
Emma, the only girl of the McGee family, is the old 
maid and she still lives on the old home farm. The memory 
of so many things connected with this old home and her 
strong affection for the flowers, shrubs, trees, and birds re- 
maining on the place, is so overmastering, that she feels 
she cannot tear herself away from them. In this respect 
she is something like the late Joaquin Miller, the poet of 
the Sierras, who for years lived alone on a high hill in the 
vicinity of Oakland, California. Here this poet philosopher 
has planted trees, as he himself expressed it, "I planted 
them 30,000 strong just fifteen years ago." 
"Here I shall sit in sun-lit life's decline 
Beneath my trees and somber verdant vine." 
When this sage was asked by a visitor what caused him 
to go away up there to live a solitary life, with a merry 
twinkle in his eye he said,11 To get away from fool-people. ' ' 
What wonder is it that one who has lived so long in this 
world should grow weary of the lack of harmony and the 
inconsistencies of humanity and that he should want to 
spend the evening of his life in some quiet spot there to 
enjoy that sweet repose which alone comes from close com- 
munion with nature! CHAPTER III 
MORE REMOTE ANCESTRY 
Our great-grandfather, on the paternal side, was Alex- 
ander McGee of the County Down, Ireland, who came at an 
early date to this country. Our paternal grandfather, 
James McGee, died in the Old Country and his widow, 
whose maiden name was Rachel Ball, married Henry Hall, 
and in 1848, having lost her second husband in Ireland, 
came to this country and to Iowa. Her two children, 
Rachel and John Hall, father's half brother and sister, 
came with her. They made their home at father's for a 
while. When Rachel married she lived in Dubuque, and 
the mother made her home with the daughter in Dubuque. 
This grandmother of ours was a Methodist. At the time 
the church in Dubuque of that denomination was a very 
small log structure. Later a small frame building was 
erected. At both of these churches she attended divine 
service, but she was laid to rest in Linwood Cemetery be- 
fore the Main Street Methodist Church was built on the spot 
where now the beautiful St. Luke's stands. 
On the maternal side, the line lead^back to Samuel 
Anderson, who was born at sea about 1740, of Irish emi- 
grant parents. He resided near Yorktown, Virginia, and 
both he and Grandfather McGee participated in the Revo- 
lutionary War, on the American side, which fact, in a way 
perhaps, accounts for W J's intense patriotism. Grand- 
mother Anderson's maiden name was Haggard, whose an- 
cestry reached back many generations to a Welch family 
of Haggards residing in Wales. They are distinguished 28 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
particularly for their longevity. She was quite different 
from John Anderson, her husband, and our grandfather. 
She did not need to cultivate vim as people do now, for she 
had it in great abundance. She was rugged and masculine, 
while grandfather was more delicate, refined, and somewhat 
effeminate. He could not kill a chicken or any other animal 
for meat, but his wife, possessing no sentimentality, per- 
formed all such tasks as these without a single scruple, even 
setting broken limbs and bandaging severe wounds when 
called upon to do so. A first cousin of our mother's, 
named Nancy Haggard Smith, is living now (1915) at 
Concord, Minnesota. She celebrated her ninety-seventh 
birthday in April of this year receiving and answering 
several hundred congratulation postcards. She reads a 
great deal without spectacles and feels proud of the fact 
that she is related to H. Rider Haggard, the novelist of 
England. 
Grandfather Anderson lived for a time in Kentucky 
where, as previously stated, our mother was born. Later 
he moved with his family to Indiana. His main life work 
was that of a country school teacher, beginning this work 
in the year 1800 and according to his diary he was still 
at it in 1840. The early settlers of these western territories 
prized education as much as they prized liberty, but they 
were often very poor and unable to pay the teacher with 
anything like the promptness such services demanded. This 
was the case in some of the districts where grandfather 
taught. He composed some lines in which he reveals his 
feelings on this subject which I here append: 
My friends draw near and you shall hear 
That which I'm going to say; 
My school is out and there's no doubt, 
I'm waiting for my pay. MORE REMOTE ANCESTRY 
29 
As you have seen, I've faithful been, 
Attending every day; 
Both soon and late on you to wait, 
For which I want my pay. 
With much concern, I tried to teach 
Your children Well, I say! 
And can assert they learned expert 
For which I want my pay. 
But some will plead "hard times" indeed, 
"Don't hurry me, I pray;" 
Though times are hard upon my word 
I truly want my pay. 
I'm some in debt and cannot wait 
A very long delay; 
I'll be perplexed and sorely vexed, 
Unless I get my pay! 
Lest I intrude, I will conclude 
And tell you by the way, 
That in the end I am your friend, 
And thank you for my pay. 
Grandfather Anderson had truly a literary turn of mind. 
He wrote only one book. It is still in the family although 
it is a very old volume. It is a curiosity in itself, a veri- 
table storehouse of information. One might almost say it 
touches upon every form and branch of human knowledge: 
education, medicine, law, agriculture, horticulture, ang- 
ling, sea-faring, astronomy, machinery, slavery, banks and 
banking, politics, society, government, science, art, and re- 
ligion. In it we find interesting articles written on beau- 
ty, friendship, ridicule, envy, curiosity, honor, forgive- 
ness, quarrels, pity, love, marriage, patriotism, honesty, 30 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
courtship, happiness, conceit, and many other topics inter- 
esting and instructive. There are some very good ballads, 
addresses, hymns, essays, letters, and poems. The verses I 
am using in these reminiscences of course are not claimed by 
him as poetry. He calls it all doggerel. He merely jots 
down his impressions and feelings in these verses without 
much regard to rhyme, feet, measure, or poetry in true sense 
of the word. All the pieces in the book are interspersed 
with epigrams, riddles, fables, anecdotes, puzzles, acrostics, 
proverbs, enigmas, puns, epitaphs, obituaries, and parodies. 
In the medical department, we find some quaint but rational 
cures for Asiatic cholera, headache, toothache, cancer, colic, 
rheumatism, dropsy, white swelling, snakebites, and many 
others. Most of these, he says, are infallible cures. On the 
veterinary pages, he looks after the welfare of the horse in 
particular. In horticulture, to which he gave a great deal 
of his time, especially during the last years of his life, and 
in which he was always very much interested, we find 
methods of tilling the soil, the growing of cabbage, lettuce, 
melons, onions, turnips, beets, carrots, radishes, and par- 
ticularly flowers. He was an enthusiastic lover of flow- 
ers. The hollyhock was his favorite as it was also 
the favorite flower of my mother. All his life he 
showed a passionate fondness for all the beautiful in nature 
but nothing appealed to him with so much delight as 
flowers. He communed with them as one is wont to com- 
mune with a dear friend. He cared for them as one cares 
for that which is best loved on earth. In common with 
his love for flowers he must have loved his vocation - 
teaching public school. A great part of his book is taken 
up with topics concerned with education. To the modern 
educator his views on school teaching may seem old-fash- 
ioned and queer; but they show the condition of learning MORE REMOTE ANCESTRY 
31 
west of the Alleghanies, between the years 1800 to 1840, or 
even later, the period, at least, during which grandfather 
was in the business. Yet one cannot help feeling in read- 
ing his book, that he was abreast of his time in educational 
matters, that he was exceptionally energetic in his calling, 
and that he was keenly alive to the importance of bettering 
the schools in every way possible. In his "Some Sober 
Thoughts on Keeping School," his "Hints to Parents, 
Teachers, and Children," his "Address to the Patrons of 
Schools," and his "Reflections on Turning out Teachers 
on Holidays," we find he was confronted by some of the 
same questions which are agitating the minds of the school- 
men of the present time and our school-men of today are 
just about as near a satisfactory solution of these problems 
as were the teachers in the early part of the nineteenth 
century. 
He must have been particularly interested in mathe- 
matics. He discusses the whole subject of Arithmetic and 
gives unique but simple illustrations of the solution of ex- 
amples under almost every division of the subject. Book- 
keeping, too, is treated at length, and the elucidation of his 
methods in this art show originality, simplicity, and con- 
ciseness. Above all, in everything connected with his 
teaching he emphasizes neatness, simplicity, accuracy, and 
dispatch. 
As a general thing, he seemed to be delighted with his 
work, and surely no teacher could be more interested in his 
scholars' welfare than he, yet there were times, when he, 
like all mortals in every calling in life, seemed to grow 
weary of his tasks and he was wont then to make a quiet 
complaint. This was especially noticeable during the last 
years of his life. On page 39 of his book he writes in 
1838, '1 Only one day more of school and I am glad of it. ' ' 32 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
On page 242, on the 20th of June, 1840, we find writ- 
ten, "This day 40 years ago, I began to teach school on 
the same day of the week, the month, and the year. At 
this day my scholars learn just as fast as when I began. 
Though I am growing old I can teach all branches except 
writing. I can't write any more." Good writing at the 
present time is almost a lost art, but in grandfather's day 
more attention was given to it than to most other branches. 
Again, on page 238, he says, "Old age is coming on apace 
and with it all its infirmities. I am now in my fifty-ninth 
year. I will say in this place, my writing is so miserable 
I am ashamed of it. I have a rheumatic pain in my hand 
and forefinger and as a result my hand has become stif- 
fened to such an extent that I have no longer good use of 
either fingers or hand. ' ' Some time later than this he com- 
plains of his hand being palsied, which was a fact and 
the disease remained with him until his death. 
I copy in this place his "A picture of School-keeping," 
which shows something of the conditions he had to meet, the 
esteem in which he was held by people and scholars, his 
love for the work, and his preference for it above all other 
callings, and the irksomeness of his tasks when old age 
and infirmities were weighing heavily upon him. 
'' In the year one thousand eight hundred 
It was on school-keeping I stumbled; 
In the business I took great delight 
In instructing the young to read and write - 
I could write well and cipher too, 
Excelled by none and equalled by few. 
The scholars came from far and near. 
All that came instructed were, 
I had to manage all dispositions - 
When out of school I had no rest; MORE REMOTE ANCESTRY 
33 
They honored me, they me caressed, 
Among teachers I was called the best. 
It is true I succeeded well 
In teaching youths to read and spell, 
From the young man of twenty-three 
To the tiny, bright-eyed A. B. C. 
Yes, indeed, I would rather be 
Among the lowly skilled to rule 
My mansion - my little school - 
Than in the pomp of splendid courts, 
Or in the chase, the church, the town, or ball, 
The school, I say, pleased me the best of all. 
Thus from year to year from day to day 
I happily passed my time away; 
For at the end of every quarter 
The money paid made time seem shorter; 
On the last day of school every scholar 
Generally paid up every dollar. 
In old Kentucky good times I had; 
But in Indiana things go bad; 
The times are altered for the worse; 
The Hoosiers take a different course; 
For at the term's end I must say 
I have to wait to get my pay. 
Besides the school here is a place of pain, 
Of trouble, care, and no great gain, 
In doggerel rhyme I will this show 
If you'll please read the lines below. 
Ye Muses!, ye little friendly tribe 
Attend while I, a Hoosier school describe. 
First in the morning as the scholars enter in 
Each one comes with a confidential grin. 
They take their seats, but with such scant graces 34 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
They soon grow restless and oft change places. 
Then go giddy whispers round and round 
Where monsters of dullness and blockheads abound - 
Words nipping and clipping, offensive I hear; 
A mumbling and buzzing often puzzling the ear; 
I was often vexed and sorely perplexed by the din; 
Some starting to speak, then falter their words to 
begin; 
Some itching and twitching and trying their fingers to 
bend, 
With pushing and crowding the bench at each end. 
But as to their books one can see by their looks 
If they can help it, to study they will not attend. 
Some giggling and wriggling both this way and that; 
Some spitting, others hitting, a full tit for tat; 
And punching and pinching to pass away time 
And make me lament the way I must earn my dime. 
Wherever they be if the teacher doesn't see 
They continue to plan to bother poor me. 
With various tricks and capers, 
And abusing books and papers, 
The school is every day blended, 
As if they surely intended 
From the teacher all patience to rob. 
Therefore the teacher must really be 
A man of great patience you see; 
This then is my second picture 
From it I have formed the conjecture 
That I'm dealing with wrong trained nature - 
The uncultured man in miniature - 
For busy fancy, reasons try to find 
For the giddy freaks of youthful mind; 
I have had a chance to know MORE REMOTE ANCESTRY 
35 
For I have taught both high and low. 
Now, I perceive I'm growing old, 
My hand trembles the pen to hold; 
I write the worse the more I try, 
And cannot tell the reason why, 
Unless old age coming on apace 
Is leaving a nervous, broken space. 
I used to teach with cheerfulness, 
When energy unchecked by pain I had; 
But now a school's a horrid place. 
My rhymes are done, I 'll quit the trade 
I followed long, and nothing made. 
To patrons, scholars, now I tell 
A sad, a kind, a long farewell. 
Among the things I have mentioned, Grandfather An- 
derson was also very much interested in every phenomena 
of nature, and made efforts to account for them by the 
light of his own observation, investigation, and reason. In 
the part of the book which has been destroyed there was 
an able article on the description of the earthquake of 1811. 
From this article my brother W J may have become con- 
vinced of the importance of seeing and observing the won- 
ders of nature first hand; for at the time of the Charleston 
earthquake, he hastened away as fast as he could go, to 
the scene of the disturbance and he was on the spot with 
his seismometer, to take observations, before any other 
scientist had reached the place. 
Along in the forties grandfather, now an old man, with 
his family moved to Sherrill's Mound, that beautiful spot 
of primitive flowers and exquisite trees which iny pen has 
so feebly described in the earlier part of this work. One 
of his sons, my Uncle David, kept a diary. In it, while 
lauding the grandeur of their new home surroundings, he 36 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
describes the various feelings that swayed his mind on the 
road to Iowa, in leaving his childhood's home of joys and 
tears, jotting down the lines of the poet, 
"As he loves his daily bread 
The Hoosier loves his old homestead. ' ' 
On the summit of the mound this same boy, inspired by 
the solitary charms of the country, wrote a poem of real 
merit, about the death of his younger brother, Joseph, who 
that day two years previously, in 1844, died far away 
from his father's home in Indiana. This brother had come 
with a relative to Iowa before the rest of the family. CHAPTER IV 
INCIDENTS IN LIFE 
In infancy W J was a very sickly, delicate child. My 
mother often said she was obliged to carry him in her arms 
almost constantly day and night, during the first years of 
his life. The attending physician told her, he had too 
large a brain for the strength of his body. He even re- 
marked that he had a Daniel Webster head, which was not 
quite true for Daniel Webster had the larger brain. Who 
the physician was or what his professional ability was, I 
cannot say. It might have been in my brother's case as 
in that of many another, that mother love saved the child 
when the skill of the ablest physician only played a minor 
part. After he was about three years of age, his health 
and strength began to improve, although he still had a 
physical defect which fortunately later was entirely out- 
grown. Possibly he inherited from his ancestry a little of 
their ruggedness which enabled him to overcome these 
weaknesses of childhood. This inheritance was supplement- 
ed, too, no doubt, by conditions of a simple, abstemious life 
and vigorous muscular work. The influence and impres- 
sions of the world of nature, when one loves to explore her 
fields, are likewise most conducive to health and growth of 
mind, body, and soul; for it is generally agreed that exer- 
cise and healthy, symmetrical growth go hand in hand: 
sleep then is considered more refreshing, the mind is clear- 
er, thoughts and ideas come quicker, the eye is brighter, 
taste is more perceptible, smell more acute, touch more 38 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
delicate, and the discrimination between right and wrong 
more true. The functions of all the bodily organs are 
bettered and a new elasticity and grace is imparted to the 
step and a new lease of life granted. As a result of these 
conditions W J when he reached manhood had a fine 
physical constitution, seemingly at least, and capable of 
enduring any amount of hard, physical labor, and showing 
not the least inclination to any diseased tendencies or weak- 
nesses; yet notwithstanding his rugged, physical appear- 
ance he may not have been as well and strong as seemed 
apparent and his somewhat uncertain disposition helped 
to strengthen this fact. 
Very early in life, he received the appellation "Don." 
By this name he was known and called throughout his life, 
by relatives, friends, and neighbors. He obtained the title 
from his younger brother, Isaac, who when a child could 
not articulate the J in John and thus made the word Don. 
He seemed to like this name himself for he taught his 
children to call him Don instead of papa or father. He 
has one living namesake in the family, his niece, the daugh- 
ter of George Henry McGee, having called her oldest boy 
after him. His own oldest son, Donald, who died when 
very young, was named after his father, the aid being 
added to distinguish father and son. He always signed 
his name W J omitting the abbreviation marks after the 
initials. 
He was very fond of good clothes and was quite tasty 
and sometimes he was quite fastidious in the selection of 
wearing apparel, always desiring that which was strictly 
according to the mode and the finest and best material. 
In his habits he was most methodical and wanted things 
kept in their places. After he had been away from home 
for a number of years, in one of his visits to the parental INCIDENTS IN LIFE 
39 
dwelling, he wanted a string to tie up a bundle. Looking 
about him he said, "When I was at home I could always 
find things just where I left them." As it happened, the 
twine for doing up packages was still kept in the same 
place and I told him he could find it in the cupboard exact- 
ly where he used to get it years before. One can scarcely 
turn round in the old home today, without seeing fossils, 
stones, bits of clay, and other things that he picked up on 
his excursions and brought home for the purpose of more 
minute study, and after he had examined and studied them 
sufficiently, they were laid away with care, yes, one might 
almost say with reverence. 
It has been said by some that when he was at home he 
was lazy and inclined to shirk his share of the burdens of 
the family. Strictly speaking this cannot be true. In 
boyhood, youth, and early manhood, he worked hard on the 
farm, conscientiously doing as much as the other boys of 
the home. But a nature so intensely serious, so anxious 
for noble work, could not content itself with a work, noble 
too in itself and necessary, but which the great mass of 
humanity having no far-reaching, higher aims could do 
just as well. In this connection I quote from his Memoir 
written by F. H. Knowlton: 
"Although it has been said of Mr. W J McGee that in 
his earlier life, he was averse to manual labor, in later life 
he certainly developed untiring energy as a glance at his 
many and varied accomplishments will show. He was also 
a good organizer and was systematic and painstaking in 
all he undertook. Even his last work on 'Wells and Sub- 
soil Water,' the proof of which is before me, was recalled 
during the last weeks of his illness and was submitted but 
two weeks before his death complete to the last detail." 
This energy he possessed all during his earlier years. 40 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
During the intervals of cessation from the arduous toil of 
the farm, he roamed over the country, observing the struc- 
ture of mounds, the course of streams, making extensive 
investigations in caverns, examining rocks and soils, and 
studying fossils, etc. At night, when he could get the books 
to do so, he read up what others had said about all these 
things and in this way he laid the foundation for a more 
thorough understanding and a broader view of the work 
which later engaged so much of his attention. 
He was very helpful, too, about the house. What he 
did was done well and what he made was made to last. 
Once when he was very busy writing up a scientific article 
for publication, while mother and I were doing a big 
churning, the lid broke. We requested him to leave his 
writing, at once, and make a new lid for us. He set aside 
his writing, made the cover which fitted perfectly, but it 
was nearly two inches thick. We laughed about it and 
asked him if he intended that lid should pass down to his 
grandchildren. His reply was he did not want to stop his 
work again to make churn lids. That was long years ago. 
We have the churn lid yet as good as new and he has grand- 
children, too, to whom it might have been bequeathed, had 
he so desired. He could, in fact, turn his hand to any- 
thing from making a churn cover for us to use in the house, 
to planning the construction of a large bam on his father's 
farm. His inventive powers were far above the ordinary. 
He made many little, useful contrivances for the home and 
as stated before, he and his brother David invented a farm 
implement which served its day and then gave way to some- 
thing better in machinery which the wonderful inventive 
spirit of the nineteenth century continually put forth. He 
started a blacksmith shop in Farley, Iowa, worked at the 
business for a time and was successful in it; but such work INCIDENTS IN LIFE 
41 
was not his calling and he soon abandoned the trade to 
take up a vocation which was more to his taste and bent 
of mind. 
Although raised in a Christian family W J McGee never 
joined any church. Our mother was a Baptist and the 
tenets of her faith forbidding infant baptism, that rite was 
not performed on him. He was not a scoffer at religion, 
however, as some might think from things he has said and 
from some acts in his life in reference to it. One cold, 
drizzling day in December he came into the house from his 
work exclaimining petulantly, "This is abominable weath- 
er." Our father gently reprimanding him quoted the 
lines of the hymn, "When I am happy in Jesus, Decem- 
ber's as pleasant as May," to which Don replied, "The 
fellow that wrote that did not have to stay out in such 
weather as this or he would not have written it." Mr. 
Knowlton, referred to above, in speaking of him as a man 
of cordial, sympathetic manner and of deep human sym- 
pathy, tells of an incident that is related of him when he 
was in attendance at a meeting of the American Associa- 
tion. He was asked by a local divine to fill his pulpit at 
the Sunday evening service. Although not affiliated with 
any church, Don at once accepted the invitation and select- 
ing for his text the words, "Love ye one another," it is 
said he delivered an address replete with human sympathy 
and understanding. He certainly had the Christian spirit 
for Mr. Knowlton says, "He was kind and considerate to 
those who worked with him and generous to a degree, it 
being rare - too rare indeed for his own best interest - 
that any appeal was made to him without substantial re- 
ward. ' ' I have in my possession a memorandum belonging 
to my brother, Don, containing an itemized account of his 
receipts and expenditures, when he was at home and was 42 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
just beginning to earn a little money that he could call his 
own. From what I have examined of this account book, I 
find there is scarcely a page on which a record is not made 
of money given for missionary funds, church supplies, 
festivals, picnics, and Christmas trees, for charity, Sunday 
schools, the purchase of Christian literature, and other 
religious purposes. The sums given ranged from twenty- 
five cents to five dollars which, considering the frequency of 
contributions and the amount of money he was receiving 
for his work, was by no means inconsiderable. He at- 
tended Sunday school regularly with the other children of 
the family when he was a boy and as to his knowledge of 
the Bible few men, leading a life as full as his, could know 
it better or could quote passages from it with greater facil- 
ity and readiness. Like my oldest brother he had his 
favorite hymn selected in the years of his early manhood 
and which continued to be his favorite through all the years 
of his mortal life. This hymn, entitled, 1 'Vain are all 
Terrestrial Pleasures," I copy in full for I feel that it 
shows the value my brother always placed upon things 
of earth as compared with the life he pictured beyond the 
tomb. 
Vain are all terrestrial pleasures; 
Mix'd with dross the purest gold; 
Seek we then for heavenly treasures, - 
Treasures never waxing old. 
Let our best affections centre 
On the things around the throne: 
There no thief can ever enter; 
Moth and rust are there unknown. 
Earthly joys no longer please us; 
Here would we renounce them all; INCIDENTS IN LIFE 
43 
Seek our only rest in Jesus, - 
Him our Lord and Master call. 
Faith, our languid spirits cheering, 
Points to brighter worlds above, 
Bids us look for his appearing; 
Bids us triumph in his love. 
May our light be always burning, 
And our loins be girded round, 
Waiting for our Lord's returning,- 
Longing for the welcome sound. 
Thus the Christian life adorning 
Never need we be afraid, 
Should He come at night or morning, 
Early dawn, or evening shade. 
- Ford 
In his school days, his loyalty to his friends was a prom- 
inent element in his character. Like most boys he thought 
it a noble act to screen his schoolmates from punishment 
without taking into consideration whether the lads were 
deserving of punishment or not. One day a boy was threat- 
ened by the teacher for some misdemeanor, but on the ap- 
proach of irate master the boy ran out of the house and 
down the road as fast as he could go. Don, doubtless hav- 
ing the confidence of the master and being a large, muscu- 
lar fellow, was dispatched after the culprit and ordered to 
bring him back. My brother was fleet as a deer and soon 
came within hearing distance of the poor fellow and then 
he told him to run with all his might so that he could not 
catch him, at the same time slackening his own speed, and 
the boy escaped. 
That Don was somewhat eccentric cannot be denied. 
This trait in his character may have been due to lack of all 44 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
round culture of the schools or to physical causes. He had 
a somewhat nervous morbid organization which was kept 
up by excitement. His seeming awkwardness and oddity 
in early years were probably assumed to cover over his 
diffidence and extreme super-sensitiveness. It is an ac- 
knowledged fact, however, that a true man in a false world 
or a man who is simply nature's child must necessarily be 
eccentric. My mother had a habit when reading to chuckle 
aloud when she came to anything funny or ridiculous. 
One day while thus engaged I heard her laugh. I re- 
quested her to read the amusing part to me. It was con- 
cerning an editor named Johnny Lang and a poet of some 
distinction. The former becoming displeased at the verse- 
maker about something, referred to him in his newspaper 
as ' ' the fellow with a zigzag brain. ' ' The poet seeing this, 
penned the following lines: 
"I will tell you Johnny Lang in the way of a laugh, 
In answer to your rude and unmannerly scrawl, 
That in my humble sense it is better by half, 
To have brains that are zigzag than no brains at all. ' ' 
My brother, however, became more masterful as he grew 
older and went out into the world and had greater oppor- 
tunities of meeting people. 
On some of his scientific trips he was often regarded 
with suspicion. Dressed suitably for the work in hand, 
when he started out he probably presented the appearance 
of well clad farmer or laborer at work; but after traveling 
for weeks, perhaps, through grain fields, brush, and thorny 
brambles, wading streams and struggling through mud and 
dust, he accpiired the look of a common tramf), lunatic, or 
robber, and for such he had been taken more than once, by 
people through whose country he passed. INCIDENTS IN LIFE 
45 
On the Atlantic Costal plain he stopped at a hotel one 
evening to secure lodging for the night. He was dressed 
in the usual corduroy, doubtless somewhat the worse for 
wear and tear, and the clerk at the hotel positively re- 
fused to give him shelter, considering him a man not quite 
right in his head, even though he offered him more than 
the usual amount charged to lodgers. 
On the Piedmont Belt he was arrested and was about 
to be searched for a robber. The officer and the man who 
had him arrested came at night to the inn where he stayed. 
He had retired and the landlord objected to having him 
disturbed. His remonstrance was so great, that W J's per- 
secutors concluded to remain all night and to get him put 
into custody in the morning. When Don came down to 
breakfast after a night of refreshing sleep, the hotel pro- 
prietor introduced him to the officer of the county. The 
two men felt like throwing up their job and retreating at 
once, but Don brought forth the contents of his pockets, 
telling them in the most gentlemanly way that he was not 
a robber. 
Clad in one of these garbs, he unexpectedly made us a 
visit at the old home. At the time I had a dog that took 
it upon himself to be my protector, accompanying me and 
acting as a body-guard, whenever I went roaming through 
the woods and fields in search for flowers, berries, or for 
pleasure. I saw Don coming down the road before the 
house and ran to meet him, the dog following. Grasping 
my brother's hand by way of greeting him, the dog rushed 
at him and it was with difficulty that I prevented the cur 
from tearing him to pieces. The animal would not even 
let me walk by my brother's side or near him, and while 
he remained with us the cur kept his eye upon him, refusing 
all overtures to make friends with him. He was wont to 46 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
act quite differently when Don came home dressed up like 
other people. But withal my brother was affectionate, sin- 
cere, brave and true and proud; yes, proud to a fault, his 
eccentricity being of little moment. 
He never learned to smoke. One time he found himself 
in the company of a number of young fellows who had just 
learned to smoke cigars. They knew all there was worth 
knowing. Don said he would rather associate with those 
who did not know so much, for their silly, supercilious talk 
bored him and he was nauseated by the smoke of the cigars. 
My brother told of a terrible experience he had when he 
was out in the desert of Arizona making meteorological ob- 
servations and studying the effect of light upon life in the 
desert. Where he was encamped there was an abundance 
of water due to the light rains and the seepage from the 
precipice above which was several hundred feet in height. 
Except at this place there was no water to be found nearer 
than thirty-five miles to the northwest and eighty miles to 
the eastward, and the nearest town was thirty miles north 
in an air line over broad sandy wastes. 
One morning two men on horseback came into the camp. 
They were Mexicans, one about sixty-five years old, the 
other forty. They were on their way to some '1 lost mines ' ' 
farther on, which had been rediscovered by the younger 
man. This younger man had a fine and vigorous physique. 
He was almost six feet in height, broad-shouldered, deep 
chested, a well-built man in every way and capable of 
enduring any amount of hardship and fatigue. Don did 
not like the appearance of the older man from the first. 
He seemed like a man that would betray another without 
any compunction, and extreme selfishness and cunning were 
perceptible in his every act. They had a good supply of 
food with them - enough to last ten days or more. They INCIDENTS IN LIFE 
47 
remained all night in the camp and in the morning, after 
filling their canteeens with water, set out again for the 
mines. At midnight the old man returned to the camp 
with two horses. He reported that the younger man had 
gone on and had sent him back for water and that he 
would meet the younger man at a point in the trail known 
to both. The next day the old man set out again with an 
abundance of water but returned again in the evening 
saying he could not find his companion. Don sent out 
Jose, his servant and guide, to look for the lost man, but 
Jose, after wandering about for a day and a night, came 
back to the camp exhausted by fatigue. All hope of rescu- 
ing the man was now given up, for he had been out several 
days with only a small amount of water and few live longer 
than two days in the desert when deprived of water. The 
old Mexican went back whence he came and my brother 
still being concerned about the lost man took his guide and 
for two or three days they traveled many miles hoping to 
get some tidings of the unfortunate man, but they were 
finally obliged to give him up. 
About eight days after the Mexicans had left the camp, 
early one morning, Don and his man were awakened by a 
terrible cry like that of an enraged animal. My brother 
suspected it was the lost Mexican. Hastily supplying them- 
selves with water and medicine they set out in the direction 
whence the noise came. 
On the sands under a tree they found the poor fellow 
in a terrible condition. In Don's note book a description 
was given of the appearance of the man. "There is no 
death more cruel than that of the ' desert thirst. ' The man 
was entirely naked; his big, strong legs and arms were 
shrunken to the very bone; his ribs bulged out like those 
of a starving horse; his habitually plethoric abdomen was 48 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
drawn in almost against his vertebral column; his lips had 
disappeared as if amputated, leaving low edges of black 
tissue; his gums and teeth projected like those of a skinned 
animal and his flesh was dry and black; his nose was with- 
ered and shrunken to half its size and the nostrils and 
vomer showed black; his eyes were set in a winkless stare, 
his face was as black as a negro's and his skin was turned a 
ghastly purple with great livid blotches and streaks; his 
lower legs, feet, forearms, and hands were torn and notched 
by contact with thorns and sharp rocks, yet even the fresh- 
est cuts were as so many scratches in dry leather, without 
a trace of blood; his joints and bones stood out like those 
of a wasted consumptive, though the skin clung to them 
suggesting shrunken rawhide used in repairing a broken 
wheel. From inspection and handling I estimated his 
weight to be about one hundred and fifteen pounds. 
"We soon found him deaf to all but loud sounds and so 
blind as to distinguish nothing save light and dark. The 
mucuous membrane lining his mouth and throat was shriv- 
eled, cracked, and blackened and his tongue was shriveled 
to a mere bunch of tegument very black. His respiration 
was slow, spasmodic, and accompanied by deep moaning 
or roaring - the sound that awakened us a quarter mile 
away. His extremities were cold, no pulsation could be 
detected at the wrists and there was apparently little or no 
circulation beyond the knees and elbows. His heartbeats 
were slow, irregular, fluttering, and almost ceased in the 
intervals between the breathings." 
After three days of careful nursing my brother was re- 
warded by seeing the man return to consciousness and on 
the fourth day he took him on a wagon to the nearest sta- 
tion. He improved rapidly in health, strength, and flesh, 
but his hair, which was abundant and dark two weeks prev- INCIDENTS IN LIFE 
49 
iously, was now an iron gray and the half of it at least 
was gone. 
My brother took notes of what the man told him, when he 
could talk, about the ordeal through which he passed. "Af- 
ter the older man left him he reached the mines all right, 
posted notices there for a mineral claim, and then sought the 
road pointed out by his companion. He wandered over the 
sand for four days. His water gave out the first day. Then 
he was obliged to throw away his canteen, his clothing, and 
food. He suffered intensely from thirst and heat and fa- 
tigue. He finally became convinced that he had been misled 
and then rage seized him, to live long enough to kill his be- 
trayer, was his most earnest desire. Don said, he thought 
this wrath taking possession of him was a powerful incen- 
tive, that it carried him on for miles and doubtless saved 
his life. On the fifth day he found the trail leading to the 
camp which was fifty miles away. On he went, sleeping in 
dry water courses, eating scorpion tails, wild gourds, and 
chewing insects. The sixth day his eyes grew dim, the 
mountains danced before him, the cactus moved back and 
forth. Now, too weak to walk, he tried to crawl and still 
he kept in his mind the mad desire to keep up his strength 
long enough to slay the man that so traitorously deceived 
him. On the seventh day he came to the place where he 
and the other Mexican had rested the last night they were 
together. He now felt sure of relief. He threw himself 
across the road so as not to be missed by anyone who might 
pass. The buzzards that had followed him for two days, 
now undaunted came near him eager to devour what re- 
mained of the poor creature. He plodded on and on and 
the eighth day he saw by the guide post that he was still 
seven miles from the camp. He was greatly disappointed 
for he thought he was nearer to the desired haven. He 50 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
could go no farther. He said his prayers and lay down to 
die. At daybreak the following morning he had a hallucin- 
ation that he had died but that his soul remained in his 
body to ward off the buzzards. All the eighth day and night 
he crawled along when he could and on the ninth his voice 
tried to call for aid. ' ' This call was the bellowing that roused 
my brother and his guide. Don said, ' ' The man was in the 
desert just eight days and nights with only one day's water. 
He rode in the saddle thirty-five miles and walked or crept 
between one hundred and one hundred and fifty miles. 
For nearly seven days or fully one hundred and sixty con- 
secutive hours he was. wholly without water from sources 
exterior to his body save the few drops extracted from 
scorpions, plants, and insects." "This is a desert record 
without parallel known to me," he said, "for half the vic- 
tims of desert thirst die within thirty-six hours of depriva- 
tion; another quarter within seventy to eighty hours or 
hardly half of this man's record." 
In the thousands of miles that Don walked in different 
parts of the country among people of all sorts and condi- 
tions in life, he had many tales to tell. In his expedition 
over the Alleghanies, he stopped one day at a house far 
away, as it seemed, from any other human habitation. He 
asked for something to eat. The good woman of the moun- 
tains hospitably gave him to eat out of her unsavory and 
meager store. She apologized for the quality of the food 
and said the last time she was up at the store, she bought 
something that the store man called '1 sugar. ' ' She wanted 
to keep this for guests, but having a family of five growing 
boys, "they got at it, and kept at it, and kept at it, until 
it was all gone. ' ' CHAPTER V 
EDUCATION 
Mr. Knowlton in his memoir of W J, in reference to his 
educational advantages, says: "In these days of advanced 
specialization and refinement in the study of scientific prob- 
lems, it has seemingly become, unceasingly evident, that 
the best measure of success can only be attained with the 
full panoply of modern educational equipment. Yet there 
have been in the past and there will be in the future, doubt- 
less, notable exceptions to this rule. It has often been said 
of one who has reached an eminence without the stimulat- 
ing aid of early educational advantages, that had he for- 
tunately possessed this training, no one may measure the 
higher eminences to which he might have ascended. Rather 
is it possible, indeed probable, that the spark of genius is 
stimulated by adversity and that breadth of vision and 
strength of character come oftener as the fruit of action 
rather than of ease; for 
" ' So doth luxury make weaklings of us all. ' Certain it 
is that Dr. McGee attained a very notable measure of suc- 
cess with the minimum of formal education. ' ' 
The great epoch of my brother's life - his intellectual 
awakening - dawned at a very early age. Even in child- 
hood he showed the first signs of it: the desire to know; 
the wonderment at what the world is; his curiosity about 
books; the deep wish to know about uncivilized and barbar- 
ous peoples and their ways; about countries and their 
peculiarities, their differences and similarities. He at- 52 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
tended school in the little red school-house of our district 
only during three or four months of the winter terms. At 
best these schools in those days furnished only the simplest 
rudiments of learning and the knowledge was imparted 
without the least regard to the proper training of the mind. 
Our mother, as was indicated before, loved to read good 
literature and she always managed to have plenty of up- 
to-date periodicals, magazines, and books in the house. 
Much as she desired it, she could not give each member of 
her very large family scholastic advantages of a superior 
•kind, but she encouraged individual effort, to which W J 
particularly responded. His oldest brother, George Henry, 
who I said was educated at Cornell College, undertook 
the instruction of his learning-thirsty brother during 
the years 1867 and 1868. He soon recognized the superior 
intellect of the boy and always spoke of him as an exceeding- 
ly apt scholar, acquiring knowledge easily and retaining it 
into what was afterwards developed into a really marvelous 
memory. He took up the study of Geometry and unaided 
he demonstrated every proposition and solved every prob- 
lem in the book, a feat which his college-bred brother could 
not do, as he frankly acknowledged, though there were 
none of his classmates better in that branch than he. Don 
surely ' ' stamped improvement on the wings of time. ' ' 
When attending school, while the other boys, during the in- 
termissions, were out upon the school ground romping and 
playing, he remained in the house working out examples or 
studying some branch of learning not usually taught in the 
schools of the country. He was not one of the kind to 
waste energy. We often read of young men almost killing 
themselves in their efforts to excel in baseball, football, or, 
as was the case in Don's early days, of demonstrating their EDUCATION 
53 
ability to ride a bicycle at the rate of a mile in less than a 
minute. At that time bicycle racing was the rage as auto- 
mobile speed is today. He did not deny that it might be a 
fine thing to ride a bicycle at that wonderful rate of speed, 
or to excel in games, but he thought and showed by his life, 
that if these young men had enough good sense and ambi- 
tion, it would be better to use part of so much arm and 
leg ability in pulling up the weeds which grow everywhere 
in such abundance - in vacant lots, on road-sides and other 
places, or in hoeing corn, shelling beans, or some other real- 
ly useful employment. He claimed that the energy wasted 
in so-called "sports," athletics and various other ways, if 
usefully directed would lift every poor family in the coun- 
try from want to comfort; it would furnish every widow a 
home and every child that is poor with bread and an educa- 
tion. Unrestrained play, he granted, is necessary for the 
young growing child, but in the case of big boys and men, 
physical exercise for the health, if the mind were so in- 
clined, could be obtained from some pleasant, well-directed 
work. 
From 1867 to 1874, W J devoted all his spare time at 
home to intense study. During this time, he studied Latin, 
higher Mathematics, including Astronomy and Surveying, 
and he also became proficient in German. His brother 
George and a maternal uncle rendered him valuable ser- 
vice in his study of land surveying. Our father was much 
interested, then, in the practical education of his boys. 
Going to town one day he brought back a compass saying 
the whole family should now learn to survey. Don also 
studied law and from 1871 to 1876 he was engaged in land 
surveying and justice court practice. He was considered 
an excellent surveyor and his services were eagerly sought 
by neighbors and even by strangers at a considerable dis- 54 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
tanee from home. In a few of these places he had some 
queer experiences: At one time he was called upon by an 
old bachelor to survey his fields. W J was ravenously 
hungry when mealtime came, but when he sat down at the 
table to eat, the old bachelor's cats and dog jumping on the 
table and even eating out of the same dishes set before him, 
his hunger suddenly disappeared and the old bachelor made 
the remark, "I never saw a man walk so far, work so hard, 
and eat so little." Our own home was never over nice in 
appearance, for our mother had a very large family to 
look after and she was passionately fond of reading and as 
a natural consequence first class order did not always reign 
throughout the house; but we managed to keep things pret- 
ty clean and we made a distinction between the brute ani- 
mal and the human, considering the latter a little superior 
to the former, and providing separate places for the lower 
animals to eat and sleep. Don never considered his law 
practice or his land surveying business of much importance 
in his plan of life and they were soon laid aside. 
From a boy Don was always very ambitious, not only in 
study, but also to attain ideals which he had placed before 
himself. As he grew older this ambition became almost 
boundless. Our mother felt herself called upon to curb 
this overmastering passion. A magazine containing some 
lines from one of her favorite authors, Joaquin Miller, 
was brought and placed before him to read, and as he read 
aloud the lines: 
"Better it were to sit still by the sea 
Loving somebody and satisfied; 
Better it were to grow babes on the knee, 
Then wander and wander in all these ways, 
Land forgotten and love denied." EDUCATION 
55 
He exclaimed, "0, take it away, take it away, I'll have 
none of it." The rigid system of self-culture which he 
pursued through life was the outgrowth of this ambition, 
as well as his intense interest in things, an interest which 
we noticed even when he was at home, as being one of the 
leading elements of his life. 
One of his doctrines in reference to study was that no 
one could do good mental work unless he had plenty of 
sleep. If he stayed up until midnight or later studying, 
which was often the case, he would remain in bed sleeping 
during the morning hours. One fine summer morning 
about eight o'clock, he came down stairs rubbing his eyes. 
Noticing the lateness of the day he said, "A fool bird kept 
me awake last night with its singing." Mother replied, 
''It was seven o'clock this morning when that 'fool bird' 
began its carolling. Your knowledge of birds ought to 
teach you that they do not wake up at night to sing." 
In 1901, in recognition of his distinguished attainments, 
the Doctor's degree was conferred upon him by Cornell Col- 
lege, Iowa, at which time he presented a comprehensive 
essay on the "Beginnings of Mathematics." 
I am of the opinion that Don never won any laurels for 
being a good penman. He usually wrote a plain, fairly 
legible hand, as good I am sure, as most people of the pres- 
ent day. But if Grandfather Anderson were living now, 
he would probably count all his achievements as of little 
worth, because his penmanship did not come up to the 
standard of perfection prized by the old man. I am sure 
of this for Don received the following card from his uncle, 
W. I. Anderson, son of our grandfather, in which he repri- 
mands his nephew for his poor penmanship. If the son 
could find fault and reprove, what would the man of an 
earlier generation, and one more concerned about this 
branch, think of it? 56 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
Peosta, Iowa, Jan. 11, 1879. 
Dear Nephew' :-Your card found us about as usual. I 
am truly shocked at your careless chirography, especially 
when you write a card. It is almost inhuman to postmas- 
ters and their clerks since it is their duty to read all the 
cards lest something vulgar may be written on them. We 
will keep that "curby" stone on the mantel for you and 
two or three thousand and more up in the library, or at 
least as many of them as you want. 
Yours truly, 
William I. Anderson. 
From the latter part of the letter above, it will be seen 
that Don, in these early knowledge-seeking days, was eager 
to obtain any information about the things that interested 
him so much and from the large number of cards and let- 
ters received (a few of which I copied below), I infer that 
all to whom he made appeal for aid most graciously re- 
sponded. Many men, too, occupying high positions in 
state and nation, hearing of his efforts or reading his ar- 
ticles published in the local papers, sent words of commen- 
dation and encouragement, which could not be otherwise 
than very gratifying to the young aspirant. 
San Springs, Iowa, April 22, 1878. 
Dear Sir :-I am sending you that tooth tonight. Parties 
in Monticello who have seen it think it to be the tooth of an 
extinct race of wild horses that once inhabited the country 
perhaps in prehistoric times. G. Brown. 
Epworth, Iowa, May 1, 1878. 
W. J. McGee :-I am informed that one, mile east of Peos- 
ta, Iowa, in the Illinois Central Railroad quarry, thirty feet 
from the surface may be found petrified animal remains EDUCATION 
57 
and also some very fine crystals. It would probably be 
well worth your while to make a thorough investigation. 
Specimens are plentiful. W. McKee. 
Fayette, Iowa, April 1, 1880. 
W J McGee:-This is a good point to "geologize" from. 
If you care to "bunk" with a Methodist preacher, make 
your stay with me. Prof. Bissell of Fayette University 
will be glad to have you here. D. M. Parker. 
Dubuque, Iowa, March 10, 1878. 
Dear Sir :-I have read your article on the '1 Formations 
in Northeastern Iowa," with much interest. Will have 
them preserved in the Archives of the Institute. 
Asa Horr, M. D. 
Des Moines, Iowa, March 8, 1878. 
Mr. W J McGee:-Have just read your article on the 
Climatic Difference of the Hemispheres and am greatly 
pleased with it. Let me know when you write newspaper 
articles lest some may escape me. 
[Hon.] Fred. O'Donnell. 
House of Representatives, 
Washington, D. C., Oct. 27, 1877. 
W J McGee, 
Farley, Iowa. 
Referring to your letter relating to the publication of 
the Territorial Surveys, etc., I have to say the works are 
very valuable, much sought after, and quite difficult to ob- 
tain. I have the promise that you shall have a copy. 
T. W. Burdick. 58 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
The following petition was gotten up and presented to 
the Iowa State legislature by my brother along in the seven- 
ties. Little attention was paid to it at the time. The 
farmers, then, as compared with the present, received 
ridiculously low prices for all sorts of farm produce and 
they could not pay taxes except for the really necessary, 
practical, and material things. The matter has since been 
attended to and the departments are in the Science Hall of 
the State University of Iowa. 
PETITION 
For the Establishment of a State Cabinet 
To the General Assembly of Iowa 
Whereas, There has never been made in Iowa any com- 
plete and general collection of specimens illustrating the 
Natural History of our State, and 
Whereas, We deem it essential to the best interests of 
the State that such a collection should be made and kept 
at some point accessible to the citizens and students of the 
State University, therefore, 
We the undersigned citizens of would 
respectfully ask that a State Cabinet of Natural History 
be established at Iowa City, in connection with the State 
University of Iowa, having for its objects: 
1. The collection, preservation, and exhibition of speci- 
mens illustrating and representing the native animals and 
plants of the State both past and present, 
2. The collection, preservation, and exhibition of typical 
and unique relics of the prehistoric inhabitants of the State, 
together with such plans of their works as may be of assist- 
ance in determining their habits, customs, and ethnic rela- 
tions ; EDUCATION 
59 
3. The collection, preservation, and exhibition of speci- 
mens illustrating the natural, mineral, and other resources 
of the State; and, 
4. The general diffusion of information upon all sub- 
jects connected with such a collection. 
He also presented a bill to the State legislature about 
this time, asking for appropriations for State Geologic Sur- 
vey. The letter appended will show the result of this bill: 
Senate Chamber, Des Moines, Iowa, March 13, 1880. 
W. J. McGee, Esq., 
Dear Sir:-The committee on appropriations has re- 
ported back your bill, with the recommendation that it be 
indefinitely postponed, which is the polite way of killing it. 
I talked with the members of the committee about it and 
they tell me the entire committee was in favor of the objects 
of the bill, but they recommended as they did, simply be- 
cause they do not have the money now for such purposes 
and probably will not have it until the new capitol building 
is out of the way. All highly approve the idea of the bill. 
M. M. Ham. 
When my brother was about twenty-one he went to Ne- 
braska on one of his student outings. There he noticed 
that the lark sang a different song from the larks in Iowa. 
He could not account for the difference so he wrote to the 
late Charles Darwin in regard to it. Mr. Darwin could 
not explain the cause but he wrote a very interesting letter 
(now lost) thanking Don and saying the information would 
be useful to him. 
A letter from T. W. Rente, then a prominent citizen and 
scientist of Dubuque, now deceased, also gives an idea of 
Don's methods of obtaining knowledge and disseminating 
it, showing that he did not live to himself alone, nor did he 
get knowledge to hoard it up for selfish purposes. 60 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
Dubuque, Iowa, July 25, 1878. 
Mr. W J McGee: Your kind note, describing the family 
of humming birds and offering them to me, is received. I 
thank you, sincerely, but we have no way of keeping them 
and they would probably die before reaching here. If you 
will send me the nest and the branches on which it is fast- 
ened, after the birds have flown, I shall be much obliged to 
you and shall place them in the museum of our Institute 
here. Yours very truly, 
T. W. Reute. 
Mr. Rente was a member of the National Geographical 
Society and widely known. CHAPTER VI 
MARRIAGE 
On Saint Valentine's day, February 14, 1888, W J was 
united in marriage to Miss Anita Newcomb, the daughter 
of the most distinguished astronomer of his time. Mr. 
Newcomb was of German descent. His talents were recog- 
nized and fully appreciated in the land of his forefathers. 
The last time he was in Germany, he was entertained at 
luncheon by Emperor William, the present Emperor's fath- 
er. Miss Anita Newcomb's wedding dress was designed 
by William Dean Howells, who with Mrs. Howells was 
among the guests at the wedding. 
W J's wife is a woman of extraordinary brilliant intel- 
lect. Her early education was obtained in private schools 
in Washington. She then spent three years abroad in 
special study. After her marriage she studied medicine in 
Columbian College, Washington. This was before that in- 
stitution had closed its doors to women. She then took a 
post-graduate course at Johns Hopkins. She practiced in 
Washington with marked success from 1892 to 1896. She 
was director of the D. A. R. Hospital Corps, from April to 
September, 1898, which corps selected the women for army 
and navy service. August 29, 1898, she was appointed act- 
ing assistant surgeon of the United States army, being the 
only woman to hold such a position; assigned to do duty in 
the surgeon general's office in charge of army nurses' corps, 
which she organized. When the United States Congress 
approved this work by making the nurse corps of trained 62 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
women a permanent part of the army, the pioneer stage 
was passed and she resigned December 1, 1900. 
In 1904, acting as president of the Society of Spanish- 
American War Nurses and as representative of the Phila- 
delphia Red Cross Society, and by agreement with the 
Japanese government, she took a party of trained nurses, 
formerly in the United States army, to serve in the Jap- 
anese army for six months gratuitously. She was then ap- 
pointed by the minister of war as superior of nurses, 
which placed her in the same rank with officers of the 
Japanese army. She inspected and reported on the rela- 
tive nursing conditions. She was made the recipient of the 
Japanese Order of the Sacred Crown, a special Japanese 
Red Cross decoration, and two Russo-Japanese war medals. 
She is a member of the "Association of Military Surgeons 
of the United States," and of "Spanish War Veterans," 
and of these she is the only woman eligible. 
She has delivered lectures in various parts of the United 
States and, during the year 1911, she lectured on Hygiene 
in the University of California. She has also written able 
articles for various magazines. 
There can be no question that Mrs. McGee was very help- 
ful to her husband, and that she contributed not a little to 
his success in the various fields of labor to which he was 
called. Shortly after their marriage she and her husband 
made a trip from New Orleans northward on horseback to 
make a geologic survey of the country. She was his com- 
panion, too, on the way to the hot desert region of Arizona, 
Where he went, partly for rest and recuperation from 
disease, but mainly for the purpose of studying up the 
fundamental principle of vegetal life in desert countries 
and the processes by which the cacti, the mesquete trees, 
and the creosote bushes utilize energy from light. MARRIAGE 
63 
Two children remain from this union: Klotho, the older, 
(Donald, the second, having died in infancy), and Eric Doo- 
little Newcomb, who is still a boy in school at Chestnut Hill 
Academy, near Philadelphia. Klotho visited us quite of- 
ten, and when she came she made long stays, and conse- 
quently we know more about her, and the many things she 
said and did while with us are indelibly impressed upon 
my memory. The first time she came to see us was before 
she was a year old and she then remained from April to 
October. Her nurse brought her from Washington, but 
when they were here awhile the nurse was taken sick 
and obliged to return home and soon after she died. 
The child remained. Although we employed another 
nurse, the grandfather took upon himself to take most 
of the care of the child whom he fairly worshiped as 
he did all the other grandchildren who lived near and that 
he knew. Our cows were all good, strong, healthy animals; 
but father set aside the milk of a beautiful, young heifer, 
which was to serve as nutriment for Klotho. The tender, 
solicitous oversight of the old man for the tiny babe was 
touching in the extreme. He would lull her to sleep and 
when she woke up, he was at hand to feed, amuse, or com- 
fort her. He tried to teach her to walk and to talk, and 
every day he carried her up stairs to show her Don's pic- 
ture, to ask her whose it was, and to teach her to kiss it. 
The child, too, loved the old grandfather, preferring his 
company to that of any other members of the household. 
When the mother came to take her back to Washington, it 
was necessary to try on a pair of shoes, and while this was 
being done, she would permit no one but grandpa to' hold 
her. 
When she was six years of age she came again to spend 
the summer with us. At this time the old man was sleep- 64 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
ing in the family graveyard; but the child could walk and 
talk now and was also able to take care of herself. She 
seemed to me to be well-disciplined - better than children 
usually are at that age. She was very interesting, con- 
tented with everything, and generally obedient. At that 
time I had a pup about a year old. She and the dog were 
fast friends. Neither had reached the age of reason, so 
one day they both climbed into the hog pen and managed to 
kill one of the little pigs. I was angry and in reprimand- 
ing her, I rashly promised I would whip her if she went 
into the pen again. I supposed of course she would not 
think of disobeying. A few days after she and the dog 
strolled again into the yard and killed another pig. Ac- 
cording to my promise I was obliged to whip her and the 
dog. There were no more pigs killed, but the dog often 
seemed to try to coax her into the sty, going in himself and 
barking lustily while looking at her as much as to say, 
' ' Come on, let's have some more fun; ' ' but he did not dare 
to harm the animals himself. When he did this Klotho 
would call out with a loud voice, "Aunt Emma, the dog is 
killing pigs," wanting me to understand that she was not 
implicated with the dog in any more misdemeanors. A 
short time after this she hurt her finger and she came to me 
for sympathy. "It is too bad, dear," I said. "It hurts 
more than the whipping Auntie gave you, doesn't it?" 
"0, yes, indeed," she hastily replied, "the hurt from the 
whipping went right away, but my finger hurt stays a 
long time. ' ' This whipping often worrred me. My oldest 
brother, George, always maintained that correcting children 
by means of the rod wus a barbarous custom and I shared 
this opinion with him. After she was married, in writing 
to her, I happened to think of the mode of punishment I 
had employed so many years before and I told her I al- MARRIAGE 
65 
ways felt sorry for giving her that whipping, that it was 
not necessary. With her usual delicacy and goodness of 
heart she said, since she has children of her own she finds 
it is sometimes necessary to use the rod and that in her case 
I should not worry as to whether it was necessary or not. 
There were three things that Klotho at this early age 
said she was possessed not to do: to take a bath, to say her 
prayers, and to wear a night-gown when she went to bed. 
As to the last, I heard her father, W J, when he was quite 
young, trying to demonstrate to mother on scientific prin- 
ciples why it was hard upon the system to change one's un- 
derwear in winter, but mother paid no attention to his 
lucid reasoning on this matter, but insisted upon the gar- 
ments being changed with the usual regularity. 
Klotho's grandmother was past eighty-two years the last 
time she saw her and of course she was greatly changed and 
extremely forgetful. The child could not understand why 
this was so. At different times she would ask Klotho the 
same questions about the same things. One day, losing pa- 
tience by being thus interrogated so often, she exclaimed, 
"Grandma, I don't see what makes you forget so; I have 
told you about that seven times today already." Another 
time we were all seated about the fire when grandmother be- 
gan belching. Hearing this a few moments the child sprang 
up saying, "Why, Grandma, please excuse me!" "What 
for?" innocently asked the aged grandmother. "Why, for 
that hiccough, or belching, or what ever you call that noise 
you are making. " " Oh! please excuse me, ' ' said the grand- 
mother very complacently; but in two minutes she would 
forget to ask to be excused and the little girl had to make 
the same reprimand. 
Of all the phenomena of nature, Klotho, while with us, 
seemed to be more taken up and impressed by the blue 66 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
vault of the heavens, making me think she was a born 
astronomer like her Grandfather Newcomb. She loved to 
gaze at the stars on clear, moonlight nights and her fre- 
quent exclamations were, "Isn't it beautiful up there! 
What a big round moon ! How the stars twinkle tonight! ' ' 
The following summer she spent at the seashore. In writ- 
ing to her Grandmother McGee from there, she said, "0, 
Grandmother, you just ought to see the sunsets on the 
ocean. You have no idea how lovely they are." 
Klotho now resides in San Francisco, Cal. She is the 
wife of David Madison Willis. The Madisons and Willises 
are old and distinguished families of Virginia. She has 
two children, Newcomb Madison Willis and David Madi- 
son Willis, aged eighteen months and four months respec- 
tively. CHAPTER VII 
W J'S LIFE WORK 
W J's first point of observation after leaving the farm 
was on the Indian Mounds near Dry Hollow in Dubuque 
county, Iowa, not far from Farley and near his home. These 
mounds were carefully studied, engravings were made from 
them, and articles written about them for the press. 
When Hunter's Cave, in Jackson county, was discovered, 
he made a journey there to explore that underground form- 
ation. The night was spent in admiring and investigat- 
ing the wonders of the cavern. An interesting description 
of the cave appeared in the Farley Advertiser, the editor 
of the paper then arid now, Mr. Chas. A. Joseph, having ac- 
companied W J on this exploration tour. 
From 1875 to 1877 he studied geology and archeology. I 
do not know what was the incident that first claimed his at- 
tention and stimulated his interest in what was to be one of 
the dominating activities of his life. Between 1877 and 
1881 he made geologic and topographic surveys of north- 
eastern Iowa. This work is said to be the most extensive 
ever made in America without public aid. 1 ' He began the 
work several years before the United States government 
learned of his true worth, ' ' says an article in one of the Du- 
buque newspapers at the time of his death. Mr. Knowlton 
gives an account in his excellent memoir of the work ex- 
ecuted by W J in this region. "The glacial mantle which 
so completely covers Northeastern Iowa, offered many, then, 
unsolved problems, and together with his brothers, he ex- 68 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
plored with keen interest the numerous caves about their 
home and studied the peculiar rocky topography with more 
than boyish interest. He read widely of such books and 
papers as were then available on glaciation and its phenom- 
ena, and began independent observations which soon 
brought him into contact and communication with other 
workers in his field. The fact that he joined the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science in 1878 (twen- 
ty-seventh meeting at St. Louis, August, 1878), enrolling 
himself in the section of Geology, shows that his interest 
was even then crystallizing along these lines. So far as 
learned, his first scientific paper, ' ' On the Relative Position 
of the Forest Bed and Associated Formations in North- 
eastern Iowa," was published in 1878 and it was the fore- 
runner of many of like import. 
Between 1877 and 1881, he prosecuted as a private en- 
terprise, a topographic and geologic survey of some 12,000 
square miles of territory in northeastern Iowa though the 
full results were not published until 1891. 
His first work under Federal auspices was a report on 
the building stones of Iowa, prepared for the tenth census 
in 1880, though not published until four years later. This, 
but more particularly his careful work on the multifar- 
ious phenomena of glaciation in the Upper Mississippi Val- 
ley had attracted wider attention and in July, 1883, he was 
called to the United States Geologic Survey, then under 
the directorship of Major J. W. Powell. In a very short 
time he was placed in charge of the division of the Atlantic 
Coastal Plain geology. Though then but thirty years of 
age, he came not as a mere tyro or dabbler in geology, as 
might be presumed from his previous isolation, but with 
an astonishing breadth of view and maturity of judgment, 
and within the next ten years he erected a foundation which W J'S LIFE WORK 
69 
must ever be considered by any who would study the ge- 
ology of the Coastal Plain. This decade, 1883-1894, covers 
the period of his most intensive constructive geological ac- 
tivities. 
From September 28 to October 4, 1885, he was present at 
the Congres Geologique International, at Berlin, having 
been sent as a delegate from the United States. He re- 
signed from the Geologic Survey on June 30, 1893, to as- 
sume on the following day the position of ethnologist in the 
Bureau of American Ethnology, to which department he 
had accompanied Major Powell. One year later he be- 
came ethnologist in charge of the Bureau, and continued in 
this position until July 31, 1903, when he resigned to as- 
sume charge of the Department of Anthropology of the St. 
Louis Exposition where he brought together an unpre- 
cedented assemblage of the world's peoples. At the close 
of the St. Louis Exposition he became first director of the 
St. Louis Public Museum, continuing in the position from 
1905 to 1907. On March 14,1907, Theodore Roosevelt creat- 
ed an Inland Waterways Commission, and at the first meet- 
ing of this Commission, W J McGee was elected vice-chair- 
man and secretary, a position he continued to fill until his 
death. About the same time (March 23, 1907), he was ap- 
pointed as an expert in soil waters in the Bureau of Soils, 
United States Department of Agriculture, and in that posi- 
tion he also continued until his death. He surveyed and 
mapped out 300,000 square miles in southeastern United 
States and completed a geologic map of the United States 
and New York, and in 1888 he investigated the Charles- 
town earthquake. 
Aside from the honors and responsibilities which came 
with a busy official life, many additional honors were con- 
ferred upon him. He was one of the principal founders of 70 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
the Columbia Historical Society; president of the American 
Anthropological Association, of the Anthropological Society 
of Washington; of the National Geographic Society, and of 
the American Association for the Advancement of Science 
(1897). He was senior speaker in the Department of An- 
thropology at the World's Congress of Arts and Sciences in 
1904, and non-resident lecturer on Anthropology at the 
State University of Iowa. 
Mr. Knowlton further says, "In the field of Pleistocene 
geology of the Upper Mississippi Valley, W J McGee was a 
pioneer. At the time he began his studies very little was 
known of the glacial history of this region and he did much 
to establish a knowledge of the succession of invasions and 
recessions of the ice-sheet and while many of his conclusions 
have been subject to revision in the light of fuller modern 
investigations, much of his work remains and must remain, 
as a basis upon which subsequent knowledge is to be builded. 
"His most notable contributions to American geology 
are, of course, in the Atlantic Coastal Plain. In this plain, 
Dr. McGee's name with three others - Hilgard, Smith and 
Dall, must ever be associated. These men have laid the 
foundation, however much it has been, or in future will be 
modified, upon which all subsequent work must be erected. 
In this particular phase of the subject which W J McGee 
has made his own, he was again a pioneer. He saw and 
appreciated the broad problems of stratigraphic continuity 
and succession, of continental elevation and depression, and 
he set about their solution. His work was distinctively 
constructive and as such finds a permanent place in Amer- 
ican geologic history. While certain of his conclusions, as 
is almost always inevitable in pioneer work, have been mod- 
ified or revised, the broad, fundamental generalizations re- 
main as an essential basis for later students. W J'S LIFE WORK 
71 
1 ' After an interval of a dozen years or more following the 
close of his studies on Coastal Plain geology, during which 
his attention was mainly occupied in the field of ethnology, 
he again returned to the consideration of certain, collateral, 
geological problems. It had come to be the fancy in certain 
quarters that the removal of the forest or vegetal covering 
had little or no influence on the run-off, of surface waters. 
His report on ' Soil Erosion ' published as a Bulletin of the 
Bureau of Soils in the United States Department of Agri- 
culture, is a complete and graphic refutation - if such 
were really needed - of this contention. His last work 
completed less than a month before his death and also to 
be published as a bulletin of the Bureau of Soils is an 
elaborate study of subsoil water and its essential relation 
to agriculture. 
"Of his anthropological and ethnological work only the 
briefest mention can be made. While much of his time 
was given to administrative work, he nevertheless found 
opportunity for a number of studies, perhaps the most 
notable being a study of the Seri Indians, a fierce, pre- 
viously unstudied tribe, inhabiting certain islands off the 
coast of Lower California. 
'1 He did much for the Geological Society of America. He 
was one of the founders and served for four years as its 
editor, establishing the Bulletin, its official publication, on 
the high plane it then and since then has maintained. His 
constant attendance at the meetings during the earlier years 
of the society's existence will be recalled, as well as his 
contributions to many notable discussions of geologic prob- 
lems. 
" W J is said to have been a very helpful man ever ready 
with counsel and information to assist whomsoever might 
come to him. To the younger men he was especially con- 72 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
siderate and helpful, drawing freely upon his vast store 
house of information, without thought or regard for per- 
sonal credit. When the so-called conservation movement 
was launched a few years ago, the exigencies of public life 
made it impossible for full credit to be given to all who 
had a guiding hand in the work, but from one, in a position 
to know, it appears that the success of this movement was 
in a large measure due to the far-sighted, comprehensive 
policy and sterling advice of W J McGee. Many of the 
activities of the Inland Waterways Commission, of which 
as already mentioned, he was the vice-chairman and secre- 
tary, were due to his energy and initiative. Laborious 
statistical tables were compiled and scattered information 
brought together in a usable form. During all these later 
years, although not engaged in active geological investiga- 
tions, he was always willing and anxious to discuss the new- 
er results in the several fields and to accept without ques- 
tion or resentment those which offered a surer solution than 
any he himself had proposed." 
Mr. Knowlton speaks of him as a man of commanding 
presence, one who would attract attention in whatever 
assembly he might find himself. Although seemingly some- 
what formal in address to those not intimately acquainted 
with him, he was, nevertheless, a man of cordial, sympa- 
thetic manner and could command the respect and defer- 
ence of all with whom he came in contact. 
Mary Proctor, too, the daughter of Richard Proctor, the 
eminent astronomer, said at the time the American Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Science met in Boston, that 
W J McGee was the most striking man on the rostrum. 
Mary Proctor was, herself, a well known lecturer. At the 
time of the World's Fair she lectured in Chicago and sub- 
sequently in other cities throughout the United States. CHAPTER VIII 
W J McGee died at Washington, D. C., September 5, 
1912, at the age of fifty-nine years. All too soon, it seems 
to me, to complete the work he probably planned in early 
life to do. From his age at the time of his death, one could 
have expected 
DEATH 
' ' The best is yet to be, - 
The last of life for which the first was made. ' ' 
It is a lamentable loss to the world that so many whose 
knowledge and experience eminently fitted them for re- 
sponsible work and for doing great good for many years, 
are prematurely cut off from their usefulness. As one ad- 
vances in life it is easier to carry on work than to begin it. 
There is less power for initiative though not less for patient 
endeavor. Starting in life, as my brother did, with some- 
thing that is sure to interest and employ his latei' years, 
and noting the advancement made in it, when more time is 
found, which is apt to be the case in old age, he could 
pursue it with greater advantage to himself and profit to 
the world. 
Cancer, that dreadful scourge of the human race, sapped 
the foundations of his strength and caused his death. Dur- 
ing the many years that he was afflicted with the insidious 
malady, he made a special study of his own case, noting 
its every symptom, "setting down calmly and imperturb- 
ably the progress of the disease from its first inception in 74 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
1894 to its obvious dominance in April, 1912," and think- 
ing a knowledge of these symptoms, etc., in his case might 
prove a benefit to others similarly afflicted, he wrote his 
last article, for the good of humanity, as he probably hoped, 
which he styled "Symtomatic Development of Cancer." 
This article was published in Science, September 13, 1912, 
a few days after his death. 
It is said that during the progress and culmination of 
the disease, W J exhibited the most remarkable courage 
and fortitude. "It appears that for the last fifteen years 
of his life, his work - some of it the most exacting of his 
career - was carried on in the impending shadow of certain 
dissolution, much of it at the last under the stress of acute 
physical suffering, but there was no slighting, no faltering, 
no repining." 
I knew my brother was ill the summer before he died, 
and in August, I wrote to him asking him to come home 
and let me take care of him, for it seemed to me in the 
quiet and peace of the old homeland, he might rally and 
the ravages of disease might be stayed for a few years at 
least; but he wrote me that he was too ill and weak to be 
moved, and a few weeks later word came that he was dead. 
About one and a half years before death came he was 
operated on at Garfield Hospital for the trouble but he 
received only temporary relief and during the last summer 
of his life, he slipped, one day in leaving the Cosmos Club 
where he was staying, wrenching his knee and severely 
straining himself. This brought on a severe renewal of 
the old malady and he never left his room after being 
carried there. 
Many grateful words of sympathy, letters of condolence, 
and tributes to his memory came to the old farm home, at 
his death, from those who knew him personally, from some DEATH 
75 
who knew him from reading his works, and even from a few 
who knew him only by reputation. Among those of his 
readers is Rev. Sipko Francis Rederus, formerly pastor of 
the Presbyterian church at Farley and now helping to 
minister to the spiritual needs of the people of Milwaukee, 
Wisconsin, who composed a few lines as a tribute to his 
memory which I here insert. 
A TRIBUTE TO W J MCGEE 
Reared in a cottage in the woods, 
By nature taught in nature's grove; 
He loved her sweet companionship; 
With her in early days did rove. 
He traced for us through rocks and sands 
And clay, the age's wandering course; 
And led us through time's labyrinth 
To transformation's greatest source. 
He read for us in burial mounds 
Of grand, old Mississippi's vale, 
Where sleeps a strange and vanished race, 
Their weird and fascinating tale. 
He led us to the distant haunts 
Of men that have survived the past, 
For whom the touch of culture now 
Forbids their laws and ways to last. 
And as he leads us on and on, 
Sweet fancy does for us unfold 
Scenes wonderful, sublime, and weird - 
The prehistoric world of old. 
There poets, glorious visions see, 
And scientists, a guiding light, 
And men, who feel within their souls 
God's wisdom, majesty, and might. 76 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
Our guide has left for worlds unknown, 
But he will live for aye in story, 
And on the rocks and sands and clay 
Will ever live his name in glory. 
And thousands following in his tread 
In future ages will behold 
The scenes that fascinated us 
And more of that strange world of old. 
My brother gave all his time, his mind, and strength, 
while living, for the benefit of science. When he realized 
that death was claiming him as her victim, and he could 
do no more, having in view the thought that everything 
possible ought to be done for the cause of medical science, 
he willed his body to the medical college at Philadelphia. 
In accord with the terms of the will which prescribed 
funeral rites, services were conducted Thursday, September 
5, 1912, at the home of Gifford Pinchot and the body was 
then shipped to Dr. Edward Spitzker, brain specialist of 
Jefferson Medical College, for study under the surgeon's 
knife. 
The terms disposing of his property were brief. With 
the exception of a few remembrances to his children and 
close, personal friends, he bequeathed all his personal be- 
longings to his wife, Mrs. Anita Newcomb McGee. He was 
more explicit in disposing of his body and prescribing the 
manner of funeral services which he desired. In relation 
to the latter the will reads: "Impressed by the needless 
burden of mortuary observances in every stage of human 
development, I desire and direct that no funeral cere- 
monies, save of the simplest character, be held over my 
remains. ' ' 
To Klotho, his daughter, now Mrs. Willis, he gave a gold 
watch; to Eric Newcomb, his son, a silver watch was given; DEATH 
77 
Gifford Pinchot received a rifle and an agate button tray 
and the Cosmos Club where he stayed, the mounted head 
of a Texas steer. Colonel H. C. Rizer, chief clerk of the 
geological survey, was the executor of the estate. The will 
is dated June 27, 1912, and was witnessed by Robert T. 
Hill, Mrs. H. C. Kennedy, and M. W. Patterson. 
Although according to the will the brain alone was to 
be conveyed to Dr. Spitzka, Colonel Rizer, before the death 
of W J, arranged for the brain specialist to accept the 
entire body and have the dissection of the torso and limbs 
made by other surgeons, connected with Jefferson Medical 
College. 
I quote Dr. Edward Spitzka from a reprint taken from 
the American Anthropologist, Vol. 15, Number 3, July- 
September, 1913: 
DEATH MASK OF W J M'GEE 
' ' More than a decade ago, when the writer was requested 
to make a study of the brain of Major J. W. Powell, the 
late W J McGee whom I then met for the first time, signi- 
fied his most earnest intention to bequeath his own brain 
and body to scientific purposes. This was in 1903. Al- 
though making no mention of it at the time, he was aware 
of symptoms, which he subsequently associated with the 
cancer that caused his death, and concerning which, he 
wrote an antemortem note, published in the magazine en- 
titled Science, U. S. xxxvi, pp. 348-357. On the approach 
of his death, in personal letters and through his friends, 
Dr. W J McGee reiterated his wish, and formulated the 
following bequest in his testament: 
Pursuant to an intention fixed in early manhood, on learning that 
a certain state provided by law that medical graduates should have 
dissecting room experience and yet made no provision for the requisite 78 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
subjects; conformably with the shocking economic waste represented 
by the cities of the dead in the long settled portions of the country; 
and in accordance with my custom of devoting myself and my efforts 
to the public, I give and bequeath my body for the purpose of dissec- 
tion to any medical college selected by my executor; except that my 
brain go, with that of the late Major J. W. Powell (now in my pos- 
session), to Dr. E. A. Spitzka, of Jefferson Medical College, Phila- 
delphia, Pennsylvania, for study and preservation at his discretion. . . 
"Dr. McGee's body was received by me at the Daniel 
Baugh Institute of Anatomy on September 5, 1912, the day 
of his death. It had been embalmed and the tissues were 
in a good state of preservation. In compliance with Dr. 
McGee's wishes a series of observations were begun, and 
after an interruption, due to my illness, have been resumed. 
"The brain on removal weighed 1410 grains (49.73 oz. 
avoir.) or about 60 grains above the average of the same 
age. The important measurements of the head were: 
"Circumference 58 cm. 
"Ear to ear over vertex 38 cm. 
"Max. antero-posterior diam., 19.1 cm. 
"Max. transverse diam., 16 cm. 
"Chephalic index, 83.77 cm. 
'1 The detailed findings concerning the cerebral morpholo- 
ogy and the pathologic manifestations are being studied and 
recorded, but these, as well as appreciation of Dr. McGee's 
life work, must be deferred to a later publication. 
"Dr. McGee's recognition of the need of studying the 
brain of intelligent persons, as well as the need of affording 
every opportunity for the prosecution of research into ob- 
scure pathologic manifestations as exemplified in cancerous 
growths, is noteworthy even in this assumedly enlightened 
age. It is a legitimate claim of science that all persons, 
particularly those of superior intellectual capacity, permit DEATH 
79 
themselves to become available for scientific study imme- 
diately after death. It is true that anatomical material 
is now furnished to most medical schools, but never in 
abundance, and always derived from pauper institutions 
and in varying degrees of morbosity and dissolution. Con- 
certed action among cultured people yielded some fruitful 
results in the Mutual Autopsy Society of Paris, the Cornell 
Brain Association, and the American Anthropometric So- 
ciety. 
"Dr. McGee's example, it is to be hoped, may encourage 
others to do likewise. Edward Anthony Spitzka, 
"Jefferson Med. College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania." 
Memorial services in honor of my brother's memory were 
held in Farley, Iowa, on Friday, January 16, 1914, a partial 
account of which I copy from the Farley Advertiser: 
"Memorial services to the late Dr. W J McGee were 
enjoyed by a packed house Friday night. Eminent speak- 
ers from abroad who had known him from a scientific stand- 
point were present. 
"The house was filled at an early hour and much inter- 
est was shown all through the exercises. The services were 
opened by the singing of the hymn, 'Lead Kindly Light,' 
by the double quartet, Messrs. Berry, Stuntz, Payne, and 
Gibbs, and Mesdames Stuntz, Ransom, Berry, and Miss 
McDonough of Dubuque. Invocation was said by Father 
Leen which was followed by a paper read by Rev. C. B. 
Stuntz giving the historical career of Dr. W J McGee from 
boyhood to the end of his days. 
"The first speaker to be introduced was Dr. Guthrie of 
Dubuque who said in part that in all ages men had been 
hero worshippers. We have but to read in the history of 
the past or to travel the world over to be made fully con- 
scious of this fact. In the days that are past, and not so 80 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
very far distant, the hero that was honored and praised - 
that was enshrined in the hearts and minds of his coun- 
trymen, was the hero of the battlefield. We see evidences 
of this hero worship in the monuments and statues that have 
been reared in countless numbers to men like Alexander the 
Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon Bonaparte, men who 
had sacrificed thousands upon thousands of human lives 
for the gratification of their inordinate ambitions. This 
form of hero worship, however, is a thing of the past. 
Today a new form has arisen. The honor and praise of 
the modern world is given less and less to men who shed 
the blood of their fellowmen. The type of the hero that 
today is drawing the worship of the world is that of Ed- 
ward Jenner, the man who discovered after years of ex- 
perimentation, the vaccine which was the cure for smallpox; 
or that of Pasteur who by his investigations and research 
brought to light the principle of infection and the means 
of preventing it; or, again, that of Behring who, one emin- 
ent authority has said 'achieved the greatest victory that 
has occurred in science in the last fifty years,' when he 
gave to the world an antitoxin for diphtheria. We honor 
today those who sacrifice themselves for mankind. Dr. W 
J McGee has shown himself to have been a man of this 
mold -■ eager to widen the bounds of knowledge. 
"Professor Thomas Macbride, now president of the State 
University of Iowa, was next introduced and said: 
"We do well to honor our great men. This northeastern 
portion of Iowa has her full share - Allison, Henderson, 
Larrabee, Caloni, and McGee. I, myself, knew Dr. McGee 
for a long time. He was a man of striking appearance, 
great force of character, full of nervous energy, and tre- 
mendously devoted to the cause of knowledge. He began 
his work here in northeastern Iowa giving such a remark- DEATH 
81 
able analysis of the geological structure of this region as 
has never been equalled. The first time I met him was 
when he came to Iowa City to appear by invitation before 
the Academy of Science. This was in 1878. He came 
striding into the room, a vigorous, sturdy young man with 
a great shock of black hair. We thought him rather ec- 
centric, but before long his marvelous diction and rapidity 
of thought made us soon feel that he was the real scholar 
among us all. 
"In 1881 Major Powell took the post at the head of the 
United States geological survey. Major Powell was a one- 
armed soldier who had lost his arm at Shiloh and after 
the war had taken a boat and with some hardy companions, 
had followed the Colorado river in all its length, the first 
white man to accomplish this feat. The first man called 
to his assistance was from Farley - W J McGee. The task 
that was assigned to him was to give an account of what 
is known as the Potomac formation, a formation that runs 
from a little south of Trenton, N. J., to Georgia. He walked 
over the whole area and gave an account of the formation 
that is a classic in scientific knowledge. About ten years 
later he went with Major Powell into the department of 
ethnology. It was an entirely new field for him, and he 
was a little fearful as to the outcome of changing base at 
his time of life. But he was faithful to his trust, and 
nearly sacrificed his life, in giving the world a thorough 
investigation of the Seri Indians, the most savage of all the 
tribes on this continent. Throughout his entire life he 
showed the boundless energy, the indomitable determina- 
tion, and the love of his work that brought him to the very 
highest circle of American scientists. He worked to enlarge 
the boundaries of human knowledge. There are men who 
give to the world better corn or wheat. They have done a 82 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
great thing. But there is a greater hunger than that for 
bread alone - the hunger of the mind for knowledge. It 
was to satisfy this hunger that Dr. W J McGee toiled until 
the very last. CHAPTER IX 
EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
Thinking it might be of interest to the relatives and 
friends of W J McGee and also others who may read this 
brief biography and who may not have easy access to his 
numerous written articles, scattered as they are through 
so many magazines, official reports, and other publications, 
put in public libraries and other places throughout the 
United States, to read something from his pen, I insert a 
few extracts, which may not be the most interesting, most 
scientific, or best of his works, but which will give perhaps 
an idea of his style of writing in the purity and precision 
of diction, the clearness and vividness of description, the 
interest and strength of narration, the careful attention to 
necessary details, and the general and pleasing harmony 
which pervades the whole. 
My residence in the desert from May 20 to September 1, 
has been one of the most delightful of my life. I have 
been alone except for an Indian boy, and my longest ex- 
pedition from camp was a walk of forty miles across the 
desert to meet my wife, who stopped at the nearest railroad 
point for a visit. 
The life, remote from humanity, was not undertaken by 
In the Desert 1 
i Reprint from the Independent, San Francisco, wherein W J 
McGee gives his experiences while in search of health in the hottest 
regions of Arizona. 84 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
me as a hermit whim, or even solely to gratify my natural 
fondness for the desert. The strenuous work of building 
up the department of anthropology for the Louisiana Pur- 
chase Exposition - showing our half of the world how the 
other half lives - had come soon after an attack of typhoid 
fever, from which I did not take time to recuperate fully. 
I found myself burdened by certain of the sequelae of 
typhoid, a condition that might be relieved temporarily by 
drugs, but that could not be cured in that way. So I set 
about to seek for some regimen that would meet the re- 
quirements of my system. 
Since I had lived in deserts to some extent and had ac- 
quired that peculiar affection for the desert which binds 
the Arab to his home and which leads all people who live 
in the desert to fall in love with it so that they can hardly 
reconcile themselves to live anywhere else, I naturally 
thought about arid regions. I began to realize that the 
best possible regimen would be exposure to the extremely 
strong sun and the extremely dry air of the desert, both of 
which tend to stimulate the skin and other external tissues 
more than any other known agencies. 
The point which I selected possesses historic interest. 
Long before Columbus came to this country, the aborigines 
of the southwest journeyed occasionally from what is now 
Sonora, Mexico, into what is now California, and in so 
doing they had to traverse deserts and seek for water. They 
discovered two or three water-pockets - Tinajas Altas or 
' ' High Bowls, ' ' as the Mexicans call them - at a point in 
what is now the Gila range of mountains, about seventy-five 
miles on an air line southeast of Yuma and about one and 
one-half miles from the international boundary between 
Mexico and the United States. 
That watering place became sacred to the Indians. Al- EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
85 
though they never resided there, they visited the place in 
their journeys and carved a vast number of inscriptions 
on the granite rocks about the water hole. These consist 
usually of votive inscriptions which note the passage of a 
particular group of Indians and take the form of the to- 
temic animal of the group - the mountain sheep, the 
coyote, the antelope, the rattlesnake and many other ani- 
mals that were the totems or tutelaries of the tribes. 
Just what white man first saw the Tinajas Altas cannot 
be positively stated, but there is every probability that 
this man was one of the greatest Jesuits in the history 
of Western America, Padre Kino, the man who discovered 
that California was not an island, as it had been regarded 
for many years, through a curious blunder on the part of 
map-makers and geographers. Padre Kino went from por- 
tions of Mexico included in what is now the state of Sonora 
to the Colorado River, and he described the geography of 
the region with a good deal of accuracy. 
Another chapter was opened by the discovery of gold 
in California, and when the golden germ invaded the brain 
cells of Mexicans as well as Americans, the Argonauts be- 
gan to flock across the plains and the desert to California. 
The favorite route for the Mexican gold seekers and one 
of the routes for the Americans lay by way of Tinajas 
Altas, along the old missionary trail. 
The gold seekers were followed by pioneers, and both 
gold seekers and pioneers often died on the way from thirst 
and hardship and occasionally they were massacred by 
Apache Indians. Each new party sometimes had to bury 
the bodies of the preceding party. The whole ninety miles 
from the last water of the little Indian village of Quitova- 
quito to Tinajas Altas is almost a continuous cemetery. 
I had been down in Sonora in 1899 to look for a tribe 86 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
of Indians that I found extinct, and I concluded to go to 
the Colorado River and observe the Cocopah Indians. Thus 
I obtained my first knowledge of Tinajas Altas, and thus 
I now sought Tinajas Altas as a health cure. The hopes 
which I entertained last spring have been more than jus- 
tified. The effect of desert life on my health has been all 
that I anticipated, and I return to civilization entirely 
well and with a store of experiences well worth the trouble 
of securing. 
From Yuma a man with a strong team and a light vehicle 
took us -• that is, myself and Jose, my Indian boy, and our 
rations and blankets - out to Tinajas Altas. Our rations 
for each month were twelve pounds of raw bacon, eleven 
pounds of raw navy beans, two pounds of rice, four pounds 
of sugar, and one pound of tea, a total of thirty pounds - 
a pound per day - for each of us. The merit of the navy 
beau is that each pound when cooked absorbs so much 
water that it becomes from five to eight pounds. In spite 
of the experiments of military organizations all over the 
world in the last quarter of a century, no rations in a 
condensed form have been found equal to the good old 
frontiersman's standby of bacon and beans. 
I had no tent or other bar against nature, nor did I 
desire one. I liked the sky above me, and as the average 
rainfall is only about one-half inch per annum, I needed 
no protection from the wet. It was, of course, cold at 
night. The ground was, therefore, more comfortable to 
sleep on than a bed or cot, because it became heated during 
the day and at night gave off warmth. Lying flat on the 
ground was a great deal warmer than I would have been 
on a bed even as low as six inches above ground. The 
diunal range is very great at Tinajas Altas, as in all 
extremely arid regions, and this is one of the most arid in EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
87 
the world. The ordinary temperature, as nearly as can be 
measured, ranges from 40 to 50 degrees at night to between 
110 to 135 degrees in the day. 
For cooking my meals, I found sufficient roots and twigs 
of the mesquite and creosote. It does not take much fuel 
to raise water from 100 degrees at which it averages here 
to the 200 degrees at which it boils at the Tinajas Altas 
altitude of 1400 feet. 
I took no reading matter with me. It was to be a time 
of resting. But I did some thinking in the way of study- 
ing the fundamental principle of vegetal vitality in deserts, 
the process by which the cacti, the mesquite trees, and the 
creosote bushes, utilize energy from light. 
I found more life than I anticipated - two rattlesnakes, 
four centipedes, half a dozen scorpions, tarantulas, and 
two Gila monsters, mostly in camp. Many birds and in- 
sects and some big-horns shared the water with us. I did 
not shut them out, although water was scarce. Only two 
Tinajas remain, one containing perhaps 250 gallons of 
rather bad water, the other with about fifty gallons of fair- 
ly good water, and more in the sand. Each basin was an 
hour's climb (round trip) from camp. I am inclined to 
think the place is a sort of spring, drawing supply from the 
ground water in the granite rocks. 
On July 20, I had the exciting experience of rescuing 
two Mexican prospectors at the point of death from thirst. 
They had gone out insufficiently supplied with canteens, 
boastful of their ability to stand heat and thirst. Five 
days later they straggled back to camp, semi-delirious, 
neither one able to articulate. They dropped fifty yards 
apart, and Jose attended one and I looked after the weak- 
er, administering water and a little whisky, giving also, 
a heart stimulant to the weaker one, to keep the thickened LIFE OF W J McGEE 
88 
blood moving until the reaction was over. Glimpses of 
that side of life are awful but happily one can provide 
against such emergencies. 
The Conservation of Natural Resources 2 
In all ages and lands men have moved against winds and 
currents, and so westward and inland. In a word, human 
progress is a tale of conquest; and part of the tale was told 
in America. 
Even in the Prime, when mankind was just becoming 
human, man made the greatest industrial advance in all 
his history - no so little thing as the control of steam, but 
that earlier mastery which opened the way to all arts and 
crafts - the Conquest of Fire. To those who know the 
ways of primitive thought it is clear that the Promethean 
gift was no chance spark caught in the lucky tinder, and 
came not without generations of association in which fire 
was made both animate and deific - not, indeed, without 
habitual contact with volcanic flow and slowly cooling lava. 
Now our own West, with one of the two greatest lava fields 
of the globe (the other that of central France) and its 
scattered flows, gave the American Aborigines opportunity, 
and all of them mastered fire, five centuries before Colum- 
bus. Man's second greatest industrial advance was no so 
little thing as harnessing electricity, but was the painfully 
slow and mystery-burdened mastery of the sharp edge - 
the Conquest of the Knife. This was made in many lands 
during the ages, but it was caught in the making only in 
California and on neighboring coasts. The next industrial 
stride spanned no so narrow chasm as that of wireless 
2 Reprint from Mississippi Valley Historical Proceedings, 1909- 
1910. EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
89 
transmission, but stretched over the first mastery of elas- 
ticity - it was that of the Conquest of the Spring, still 
under way in Mexico when Cortez came. The fourth in- 
dustrial advance in order, and the second in magnitude 
was no so small a thing as railway or steamship, but arose 
in the sluggish and faith-guided mastery of the principle 
of rotation which made these possible - the Conquest of 
the Wheel. This was indeed made independently in the 
Old World, where it was perfected by the aid of draft ani- 
mals; yet it remained for our own West to reveal the way 
of its making under the patient processes of primitive phil- 
osophy, a philosophy always conceived in the uncanny and 
born in mystery. 
Many minor advances, too, have come out of our West: 
the Conquest of Corn, the romance of the vegetable realm; 
the Conquest of Beasts (the dog and guanoca and turkey 
and others), with the worshipful lore of the animal 
realm - these and others came not through the swift and 
facile Minervan birth of invention, but only through that 
tedious travail in which the hand leads and the mind lags 
behind. Of such were the gifts of the West unto the East 
even among the Aborigines; they all marked Conquest over 
Nature; and they grew up and were given freely by virtue 
of the strenuous life arising in a region of stressful extremes 
-'for in the primal periods of humanity's youth, no less 
than now, the softer impulses of stressless means lead men 
to eat lotus and loll their lives away leaving little mark on 
the face of nature or the scroll of time. 
Now the line between the East and West is a shifting 
one. When the Nation was young, New York and Penn- 
sylvania were western states; then Ohio became the Far 
West and Indiana an Ultima Thule, while the Empire and 
Keystone commonwealths became Middle States. Now the 
Mississippi is an eastern river; Kansas and Nebraska and 90 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
the Dakotas are the actual Middle States; and the Pacific 
States are the West - with a new Far West away beyond 
in Hawaii and the Philippines; in every stage of settlement 
from the eastern flanks of the Appalachians to the western 
face of the Rockies and the foot-slopes of the Sierra the 
geographic and climatal means tended toward extremes, 
and thus toward more stressful experiences among settlers; 
and so the West, drawing its blood and bone and brawn 
from the East, has repaid in brain and brain-wrought Con- 
quest over Nature. "Westward the course of empire takes 
its way, ' ' wrote a good bishop on the shores of Long Island 
Sound; yet the Star of Conquest ever shines most brightly 
eastward whence the initial impulse came. How different 
the course of Conquest would have been had the Pilgrims 
entered the Golden Gate in lieu of landing on Plymouth 
Rock, none may say confidently; yet it is easy to see that 
had this happened the American pioneers would have be- 
gun and continued their Conquest with a vastly higher 
appreciation of natural values than that implanted on the 
Atlantic Coast. 
The four greatest steps in Man's industrial progress 
since humanity began being those marking Conquest over 
Fire, Knife, Spring, and Wheel, the single step remaining 
to be taken before Man becomes master over Nature is no 
so small a thing as the navigation of the air, which marks 
merely a new application of primary principles, but so great 
a thing as the Conquest of Water - a step no less sweeping 
and cosmic than the Conquest of Fire, and one which will 
be made perfect only when Water is not merely guided and 
directed in movement, but actually drawn from the mate- 
rials of Nature at human behest as to time and place and 
quantity, much like the fires used now in the arts and 
crafts. Some, desert animals certainly, and many desert EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
91 
plants presumably, are able to convert other substances 
into H2O and CO2, that is, into Water with an equivalent of 
carbonic acid passing off into the air; and since Man may 
always do better what lower nature can do at all, scientific 
prevision finds herein some basis for forecasting a full Con- 
quest of Water, when cacti and agava and other desert 
plants are selected and Burbanked and improved in such 
wise as not only to sustain themselves in richer luxuriance 
but yield enough water over to sustain a human population ! 
Whether the provision of science be justified, time will tell; 
and the question may be raised, whether the spirit of di- 
viner prophecy hovered over Bishop Berkeley when he 
wrote: 
"Westward the course of empire takes its way; 
The four first Acts already past, 
The fifth shall close the Drama with the day; 
Time's noblest offspring is the last." 
Assuredly, water is our primary and chiefest resource as 
the source of life itself; assuredly the most strenuous ex- 
periences of our settlers in arid regions arise in the strife 
for Water; and assuredly if the settlements of our country 
had begun in the arid West our standards of thought, our 
laws, and our practical concepts would have been more 
trenchant and far wiser than the slovenly notions and prac- 
tices imported from a mother-land where water so abounds 
that it is felt a burden rather than a benefit - a bane rather 
than a boon. Even as it is, our clearest concepts of equity 
in water resources are out of the west, - our justest de- 
cisions perhaps from Arizona, and our completest water 
statute from Oregon. 
When Independence was declared and the Constitution 
was framed, no resources were reckoned except the Men who 92 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
made the nation and the Land on which they lived. The 
very munitions of war, like the tools and utensils of peace, 
were mainly imported. Meanwhile the trees of the cen- 
turies-old forests were deemed obstructions1 to settlement 
rather than values in themselves; and the most strenuous 
work of any people in any country in all the world's history 
up to the middle of the nineteenth century was that per- 
formed by the pioneers in destroying the magnificent forests 
of the western frontier in Ohio and neighboring States - a 
work that bent the backs, though it did not break the spirits 
of eastern-born men and women as they felled trees, burned 
logs, and grubbed stumps in clearing their homesteads. 
Now because the Fathers saw Land as the sole natural 
resource of the country, so the succeeding generations re- 
mained indifferent to the values residing in the minerals 
below and the forests above, and parted with all together 
as acres or "sections" of land. Herein lay what now seems 
the most serious error in the world's greatest Republic. 
Monarchs are accustomed to retain royal or imperial rights 
in the forests and the minerals; ecclesiastic institutions al- 
lied 'with monarchial rule have commonly held rein over 
rarer resources until they were reclaimed by the growing 
generations of men; but through a lamentable lack of fore- 
sight our Republic hasted to give away, under the guise of 
land to live on, values far greater than the land itself, and 
this policy continued for generations. Men still living re- 
member when the finest coal fields of the then western States 
of Pennsylvania and Virginia were sold as mere lands, with 
no added price for the coal beneath or the wood above; 
their sons remember when the iron ranges of the newer 
West in the Lake Superior region and in Alabama were 
transferred at the lowest government figures for land, with EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
93 
no added rates for the vast mineral wealth; and even young- 
lings well recall the sale of fine woodlands at the conven- 
tional farm-price of $1.25 per acre-and that, too, when 
each tree of the hundred or two standing on each acre was 
worth more than the acre-price! 
The policy of free-giving grew into a thoughtless habit, 
and this into a craze which spread apace; swamp lands in 
millions of invaluable acres were unloaded on States on 
terms seldom taken seriously, and their title in turn was 
often allowed to pass virtually without consideration; em- 
pires in extent of lands rich in forests and minerals were 
given outright to corporations for promoting transporta- 
tion when a hundredth or even a thousandth of their pros- 
pective value a half-century later would have been more 
useful; states and cities followed the national lead, and all 
manner of franchises - rights of way, water rights, and the 
rest - were given for long terms or in perpetuity to all 
comers, generally without money and without price. In all 
the world's history no other such saturnalia of squandering 
the sources of permanent prosperity was ever witnessed! 
In the material aspect, our individual liberty became col- 
lective license, and our legislative and administrative prod- 
igality grew into national profligacy; the balance between 
impulse and responsibility was lost, the future of the Peo- 
ple and the Nation was forgotten, and the very name of 
posterity was made a by-word by men in high places; and 
worst of all the very profligacies came to be venerated as 
law and even crystallized foolishly in decisions or more 
questionably in enactments - and for long there was none 
to stand in the way of the growing avalanche of extrava- 
gance. The waste was always wildest in the West, for as 
settlement followed the sun new resources were discovered 94 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
or came into being through natural growth; yet at last even 
the vigorous West was awakened, and that largely through 
the reckless alienation of land. 
The policy of the free gift of land grew out of the 
Fathers' dream of a freehold landed citizenry, with each 
citizen the head of an independent family. Now the ex- 
tension of the free giving to other values than those of land 
itself led to both good and evil results, not foreseen before 
the collateral values came into being through the natural 
growth and orderly development of our People. The free 
gift of minerals and forests opened for foresighted men 
ways to wealth and power beyond all historical precedent; 
and so America became a manufacturing nation, rich and 
powerful among the world's nations, with unexampled 
rapidity. At the same time the free gift of these resources 
-'having no value in themselves apart from that given 
them by the growth of the People - opened the way to 
monopoly, and the resources passed under monopolistic con- 
trol with a rapidity never before seen in all the world's 
history; and it is hardly too much to say that the Nation 
has become one of the Captains of Industry first, and one of 
the People and their chosen representatives only second. 
With the free gift, under the title of land, of resources far 
exceeding the land in value, the aspiration of the Fathers 
for a land of free families failed; for the mineral-bearing 
and wood-bearing lands were devoted to mining and milling 
and manufacturing instead of homes, and the People be- 
came in large measure industrial dependents rather than 
free citizens. 
So far have these changes gone that it is a question 
whether a majority of our electorate is not today in a con- 
dition of industrial dependence akin to that of the yeomanry 
and peasantry in days of feudalism; and it is beyond ques- EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
95 
tion that some of the most important social and political 
problems now confronting us are due to the passing of that 
industrial and social independence which the Fathers sought 
to establish through a freehold landed citizenry, and which 
scarcely survives save in our rural districts. It was told of 
old that the camel begged his Arab master to admit his nose 
into the warm tent for protection against wind and cold, and 
that when this plea was granted the shaggy head and ears 
and the snaky neck and then the stout shoulders and the 
rest of the body followed, until the sheik himself was pushed 
out into the storm; and verily our People and their chosen 
representatives, who warmed the breath of the subalterns of 
industry in their youthful weakness, may well take warn- 
ing ! . . . 
When the Nation was young its area was small; but suc- 
cessive additions of territory were made on the West - the 
ever growing new West - affording new frontiers for pio- 
neering and final conquest, until the area of mainland 
United States came to approximate two billion acres. A 
third of this area is arid; and a quarter-century ago John 
Wesley Powell - soldier, scientist, philosopher, a western 
man in breeding and spirit - saw that the public lands 
available for individual settlement under the original plan 
were nearly exhausted, and conceived the idea of virtually 
extending the public domain by making the arid lands 
available for settlement through irrigation; and, as Director 
of the Geologic Survey, he initiated practical work in that 
direction. It was characteristically a task of the West! 
Meantime the forests were still passing under the destruc- 
tive fire and wasteful axe, until a practical Prophet of the 
Forest appeared in the person of Gifford Pinchot - born 
and bred in the East but receptive of the spirit of the West; 
one styled a "brilliant dreamer," though better described 96 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
as a modern Ajax - who boldly conceived the patriotic 
plan of protecting the country's forests for the country's 
benefit. . . The work of both went forward slowly, but 
both projects became epoch-marking. In good time came 
Theodore Roosevelt, in whom East and West met in cease- 
less struggle for supremacy, making him the typical Ameri- 
can of his generation, and as President he not only sus- 
tained the Forest and Reclamation Services, but pushed on 
towards the reclamation of the rivers for navigation and 
other uses, an effort for which his hands were held up by 
many. . . Pinchot and Garfield especially, and Roose- 
velt in his turn sought to counteract the tendency toward 
wholesale alienation of the public lands for the benefit of 
corporations and the oppression or suppression of the set- 
tler; and in the end their efforts resulted in what is now 
known as the Conservation Movement: a movement leading 
through a Waterways Commission, a Conference of Gover- 
nors in the White House, a Conservation Commission, and 
a dozen congresses and conventions - though none the less 
the offspring of a few far-seeing minds and a gift of the 
dynamic West to the waiting East. 
The National Conservation Commission made an inven- 
tory of the country's resources, the most comprehensive ever 
prepared in any land. At the current increasing rates of 
consumption and waste, our forests would last twenty-five 
years; our high grade iron ores (of which we mine annually 
some 1300 pounds for each man, woman, and child of our 
population) would be gone by the middle of the century 
and the low grade ores by its end; our coal (of which we 
consume some five tons per capita yearly) would last well 
toward the end of the next century. . . Of our two bil- 
lion acres of land, about one-third is virtually unproduc- 
tive by reason of aridity, in another third the rainfall is less EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
97 
than is required for full productivity in the present state of 
agriculture; some two-fifths of the whole is occupied by 
farms, and about one-fifth is actually farmed. 
Our stock of water (inventoried for the first time by the 
Commission) is supplied by rain and snow, and is equiva- 
lent to ten Mississippi Rivers flowing constantly at the av- 
erage rate. . . Water is the leading food for man and 
beast and plant. An average adult can subsist on two hun- 
dred pounds each of meat and bread yearly, but must sup- 
plement this solid food with about two thousand pounds of 
water; the grain for the bread requires for its growth four 
hundred tons of water, and the animals yielding the meat 
require for drink and food about four thousand tons; so 
that the direct and indirect yearly consumption of water 
by the average adult inhabitant is fully four thousand, four 
hundred tons. . . When our population reaches a bil- 
lion, as it will in normal course in three centuries, our en- 
tire natural water supply will be required to sustain it, 
though its density will then average but three hundred and 
twenty per square mile in lieu of the six hundred and forty 
it could sustain if the limit lay in the land alone - the limit 
already reached by Belgium. Meantime, our waters are not 
only ill-utilized, but wantonly wasted; allowed to run off in 
destructive floods, to become contaminated at appalling 
cost of life, to erode the soil and carry off its richest part, 
and thus to limit navigation and other uses. . . On the 
basis of the inventory of resources, the National Conserva- 
tion Commission framed a conservation policy and defined 
plans for carrying it out. . . On its face, the Commis- 
sion is material - ultra-material. At first blush the moral 
and the social in which cults arise and from which doc- 
trines draw their inspiration may not appear. Yet, in 
truth, there never has been in all human history a popular 98 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
movement more firmly grounded in ethics, in the eternal 
equities, in the divinity of human rights! Whether we rise 
in the spiritual empyrean or cling more closely to the es- 
sence of humanity, we find our loftiest ideals made real in 
the Cult of Conservation. We merely lay stepping stones 
toward the brink of the chasm before us when we declare: 
No forests, no streams; no iron, no ships; no coal, no power; 
no farms, no food - for these verities are but seed of 
thought and feeling. What boots it to us - to look and 
feel further -■ that we have two billion acres of land, when 
we have water enough for but half of it? . . . What 
boots it that we are ninety millions strong, when hardly 
nine millions are independent electors, with something like 
an equal number annually selling their birthright of free 
citizenship for messes of monopoly pottage if not for the 
very wherewithal to eat and wear ? What boots it to us that 
we have wood and coal to burn wantonly, as Nero in the 
Ancient City, while other foundations of the house of the 
Nation are crumbling? What boots it to us, indeed, that 
America is rich and powerful among the nations when she 
has become so through fattening on the very sources of life 
and when the wealth and power are virtually gathered into 
the hands of some seven Captains of Industry, leaving the 
rest of the ninety millions only the poorer ? 
Nor is this all: What right has any citizen of a free 
country, whatever his foresight and shrewdness, to seize on 
sources of life for his own behoof that are the common herit- 
age of all; what right has court or legislature to aid in the 
seizure; and striking still more deeply, what right has any 
generation to wholly consume, much less to waste, those 
sources of life without which the children or the children's 
children must starve or freeze? These are the questions 
arising among intelligent minds in every part of this coun- EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
99 
try, and giving form to a national feeling which is gradu- 
ally rising to a new plane of equity. The questions will not 
down. Nay, like Ban quo's ghost they tarry, and haunt, and 
search ! How shall they find answer ? The ethical doctrine 
of Conservation replies: by a nobler patriotism, under which 
the citizen-electors will cleave more strongly to their birth- 
right of independence and strive more vigorously for purity 
of the ballot, for rightness in laws, for cleanness in courts, 
and for forthrightness in administration; by a higher hon- 
esty of purpose between man and man; by a warmer 
charity, under which the good of all will more fairly merge 
with the good of each; by a stronger family sense, tending 
toward the realization of the rights of the unborn; by 
deeper probity, maturing in the realizing sense that each 
holder of the sources of life is but a trustee for his nominal 
possessions, and is responsible to all men and for all time for 
making the best use of them in the common interest; and by 
a livelier humanity, in which each will feel that he lives not 
for himself alone but as a part of a common life for a com- 
mon world and for the common good. All this may be old, 
but it is none the less timely today. It was better expressed 
in an utterance of two millenniums past - "A new com- 
mandment give I unto thee that ye love one another." But 
can a decree lose its occasion until it is obeyed ? 
. . . The hope of the Fathers for a freehold citizenry 
joined in equitable and in indissoluble Union is not fully 
attained. The American Revolution was fought for Liber- 
ty; the American Constitution was framed for Equality; 
yet that third of the trinity of human impulses without 
which Union is not made perfect - Fraternity - has not 
been established: full brotherhood among men and genera- 
tions has not yet come. The duty of the Fathers was done 
well according to their lights; but some new light has come 100 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
out of the West where their sons have striven against Na- 
ture's forces no less fiercely than the Fathers against for- 
eign dominion. So it would seem to remain for Conserva- 
tion to perfect the concept and the movement started among 
the Colonists one hundred and forty years ago - to round 
out the American Revolution by framing a clearer Bill of 
Rights. Whatever others there may be, surely these are 
inherent and indefeasible: - 
1. The equal rights of all men to opportunity. 
2. The equal rights of the People in and to resources 
rendered valuable by their own natural growth and orderly 
development. 
3. The equal rights of present and future generations 
in and to the resources of the country. 
4. The equal rights of citizens to provide for the per- 
petuity of families and States and the Union of States. 
The keynote of all this is Fraternity. They look to the 
greatest good of the greatest number and for the longest 
time; they are essential to perfect union among men and 
states; and until they are secured to us we may hardly feel 
assured that government of the People, by the People and 
for the People shall not perish from the earth. 
Anthropology at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition 3 
The motive of the department was to diffuse and incident- 
ally to increase knowledge. Hence, the primary purpose 
was essentially educational; and the work of the department 
was distinctive, if not unique, in that it embraced research 
in a degree comparable with that accorded to original work 
in modern institutions of higher learning. 
Anthropology is the science of man. In the broad sense 
s Reprint from Science, U. S., Vol. xxii, No. 573, December, 1905. EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
101 
it deals with all mankind and their attributes. Its aims and 
purposes are connected with man as an organism, and as 
the type of the class of living things, distinguished by men- 
tality ; also it deals with man as an assemblage of varieties 
or races and as social creatures united by language and law 
and organized in families, communities, societies, common- 
wealths and nations. In like manner the science in its 
broader aspects deals with man as a producer or creator of 
artificial things, and so as a progressive power in the con- 
quest of lower nature; and in its highest aspect the science 
deals with the development of both man and his works, and 
seeks to trace the paths of human progress not only in the 
interest of definite knowledge concerning our own kind, but 
in the hope of wider guidance toward future progress. 
Such, in brief, is the broad science of anthropology; and 
of such were the field and the motives of the department. 
II 
Practically, the field of anthropology is divided among 
several sub-sciences, each pertaining to a class of human at- 
tributes: (1) the science or sub-science of man consid- 
ered as an organism, or as the highest genus and species 
of the animal realm, is called physical anthropology or 
andrology; its object-matter is the individual human or- 
ganism, or anthropos; it embraces anatomy and physiology, 
and is closely related to the beneficent sciences connected 
with medical theory and practice. 
(2) Of late, the science of the human mind and of man as 
an organism dominated by mental power is called psy- 
chology; its subject matter is the psyche, individual and col- 
lective; it deals with the brain and nervous system con- 
sidered in relation to bodily movements and actions, both 
individual and collective; its methods embrace the com- 
parison of the characters of individuals and classes ascer- 102 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
tained thereby; . . . it is related to the most impor- 
tant directive and repressive instrumentalities of modern 
life, including education, alienism and social regulation. 
(3) The still broader science of the human activities, or 
of man as a producer or creator, and also of human produc- 
tions, is commonly known in its dscriptive aspect as demog- 
raphy and in its systematic aspect as demology; its object 
matter is the demos, or artificial group; it deals with what 
men do; and with an important class of activities, viz., arts, 
sciences, industries, languages, laws, and philosophies. 
(4) The science of man considered as an assemblage of 
races is known as ethnology; its object-matter is the natural 
group of mankind defined in terms of physical, of mental, 
or of activital features or of these combined. In its de- 
scriptive aspect, it is known as ethnography. 
(5) The several sciences dealing with man and his works 
touch that development of mankind, in which lie the chief 
interest and value of anthropology; for whatever the im- 
mediate aims, it is the ultimate aim of the science to trace 
the course of human progress and classify individuals and 
peoples in terms of that progress, and thus to learn so much 
as may be of the origin and destiny of mankind. Up to 
the present, the field of systematic knowledge dealing with 
the progress of mankind has not been clearly defined; for 
ever since Darwin and Huxley and Haeckel discussed the 
evolution of man, a third of a century ago, this has been the 
frontier of anthropology, the campus of the leading pio- 
neers, the virgin soil of teeming yield whence the richest 
fruits of each passing decade are gathered. Naturally, in 
view of the vigorous vitality symbolized by the Universal 
Exposition of 1904, the virile subject of human progress 
formed the leading motive of the department of anthro- 
pology -• the exposition, indeed, affording the world's finest EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
103 
opportunity for framing the science and setting it on a firm 
basis. The objeets-matter embrace the generations, families, 
stocks, and races of men, with the human activities and 
products in their endless variety; the methods comprise ob- 
servations and comparisons of growth, heredity, viability, 
fecundity, and development by exercise and cultivation, to- 
gether with manufacture and other forms of production. 
Its leading divisions are: (1) archeology, or the science of 
human relics, with human paleontology covering fossil and 
other remains of prehistoric man, and the paleography, 
dealing especially with ancient writings; (2) history; 
and (3) the unclassified and nameless body of knowledge 
concerning current conditions and events in the human 
world. . . 
The general view of human development opens a vista 
extending so far into the past and so widely into the field 
of man's activities that the recorded history of any par- 
ticular province or people seems small in comparison; 
yet the history of a people or province forms an 
effective introduction to the full history of mankind; ac- 
cordingly, the written history of the Louisiana Purchase 
gave a keynote for the department and the exhibits were 
chosen and arranged in consonance with this view. Here, 
too, the work was made feasible by the cooperation of lib- 
eral institutions and individuals, chiefly by historical so- 
cieties and working historians. The nucleus was the col- 
lection of the Missouri Historical Society, illustrating by 
manuscripts and books, relics and portraits, maps and 
sketches, every important step in the development of the 
metropolis of the Louisiana Purchase Territory and in the 
growth of the commonwealth with which it has come up; 
also illustrating by aboriginal relics the protohistoric devel- 
opment of the district from the times of aboriginal settle- 104 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
ment, the building of earthen tumuli and temples, the growth 
of a primitive agriculture, and the advent of the bison and 
its hunters into the period and through the centuries of dis- 
covery and acquisition and industrial conquest by white 
men. A supplementary illustration of development and 
conquest from the aboriginal condition to that of a great 
commonwealth comes from the Iowa Historical Depart- 
ment ; and collections serving to fill in the details of the gen- 
eral outline were exhibited by the Franco-Louisiana Society, 
the Louisiana State Historical Society, the Chicago Histor- 
ical Society and other cooperative exhibitors. . . 
The relics and records indicate that a leading factor in 
man's development is unification and interchange of knowl- 
edge. At first slow and inimical and effected chiefly through 
strife and conquest, the interchange and unification of the 
higher stages is rapid and amicable - schools replace 
armies, confederation supplants conquest, and the white 
man's burden of the ballad becomes the strong man's bur- 
den in the political family of nations as in the personal 
family of kindred. . . The means and ends of purposive 
interchange and unification as applied to the American 
aborigines, and the actual processes illustrated by living ex- 
amples, were exhibited in the typical Indian school form- 
ing the most conspicuous feature of the department. Here 
parents still clinging to native customs and costumes de- 
lighted in the progress and achievements of their children in 
the arts and industries and even in the language and letters 
required by modern life; here the aboriginal maker of 
moccasins showed (and saw) the contrast between his craft 
and modern shoe-making; here the actual transformation 
from comfortless camp life into comfortable householdry 
was illustrated, not only by every intermediary step, but 
by the actual passages of individuals and families from one 
stage to the other during the exposition period; . . . EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
105 
here, indeed, was illustrated in epitome, and also in the 
actual progress accelerated by purposive cooperation, a 
considerable part of that course of intellectual development 
which raised man from dull-minded and self-centered tribal 
existence into the active and constructive and broad-mind- 
ed life of modern humanity. 
VI 
In a word, the motive and scope of the anthropological 
department were to show our half of the world how the 
other half lives; yet not so much to gratify the untrained 
curiosity which leads even the child to look with wonder 
upon the alien as to satisfy the intelligent observer that 
there is a course of progress running from lower to higher 
humanity and that all the physical and cultural types of 
man mark stages in that course. 
The Seri Indians 4 
Something has been known of the Seri Indians (Series, 
Ceres, Ceris, Heris, Tiburones), since the time of Coronado, 
yet they remain one of the least studied tribes of North 
America. . . They are a distinctive tribe in habits, cus- 
toms and language inhabiting Tiburon Island, in the Gulf of 
California, and a limited adjacent area on the mainland of 
Sonora, Mexico. They call themselves Kun-kaak or Kmike; 
their common appellation is from the Opata, and may be 
translated ' ' spry. ' ' Their habitat is arid and rugged, con- 
sisting chiefly of desert sands and naked mountain rocks, 
with permanent fresh water in only two or three places; it 
4 The complete article may be found in first part of the Seventeenth 
Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the secretary 
of the Smithsonian Institute - 1895-96. 106 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
is barred from settled Sonora by a nearly impassible desert. 
Two centuries ago the population of the tribe was estimated 
at several thousands, but it has been gradually reduced by 
almost constant warfare to barely three hundred and fifty, 
of whom not more than seventy-five are adult males, or war- 
riors. 
The Seri men and women are of splendid physique; they 
have fine chests with slender but sinewy limbs, though the 
hands and especially the feet are large; their heads, while 
small in relation to stature, approach the average in size; 
their hair is luxuriant and coarse, ranging from typical 
black to tawny in color, and is worn long. They are notably 
vigorous in movement, erect in carriage, and remarkable for 
fleetness and endurance. 
The Seri subsist chiefly on turtles, fish, mollusks, water- 
fowl, and other food of the sea; they also take land game, 
and consume cactus fruits, mesquite beans, and a few other 
vegetal products of their sterile domain. Most of their food 
is eaten raw. They neither plant nor cultivate, and are 
without domestic animals, save dogs, which are largely 
of coyote blood. 
The habitations of the Seri are flimsy bowers of cactus 
and shrubbery, sometimes shingled rudely with turtle-shells 
and sponges; in some cases these are clusters pertaining to 
matronymic family groups; in other cases they are isolated, 
and are then often abandoned and re-occupied repeatedly, 
and are apparently the common property of the tribe. The 
habitations afford some protection from the sun and wind, 
but not from cold and wet, which are hardly known in win- 
terless and nearly rainless Seri-land. 
The Seri clothing consists essentially of a kilt or skirt ex- 
tending from waist to knees; sometimes a pelican-skin robe 
is worn as a blanket or mantle, and used also as bedding; EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
107 
the head and feet, as well as the bust and arms, are habit- 
ually bare, though a loose-sleeved wammus reaching not 
quite to the waist is sometimes worn. These garments were 
formerly woven of coarse threads or cords made from na- 
tive vegetal fibres; the belt is generally of twisted human 
hair, of horse hair, of dressed deerskin, or of snake skin; 
the robe consists of four, six, or eight pelican skins sewed 
together with sinew. The pelican-skin robes are still 
used, though the original fabric is commonly replaced by 
cotton stuffs obtained through barter or plunder. Cords 
of human hair and skins of serpents are still used for neck- 
laces. 
The sports and games of the Seri Indians include racing 
and dancing, and there are ceremonial dances at the girls' 
puberty feasts, accompanying the rude music of improvised 
drums. Decoration is ordinarily limited to symbolic face- 
painting, which is seen especially among the females, and 
to crude ornamentation of the scanty apparel. A peculiar 
pottery is manufactured, and the pieces are sometimes 
decorated with simple designs in plain colors. 
The bow and arrow are habitually used, especially in war- 
fare, and turtles and fish are taken by means of harpoons, 
shafted with cane and usually tipped with bone, charred 
wood, or flotsam metal. The arrows are sometimes pro- 
vided with chipped stone points, though the art of chipping 
seems to be accultural and chamanistic. The ordinary 
stone implements are used for crushing bone and severing 
sinew or flesh, and also for mulling seeds and other food 
substances; they are mere cobbles, selected for fitness, and 
retained only if their fitness is increased by the wear of use, 
after the manner of protolithic culture. Graceful balsas 
are made from canes, bound together with mesquite fibre- 
cords; and on these the people freely navigate the narrow 108 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
but stormy strait separating Tiburon and the neighboring 
islets from the mainland. They make a distinctive pottery, 
which is remarkably light and fragile. Its chief use is 
carrying water to habitations (always located miles from 
the spring or tinaja) or on desultory wanderings. Shells 
are used for cups and to some extent for implements. They 
have a few baskets which are not greatly different from 
those made by neighboring tribes. 
The modern Seri are loosely organized in a number of 
maternal groups or clans, which are notable for the promi- 
nence given to mother right in marriage and for some other 
customs; and there are indications that the clan organiza- 
tion was more definite before the tribe was so greatly re- 
duced. The leading clans are those of the Pelican, the chief 
tribal tutelary, and the Turtle, a minor tutelary. At pres- 
ent polygamy prevails, professedly and evidently because of 
the preponderance of females due to the decimation of war- 
riors in battle; but both custom and tradition tell of former 
monogamy, with suggestion of polyandry. The primary 
marriage is negotiated between the mothers of the would-be 
groom and the prospective bride; if the mother and daugh- 
ter of the latter family look with favor on the proposal, the 
candidate is subjected to rigorous tests of material and 
moral character; and if these are successfully passed, the 
marriage is considered complete, and the husband becomes 
a privileged and permanent guest in the wife's household. 
Family feeling, especially maternal affection, is strong; but 
petty dissensions are common save when internal peace is 
constrained by external strife. The strongest tribal char- 
acteristic is implacable animosity towards aliens, whether 
Indian or Caucasian; certainly for three and a half cen- 
turies, and probably for many more, the Seri have been al- 
most constantly on the warpath against one alien group or EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
109 
another, and have successfully stayed Spanish, Mexican, and 
American invasion. In their estimation, the brightest vir- 
tue is the shedding of alien blood, while the blackest crime 
in their calendar is alien conjugal union. 
The Seri vocabulary is meager and essentially local; the 
kinship terms are strikingly scanty, and there are fairly 
full designations for food materials and other local things, 
while abstract terms are few. Two or three recorded vo- 
cables seem to resemble those of the Yuman languages, 
while the numerals and all other known terms are distinct. 
The grammatical construction of Seri speech appears not 
to differ greatly from that of other tongues of Sonora and 
Arizona ; it is highly complex and associative. The speech 
is fairly euphonious, much more so than that of the neigh- 
boring Papago and Yaqui Indians. 
The Seri Indians appear to recognize a wide variety of 
mystical potencies and a number of zoic deities, all of 
rather limited powers. The Pelican, Turtle, Moon, and Sun 
seem to lead their thearchy. Creation is ascribed to the 
Ancient of Pelicans - a mythical bird of marvelous wis- 
dom and melodious song - first raised Isla Tassne, and 
afterwards Tiburon and the rest of the world, above the 
primeval waters. Individual fetishes are used, and there 
is some annual ceremony at the time of ripening of cactus 
fruits, and certain observances at the time of the new 
moon. The most conspicuous ceremony is the girls' 
puberty feast. The dead are clothed in their finest rai- 
ment, folded and fastened in small compass like Peruvian 
mummies, placed in shallow graves, and covered with turtle 
shells, when the graves are filled with earth and heaped 
with stones or thorny brambles for protection against beasts 
of prey. Fetishes, weapons and other personal belongings 
are buried with the body, as well as a dish of food and an 110 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
olla of water, and there are curious customs connected with 
the place of sepulture. There is a weird, formal mourning 
for dead matrons, and suggestions of fear or veneration for 
the manes. 
Seriland is surrounded with prehistoric works, telling of 
a numerous population who successfully controlled the 
waters for irrigation which were very scant, built villages 
and temples and fortresses, cultivated crops, kept domestic 
animals, and manufactured superior fictile and textile 
wares; but (save possibly in one spot) these records of ab- 
original culture cease at the borders of Seriland. In their 
stead a few slightly worn pebbles and bits of pottery are 
found here and there, deeply imbedded in the soil and 
weathered by the suns of ages. There are also a few cairns 
of cobbles marking the burial places, and at least one cobble 
mound of striking dimensions but of unknown meaning; 
and there are a few shell-mounds, one so broad and high 
as to form a cape in the slowly transgressing shore-line 
(Punta Antigualla), and in which the protolithic imple- 
ments and other relics are alike from the house-dotted sur- 
face to the tide level, ninety feet below. 
The absence of relics of a superior culture, and the pres- 
ence of Seri relics throughout deposits of high antiquity, 
suggest that the tribe is indigenous to Seriland; and this 
indication harmonizes with the pecular isolation of the ter- 
ritory, the lowly culture and warlike habits of the people, 
the essentially distinct language, the singular marriage 
custom, and the local character of the beast-gods. All these 
features combine to mark the Seri as children of the soil, or 
autochtones. 
The present knowledge of Seriland is based primarily on 
the work of two expeditions by the Bureau of American 
Ethnology; and secondarily, on researches into the car- EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
111 
tography and literature (descriptive, historic and scientific) 
of the region. Both of the expeditions were projected 
largely for the purpose of making collections among little 
known native tribes in the interests of the National Museum, 
and the general ethnological inquiries were ancillary to this 
purpose. The first of the expeditions was in 1894 and the 
second in 1895. . . 
The location of Seriland, the home from time immemorial 
of the Seri Indians, lies in northwestern Mexico, forming a 
part of the State of Sonora. It comprises Tiburon island, 
the largest and most elevated insular body in the Gulf of 
California, together with a few islets, and an adjacent tract 
of mainland; the center of the district being marked approx- 
imately by the intersection of the parallel of 29° with the 
meridian 112°. The territory is divided by the narrow but 
turbulent strait, El Infiernello. It is bounded on the west 
and south by the waters of the gulf with its eastward ex- 
tensions to Kino Bay, on the east by an almost impassable 
desert, and on the north by a waterless stretch of sandy 
plains and rugged sierras fifty to one hundred miles in 
extent. 
Tiburon island is about thirty miles in length from north 
to south and ten to twenty miles in width; its area, with 
that of the adjacent islands or islets, is barely five hundred 
square miles. The mainland tract held by the Seri is with- 
out definite boundary; measured to the middle of the limit- 
ing desert on the east and half way across the waterless zone 
on the north, its area may be put at 1,500 square miles. 
To this land area of 2,000 square miles may be added the 
water area of the strait, with its northern and southern em- 
bouchures, and the coastwise waters habitually navigated 
by the Seri, as far as Kino Bay, making half as much more 
of water area. Such is the district which the Seri claim 112 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
and seek to control, and have practically protected against 
invasion for nearly four centuries of history and for un- 
counted centuries of prehistory. 
Seriland forms part of a great natural province lying 
west of the Sierra Madre of western Mexico and south of an 
indefinite boundary about the latitude of the Gila River, 
which may be designated the Sonorian province, and it is 
allied in many of its characteristics to the arid piedmont 
zone lying west of the Andes in South America. 
The Sonoran province is notably warm and dry. The 
vapor-laden air-currents from the Pacific drift across it and 
are first warmed by conduction and radiation from the sun- 
scorched land, to be chilled again as they roll up the steeper 
roof-slope to the crest; and the precipitation flows part way 
down the slopes, both eastward and westward from the 
Sierra Madre - literally the Mother (of waters) range. A 
climatal characteristic of the province is two relatively 
humid seasons, coinciding with the two principal inflections 
of the annual temperature-curve, i. e., in January-February 
and July-August, respectively. In the absence of meteor- 
ologic records the temperature and precipitation may be 
inferred from the observations at Yuma and Tucson, which 
are among the warmest and driest stations in America, or 
indeed, in the world. The ordinary midday temperature 
of these places may be estimated at about 110° in the shade. 
The night temperature at the same season, is usually 50° to 
75°, though during two-thirds of the year it is liable to fall 
to or below zero. The sun temperature is high in com- 
parison with that measured in the shade, the exposed ther- 
mometer frequently rising to 150° or 160°, according to its 
construction, while black-finished metal becomes too hot to 
be handled, and dark sand and rocks literally scorch un- 
protected feet. The leading characteristic of the tempera- EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
113 
ture is the wide diurnal range and the relatively narrow 
annual range; another characteristic is the uniformity, or 
periodic steadiness of the maxima, coupled with the vari- 
ability and non-periodicy of the minima. 
The precipitation in Sonoran province is chiefly in the 
form of rain; in the winter humid season snow falls fre- 
quently on the Sierra Madre and rarely on the outlying 
ranges; in both humid seasons (and in humid spots at all 
seasons) dew forms in greater or less abundance. Fog 
frequently gathers along the coast, especially during the 
winter and in the midsummer wet season and sometimes 
drifts inland for miles. The greater part of the precipita- 
tion is in local storms, frequently accompanied by thunder 
- gusts, or sudden tempests, though cold drizzles sometimes 
occur, especially at the height of the winter humid season. 
Except where the local configuration is such as to affect the 
atmospheric movements, the distribution of precipitation is 
erratic, in both time and space; some spots may receive half 
a dozen rains in a year, while other spots may remain rain- 
less for several years; and the wet spot of one series of 
years may be the dry spot of the next. . . 
The configuration and climate combine to give distinctive 
character to the hydrography of the Sonoran province. The 
melting snows and more abundant rains of the Sierras form 
innumerable streams flowing down the steeper slopes toward 
the piedmont plains, or soak into pervious rocks to reappear 
as springs at lower levels; sometimes the streams unite to 
form considerable rivers flowing scores of miles beyond the 
mountain confines; but eventually all the running waters 
are absorbed by the dry sands of the plains or evaporated 
into the drier air; and from the mouth of the Colorado to 
that of the Yaqui, five hundred miles away, no fresh water 
flows into the sea. During the wfinter season, and to a less 114 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
extent during that of summer, the mountain waterways are 
occupied by rushing torrents, rivaling great rivers in vol- 
ume, and these floods flow far over the plains; but during 
the normal droughts the torrents shrink to streamlets purl- 
ing among the rocks, or they give place to blistering sand- 
wastes furlongs or even miles in width and dozens of miles 
in length, while beyond stretch low, radially scored alluvial 
fans, built by the great freshets of millenniums. Only a 
trifling part of the rainfall of the plains ever gathers in the 
waterways heading in the mountains, and only another 
small part gathers in local channels; the lighter rains from 
higher clouds are so far evaporated in the lower strata of 
air as to reach the earth in feeble sprinkles or not at all; 
the product of moderate showers is absorbed directly by 
earth and air; while the water of heavy rains accumulate 
in mud-burdened sheets spreading far over the plains, flow- 
ing sluggishly down the slopes, yet suffering absorption too 
rapidly by earth and air, to permit concentration in chan- 
nels. These moving mud-blankets of the plains, or sheet- 
floods, are often supplemented by the discharge from the 
waterways of adjacent sierras and buttes; they are common- 
ly miles and frequently dozens or scores of miles in width 
and the linear flow may range from a fraction of a mile to 
scores of miles according to the heaviness of the rainfall and 
the consequent dilution of the mud. Such sheet-floods, es- 
pecially those produced by considerable rains, are charac- 
teristic agents of erosion throughout most of the province; 
their tendency is to aggrade depressions and corrode later- 
ally, and thus to produce smooth plains of gentle slope in- 
terrupted only by exceptionally precipitous and rugged 
mountain remnants. A part of the sheet-flood waters join 
the stronger mountain-born streams, particularly toward 
the end of the great storm whereby earth and air are satur- EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
115 
ated; another part forms ground-water, which slowly finds 
its way down the slopes toward the principal valleys, per- 
haps to reappear as springs or to supply wells. These, 
with certain other conditions determine the water supply 
available for habitation throughout Seriland. . . 
The flora of the Sonoran province affords a striking ex- 
ample of the adjustment of vegetal life to an unfavorable 
environment. The prevailing vegetation is perennial, of 
slow growth and stunted aspect; and it is not distributed 
uniformily but arranged in separate tufts or clusters, gath- 
ering into a nearly continuous mantle in wetter spots, 
though commonly dotting the plains sparsely, to completely 
disappear in the driest areas. Nearly all of the plants have 
roots of exceptional length, and are protected from evapora- 
tion by a glazed epidermis and from animal enemies by 
thorns or offensive odors and flavors; while most of the 
trees and shrubs are practically leafless except during the 
humid seasons. Grasses are not characteristic, and there is 
no sward, even in oases; but certain grasses grow in the 
shadow of arborescent tufts and in the fields of the farmer 
ants, or spring up in scattered blades over the moister 
portions of the surface. The arborescent vegetation repre- 
sents two characteristic types, viz. (1) trees and shrubs 
allied to those of humid lands, but modified to fit arid 
conditions; and (2) distinctive forms, evidently born of 
desert conditions and not adapted to a humid habitat, this 
type comprising the cacti and related forms, as well as forms 
apparently intermediate between the cacti and normal ar- 
borescent type. The various plants of the district, including 
those of the distinctive types, are communal or commensal, 
both among themselves and with animals, to a remarkable 
degree; for the common strife against hard physical envi- 
ronment has forced them, into cooperation for mutual sup- 116 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
port. The tufts or clusters in which the vegetation is ar- 
ranged express the solidarity of life in the province; com- 
monly each cluster is a vital colony, made up of plants of 
various genera and orders, and forming a home for animal 
life also of different genera and orders; and, although meas- 
urably inimical, these various organisms are so far inter- 
dependent that none could survive without the cooperation 
of the others. 
In Seriland proper, as in other parts of the Sonoran prov- 
ince, a prevailing tree is the mesquite; on the alluvial fan 
of Rio Sonora, it grows in remarkable luxuriance, forming 
(with a few other trees) a practically continuous forest 
twenty to forty feet in height, the gnarled trunks sometimes 
reaching a diameter of two or three feet; over the Rio 
Bacuache fan and much of the remaining plain surface it 
forms the dominant tree in the scattered vital colonies; and 
here and there it pushes well into the canyon gorges. The 
roots of the mesquite are of great length, and are said to 
penetrate to water-bearing strata, at depths of fifty to sev- 
enty-five feet; its fruit consists of small hard beans im- 
bedded in slender woody pods. Associated with the mes- 
quite in most stations are the still more scraggy and thorny 
cat-claw and iron wood, both also yielding woody beans in 
limited quantity. Similarly associated, especially in 
the drier tracts, and characteristically abundant over the 
plains portions of Isla Tiburon, are the paloverdes, etc., 
forming scraggy, wide-branching, green-bark trees, five to 
fifteen feet in height and commonly three to ten inches in 
diameter of trunk. Over the mountain sides, grow sparsely 
the only straight-trunk trees of the region, rooted in the 
rocks to the average number of a few score to the square 
mile; this is the paloblanco. Associated with it along rocky 
barrancas of permanent water supply is a fig tree which has EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
117 
the habit of springing from the walls and crests of cliffs, 
and sending white-bark roots down the cliff faces to the 
water fifty or one hundred feet below, and which yields a 
small, insipid, and woody fruit. Interspersed among the 
larger trees, and spreading over the intervening spaces, 
particularly in the drier and more saline spots, grow a 
number of thorny shrubs, much alike in external habits and 
appearance, though representing half a dozen distinct gen- 
era, while considerable tracts are sparsely occupied by 
straggling tufts of the Sonoran greasewood, or creosote 
bush, whose minute but bright green leafage relieves that 
prevailing gray of the landscape in which the lighter greens 
of the paloverde and cactus stems are lost. Intermingling 
with the woody trees and shrubs in most stations, and re- 
placing them in some, are the conspicuous and characteris- 
tic cacti in a score of forms. . . 
On many of the higher plain-slopes, especially in east- 
ern Seriland, there are pulpy-stemmed shrubs and bushes, 
sometimes reaching the dignity of trees, which present the 
normal aspect of exogenous perennials during life, but 
which are so spongy throughout as to shrink into shreds of 
bark-like debris shortly after death. . . These plants grow 
in the scattered and scraggy tufts characteristic of arid dis- 
tricts, they are protected from evaporation by the usual 
glazed epidermis, and maintained by the water absorbed 
during the humid seasons; but they are thornless and are 
protected from animal enemies by pungent odors and at 
least in some cases by toxic juices. Like various plants of 
the province they are measurably communal - indeed one 
specie, the torotito, appears to be dependent upon union 
with an insect for reproduction, like certain yuccas, and 
like (to some degree at least) the cina and other cacti. 
Along the lower reaches of the Rio Bacuache, and in 118 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
some of the deeper gorges of the Sierra-Seri and the Sierra 
Kunkaak, grow a few veritable trees of moderately straight 
trunk and grain and solid wood. . . These trees fruit, 
some producing a berry of medicinal properties and others 
a nut edible when not quite ripe and forming a favorite 
rattle bead when dry. On the banks of such gorges the 
slender branched baraprieta grows up in the shelter of more 
vigorous shrubs, its branches yielding basketry material, 
while its fruit is a woody bean much like that of the 
cat-claw. In like stations there are occasional clumps 
of yerba mala, an exceptionally leafy bush growing in 
straight stems suitable for arrowshafts, and alleged to 
be poisonous from root to leaf - with inherent prob- 
ability, since the plant is without the thorny armature 
normal to the desert. Along the sand-washes, especially 
about their extremities wet only in floods, springs a sub- 
annual plant, which shrinks to stunted tussocks after a 
year or more of drought, but flourishes in close-set fens 
after floods; though of acrid flavor and sage-like odor, it 
is eaten by herbivores in time of need, and it yields abun- 
dant seeds, consumed by birds, small animals, and men. 
About all of the permanent waters not invaded by white 
men and the white men's stock, there are brakes of cane or 
carizal; the jointed stems are half an inch to an inch in 
thickness and eight to twenty-five feet in height; the seeds 
are edible, while the stems form the material for balsas and 
afford shafts for arrows, harpoons, fire sticks, etc., and the 
silica-coated joints may be used for incising tough tissues. 
The coasts of Seriland, both insular and mainland, are 
skirted by zones of exceptionally luxuriant shrubbery, main- 
tained chiefly by fog moisture. Along the mountainous 
parts of the coast the zone is narrow and indefinite, but on 
the plains portions it extends inland for several miles with EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
119 
gradually fading characters. Most of the fog-fed species 
are identical with those of the interior, though the shrubs 
are most luxuriant and are otherwise distinctive in habit. 
On the Tiburon side of gale-swept El Infiernillo, and to 
some extent along other parts of the coast, some of these 
shrubs grow in dense hedge-like or mat-like masses, often 
yards in extent and permanently modeled by the wind in 
graceful dune-like shapes. Somewhat farther inland, the 
flatter coast-wise zones of Tiburon are rather thickly 
studded with shrubby clumps from six inches to two feet 
high, made up of many communals. While still farther 
inland follows the prevailing Sonoran flora of mesquite, 
scrubby paloverde and chaparral, etc., only a little more 
luxuriant than normal. 
Throughout Seriland proper, and especially in the in- 
terior valleys of Tiburon, grasses are more prevalent than 
in other portions of the Sonoran province, their abundance 
being due to the rarity of graminiverous animals during 
recent centuries. 
Considered collectively, the fauna of the Sonoran province 
is measurably distinctive (though less so than the flora), 
especially in the habits of the organisms. The prevailing 
animals, like the plants of extraneous type, evidently repre- 
sent genera and species developed under more humid condi- 
tions and adjusted to the arid province through a long-con- 
tinued and severe process of adaptation; and no fundamen- 
tally distinct orders or types comparable with the cacti and 
torotes of the vegetal realm are known. The prime requisite 
of the animal life in the province is ability to dispense with 
drinking, either habitually or for long intervals, and to 
mantain structure and function in the heated air despite the 
exceptionally small consumption of water; the second requis- 
ite is ability to cooperate in the marvelously complete soli- 120 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
darity of animal and vegetal life characteristics of sub-desert 
regions. No systematic studies have been made of special 
structures in the animal bodies adapting them to retention 
of liquids, either by storage, as in the stomach of the camel, 
or by diminished evaporation, though the prevalence of prac- 
tically non-perspiring mammals, scale-covered reptiles, and 
chitin coated insects, suggests the selection, if not the de- 
velopment, of the fitter genera and species for the peculiar 
environment. Much more conspicuous are the characters 
connected with cooperation in the ever severe but never 
eliminative strife for existence in the sub-desert solidarity; 
the mammals are either exceptionally swift like the ante- 
lope, exceptionally strong like the local lion, exceptionally 
pugnacious and prolific like the peccary, or exceptionally 
capable of subsisting on waterless sierras like the bura and 
the mountain goat; the reptiles are either exceptionally 
swift like the rainbow-hued lizards, exceptionally armed 
like the sluggish horned toads, exceptionally poisonous like 
the rattlesnake, or exceptionally repulsive, if not poisonous, 
like the Gila monster; even the articulates avoid the mean, 
and are exceptionally swift, exceptionally protective in 
form and coloring, exceptionally venomous like the taran- 
tula and scorpion and centipede, or exceptionally intelligent 
like the farmer ant and the tarantula hawk; while there is 
apparently a considerable class of insects completely de- 
pendent upon the cooperation of plants for the perpetuation 
of their kind, including the yucca, moth, and cactus beetle. 
Among plants the intense individuality (which is the ob- 
verse of the enforced solidarity) is expressed in thorns and 
heavily lacquered seeds and toxic principles; among ani- 
mals it is expressed by chitinous armament, as well as by 
fleetness and fangs and deadly venom. 
The larger land animals of Seriland proper are the moun- EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
121 
tain goat in the higher sierras, the bura (or mule-deer) and 
the white tail deer on the mid-height plains and larger al- 
luvial fans, with the antelope on the lower and drier ex- 
panses. Associated with these are the ubiquitous coyote, a 
puma, a jaguar of much local repute which roams the 
higher rocky sites, and a peccary ranging from the coast 
over the alluvial fans and mid-height plains of the main- 
land (though it is apparently absent from Tiburon). Of 
the smaller mammals the hare (or jack rabbit) and rabbit 
are most conspicuous, while a long-tail nocturnal squirrel 
abounds, its burrows and tunnels penetrating the plains 
of finer debris so abundantly as to render these plains 
impassable for horses and nearly so for men. The Cali- 
fornia quail and the small Sonoran dove are fairly com- 
mon; a moderate number of small birds haunt the more 
humid belts, and there is a due proportion of Mexican eagles 
and hawks of two or three forms, with still more numerous 
vultures. Ants abound, dominating the insect world, while 
wasps and spiders, with various flies and midges, gather 
about the vital colonies of the drier plains and swarm in 
the moister belts. Horned toads and various lizards - 
bright-colored and swift, or earth-tinted and sluggish - 
are fairly abundant, while black-tail rattlesnakes haunt the 
more luxuriant vegetation of fog zones, permanent waters, 
and cienegas. On the whole, land fauna of Seriland is 
much like that of the province in general, though the vari- 
ous forms of life are less abundant than the average, since 
all (excepting the abounding squirrel) are sought for food 
by the omnivorous Seri; and the distribution, even when 
relatively abundant, is woefully sparse, as befits the scant 
and scattered vegetal foundation for the animal life. 
Strongly contrasted with the meagerness of the land 
fauna is the redundant aquatic fauna of that portion of 122 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
the gulf washing the shores of Seriland. Tiburon island is 
named from the sharks, said by some explorers to have 
been seen by thousands along its coasts; these voracious 
feeders find ample food in literal shoals and swarms of 
smaller fishes; a not inconsiderable number of whales have 
survived the early fisheries (one estimated at eighty feet 
in length, was stranded in Rada Ballena about 1887) ; while 
schools of porpoises play about in different places, making 
easy prey of slower swimmers caught in the tide-rips and 
gale-swept breakers. Proportionately abundant and varied 
is the crustacean life; littoral mollusks cling to the ledges 
exposed among all the rocky coast stretches, and the entire 
beach from Punta Antigualla to Punta Ygnacio is banded 
by a practically continuous bank of wave-cast molluscan 
shells, the shell drift being often yards in width and many 
inches in depth. Common crabs abound in many of the 
coves and a large lobster-like crab frequently comes up 
from deeper bights and bottoms; oysters attach themselves 
to rocks and to the roots of shrubby trees skirting protected 
bays, while clams are very numerous in all broad mud 
flats, and the pearl oyster was fished for centuries until the 
ferocity of the Seri put an end to the industry. Especially 
abundant and large are the green turtles on which the Seri 
principally subsist, leaving the shells scattered along the 
shores and about rancherias in hundreds; while two land 
tortoises range about the margins of the lagoons, and one 
of these is alleged to enter the water freely. 
The abundance of water fowl is commensurate with that 
of submarine life. The pelican leads the 'avifauna in 
prominence if not in actual numbers; gulls are always in 
sight, and the cormorant is common; while different ducks 
haunt several of the islets, and the shores are promenaded 
by curlews, snipes, and other waders. There is a corre- EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
123 
spending wealth of plankton, which at low spring tide with 
offshore gale covers acres of shallow littoral with squirming 
or inert but always slimy life, the substratum for that of 
higher order; and jellyfish and echinoids are cast up by 
nearly every wave, while at night the surf rolls up the 
smooth strands in shimmering lines of phosporescent light. 
On the whole the aquatic life teems in tropic luxuriance 
and more than ordinary littoral variety; for the waters of 
the gulf are warmed by radiation and conduction from its 
sun-parched basin, while the concentrated tides distribute 
and stimulate the species and keep the vital streams 
astir. . . 
There is some doubt as to who was the first among the 
Caucasian explorers of the Western Hemisphere to set eyes 
upon the Seri Indians. Nuno de Guzman, rival of Cortez, 
must have approached the southern boundary of Seri terri- 
tory about 1530, though there is no record of contact with 
these tribesmen. Diego Hurtado de Mendozo, one of Cor- 
tez' captains, coasted along the southern part of Sonora in 
1532 where he was massacred on his return and hence left 
no record of more northerly natives. Both of these pio- 
neers must be therefore eliminated from the list of probable 
discoverers of the Seri. 
In the course of their marvelous transcontinental jour- 
ney, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and his companions also 
approached Seriland, and apparently skirted its borders 
shortly before meeting Captain Diego de Alcarez, of Guz- 
man's party; this was in April, 1536. Vaca wrote: "On 
the coast is no maize; the inhabitants eat the powder 
of rush and of straw, and fish that is caught in the 
sea from rafts, not having canoes. With grass and straw 
the women cover their nudity. They are a timid and 
dejected people." He added half a dozen ambiguous sen- 124 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
fences, of which, only a part, apparently, refer to the ' ' timid 
and dejected people; ' ' half of these describe a poison used 
by them "so deadly that if the leaves be bruised and 
steeped in some neighboring water, the deer and other 
animals drinking it soon burst." The people were iden- 
tified as Seri (Ceris) by Buckingham Smith and General 
Stone, and the identification may be considered as strongly 
probable, provided the Tepoka be classed with the Seri. 
The next Caucasians to approach Seriland appear to have 
been the two Spanish monks, Fray Pedro Nadal and Fray 
Juan de la Asuncion; . . . but the meager account of 
their journey contains no clear reference to the Seri 
Indians. . . Omitting others who probably explored 
some of the regions around about Seriland and left no 
definite record, mention must be made of Captain-General 
Francisco Vasquez Coronado, who set out on his ambitious 
and memorable expedition to the Seven Cities of Cibo- 
la. . . Coronado's forces were divided, a considerable 
part of the army falling behind the leader; and some time 
during the summer, the belated army founded the town 
of San Hieronimo de los Corazones. From Corazones 
Don Rodrigo Maldonado went down to the seacoast to 
seek some ships that were expected and he brought back 
with him "an Indian so large and tall that the best man 
in the army reached only to his chest, ' ' with reports of still 
taller Indians along the coast. It is impossible to trace 
Maldonado's route with certainty, but in view of geographic 
and other conditions, it is evident that he must have de- 
scended Rio Sonora and approached or reached the coast 
over the broad delta-plain of that stream south of Seriland 
and thus within Seri territory. The reported gigantic 
stature practically identifies the Indians visited by him with 
the Seri, since no other gigantic tribes were consistently EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
125 
reported by explorers of western North America, and since 
the six foot Seri warriors, with their frequent Sauls of 
greater stature, are in fact gigantic in comparison with the 
average Spanish soldiery of earlier centuries. There are 
indications that the fame of these giants of the southern 
sea spread to Europe and filtered slowly throughout the 
intellectual world, and that the fancy-colored colossi grew 
with their travels, after the manner of their kind - in- 
deed there is no slender reason for opining that these half- 
mythical islanders were the real originals of Jonathan 
Swift's Brobdingnagians, despite his location of their fabled 
land a few leagues farther northward on the long mysteri- 
ous coast below the elusive "Straits of Anian. " 
About the middle of September, 1540, Captain Melchior 
Diaz, then in command of part of Coronado's forces sta- 
tioned at Corazones, selected twenty-five men from the 
forces remaining at that point, and set out for the coast on 
what must have been one of the most remarkable, as it is 
one of the least known, expeditions in the history of Span- 
ish explorations; for he traversed either the streamless 
coast or the hardly more hospitable interior through one 
of the most utterly desert regions in North America, from 
the lower reaches of Rio Sonora to the mouth of the Colo- 
rado. . . On the return journey, Diaz lost his life 
through an accident and his party reached Corazones on 
January 18, 1541, after encountering hostility from Indians 
not far from that settlement. Word was sent to Coronado, 
then in winter quarters on the Rio Grande, who despatched 
Don Pedro de Trovar to the settlement for the purpose of 
punishing the hostile natives; he, in turn, sent Diego de 
Alcarez with a force to seize the '1 chiefs and lords of a vil- 
lage. " This Alcarez did, but soon liberated his prisoners 
for a petty exchange. Finding themselves free, they re- 126 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
newed the war and attacked them, and as they were strong 
and had poison, they killed several Spaniards and wounded 
others so that they died on the way back. . . They got 
back to the town, leaving seventeen dead from the poison. 
They would die in agony from only a small wound, their 
bodies breaking out with an insupportable pestilential stink. 
The Coronado expedition had further experience with evi- 
dently the same Indians; for as the army approached Cora- 
zones on the return a soldier was wounded, and was success- 
fully treated, according to the record, with the juice of the 
quince. The poison, however, had left its mark upon him. 
The skin rotted and fell off until it left the bones and sinews 
bare, with a horrible smell. The wound was in the wrist, 
and the poison had reached as far as the shoulder when he 
was cured. The skin on all this fell off. 
There is some question as to the identity of the Indians 
met by Diaz's men, Alcarez and his force, and the Coronado 
forces near Corazones; but various indications point to the 
Seri. In the first place the several Indian settlements 
mentioned in the records define what must have been then, 
as it was two centuries later, the Seri frontier, beyond 
which lay the "despoblado" of Villa Senor, i. e., the im- 
mense area hunted and harried by roving bands from Ti- 
buron ; so that the Seri must frequently have crossed the 
paths pursued by the Spanish pioneers. In the second 
place, the accounts seem to be typical records of contact 
with Seri Indians. . . 
The most conspicuous characteristic of the Seri tribe as 
a whole is isolation. The geographic position and physical 
features of their habitat favor, and indeed compel, isola- 
tion : their little principality is protected on one side by 
stormy seas and on the other by still more forbidding 
deserts; their home is too hard and poor to tempt conquest, EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
127 
and their possessions too meager to invite spoliation; hence, 
under customary conditions, they never see neighbors save 
in chance encounters on their frontiers or in their own pre- 
datory forays - and in either case the encounters are com- 
monly inimical. The natural isolation of the habitat is 
reflected in their modes of life and habits of thought; and 
during the ages the physical isolation has come to be reflect- 
ed in a bitter and implacable hereditary enmity towards 
aliens - an enmity forming apparently the strongest mo- 
tive in their life and thought, and, indeed, grown into a per- 
sistent instinct. Thus the Seri stand alone in every re- 
spect; they are isolated in habitat, and still more intensely 
isolated in habits of thought and life from all contempo- 
raries ; they far out-Ishmael the Ishmael of old on Araby's 
deserts. . . 
The population of the Seri so far as could be definitely 
ascertained was in 1894 about sixty or seventy warriors 
with about three or four times as many women and chil- 
dren, i. e., the population was apparently about two hun- 
dred and fifty to three hundred and fifty. There are in- 
dications to show that the tribe is very prolific and well- 
fitted to survive unless cut off in consequence of the heredi- 
tary antipathy against alien blood and culture. 
Several physical characteristics of the Seri Indians are 
so conspicuous as to attract attention even at first sight. 
Perhaps the most striking is the noble stature and erect 
but easy carriage; next in prominence is the dark skin tint, 
the third is the breadth and depth of chest; another is the 
slenderness of limbs and disproportionately large size of 
extremities, especially the feet; still another is length and 
luxuriance of the hair; and an impressive characteristic is a 
peculiar movement in walking and running. 
The mean stature of the Seri may be estimated at six 128 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
feet for the males and five feet eight or nine inches for the 
females. From pictures, unpublished photographs, and ob- 
servations made on the ground, it is evident that all the 
fully adult males and several of the females overtop the 
Caucasian unit. . . 
The Seri skin tint is of the usual Amerindian bronze, 
save that it is exceptionally dark, with a decided tone of 
black. . . Experienced observers of the native tribes 
may form an impression of the Seri color from the ex- 
planation that they are as much darker than the neigh- 
boring Papago as the Papago are darker than the average 
tribesmen about the Great Lakes; the Papago themselves 
being as much darker than the southern plains or Pueblo 
folk as these are darker than those of the Lake region. The 
range in color seems to be slight. . . 
Foremost among the general somatic distinctions between 
the Caucasian and the American native is the peripheral 
development of the former, displayed in the better-muscled 
limbs, more expressive features, etc., i. e., the Caucasian 
body expresses a readily perceptible but difficultly describ- 
able peripherization, in contradistinction from the centraliz- 
ation displayed by the aboriginal body. Save in a single 
particular (the large hands and feet), the Seri exemplify 
this distinction in a remarkable degree. Their chests are 
strikingly broad, deep, and long, recalling the thoroughbred 
racer or greyhound; their waists are shortened by the 
chest development, yet are rather slender; their hips are 
broad and deep, with a clean-cut yet massive gluteal de- 
velopment, and, in comparison with the robust yet compact 
bodies, the tapering arms and legs seem incongruously slen- 
der. . . The Seri robustness of body and slenderness of 
limb are brought out by the absence (in appearance at least) 
of adipose; the skin is strikingly firm and hard and evidently EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
129 
thick, yet the play of muscle and tendon beneath indicate 
a dearth of connective tissue and convey that impression of 
physical vigor which their familiars so miss in their photo- 
graphs; and in no case, save perhaps in the young babe, 
could the slightest trace of obesity be found. Thus the 
Seri, male and female, young and old, may be described as 
notably deep-chested and clean-limbed quick-steppers, or as 
human thoroughbreds. 
The somatic symmetry of the average Seri, marred some- 
what by the slenderness of limb, is still more marred by 
the large extremities. The hand is broad and long, the 
fingers are relatively long as those of the Caucasian, the 
nails are peculiarly thick and strong, and the skin is so 
thick and calloused as to give a clumsy look to the whole 
organ; the feet are still larger and thicker-skinned, ap- 
pearing disproportionatey long and broad for even the 
heroic stature of the tallest warriors. The integument cov- 
ering of the feet, ankles, and lower legs, is incredibly firm 
and hard, more resembling that of the horse or camel than 
the ordinary human type; its astounding protective effi- 
ciency being attested by the readiness with which the Seri 
run through cactus thickets so thorny as to stop horses 
and dogs, or over conglomerated spall-beds so sharp that 
even the light coyote leave their trail. In the absence of 
measurements, it may merely be noted that the hands and 
feet of the Seri are materially larger, not only absolute- 
ly but relatively to their stature, than those of neighbor- 
ing tribesmen or even of Mexican and American work- 
men ; and, on the whole, it may be said that in their pro- 
portions, as in their stature and color, the Seri are strik- 
ingly uniform, their range being less than that commonly 
observed in contemporary tribes, and the differences be- 
tween them and their neighbors much exceeding the range 
among themselves. 130 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
Somatically distinctive as is the Seri at rest, he (or she) 
is much more so in motion - though the characteristics so 
readily caught by the eye are not easily analyzed or de- 
scribed. Perhaps the most conspicuous element in their 
walk is a peculiarly quick knee movement, bringing the foot 
upward and forward at the end of the stride; this emerges 
into an equally quick thrust of the foot forward and down- 
ward, with toe well advanced, toward the beginning of the 
next stride; and these motions combine to produce a singu- 
lar erectness and steadiness of carriage, the body moving in 
a nearly direct line with a minimum of lateral swaying or 
vertical oscillation, while the legs neither drag nor swing, 
but spurn the ground in successive strokes. Thus the walk 
seems notably easy and graceful, while the walker carries 
the air of alertness and reserve power, as if able to stop 
short at any point of a pace, or to bolt forward or backward 
or sideways with equal facility; he simulates the "collect- 
ed" animal whose feet tap the ground lightly and swiftly 
while his body appears to yield freely to voluntary im- 
pulse. In this deer-like or antelope-like movement all the 
Seri are much alike, and all are decidedly removed from 
their neighbors, even the light-footed Papago. 
Among the conspicuous but non-distinctive somatic char- 
acteristics of the Seri is luxuriant straight hair, habitually 
worn long and loose. Commonly the hair is jet black for 
most of the length, growing tawny towards the tips. Age- 
grayness seems not to be characteristic; the most aged per- 
sons known have no more than a few inconspicuous and scat- 
tered gray hairs, though the pelage of some is slightly 
bleached or faded. . . With few exceptions the hair is 
kept long as it can be made to grow and it receives careful 
attention to this end. In general it appears to increase in 
length and luxuriance not only throughout adolescence but EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
131 
up to late maturity, for the best pelages are presented by 
the moderately aged people while none of the youths are so 
luxuriantly tressed as their elders. Not the slightest trace 
of baldness appears. . . On the whole, it may said that 
the Seri hair is luxuriant and vigorous beyond the aborig- 
inal average, and that it, like various other somatic features, 
indicates a relatively late maturation in the life history of 
the individual. Both sexes are beardless. . . The teeth 
are solid, close-set, and even, and impress the observer as 
large. 
The most striking trait of the Seri is the pedestrian habit. 
The warriors and women and children alike are habitual 
rovers. . . They are not a domiciliary folk, but rather 
homeless wanderers, customarily roving from place to place, 
frequently if not commonly sleeping where overtaken by 
exhaustion and storm, ordinarily slumbering through a part 
of the day and watching by night, habitually avoiding fresh 
waters save in hurried and stealthy visits, and apparently 
gathering in their flimsy huts only on special occasions. In 
conformity with their rovingness the Seri are notable burden 
bearers. They habitually carry their entire stock of person- 
al belongings (arms, implements, utensils, and bedding), as 
well as their stock of food and - weightiest burden of all 
- the water requisite for prolonged sustenance amid 
scorching deserts, in all their wanderings, the water being 
borne chiefly by the women, in ollas, either balanced on 
their heads singly or slung in pairs on rude yokes like 
those of Chinese coolies; they have never grasped the idea 
of imposing their burdens on their bestial associates. . . 
A trait of the Seri hardly less conspicuous than their 
pedestrian habit, is habitual use of hands and teeth in lieu 
of the implements characteristic of even the lowly culture 
found even among the most primitive tribes. Perhaps the 132 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
most nearly universal implement is the knife - at first of 
shell, tooth, bone, or wood, later of stone and last of metal 
- and hardly a primitive tribe known from direct observa- 
tion or from relics has been found independent of this ser- 
viceable weapon, yet the Seri may be described with reason- 
able accuracy as a knifeless folk. The dearth of tools and 
the absence not only of knives but of knife sense explain 
the alleged recourse of the Seri warriors to nature's weap- 
ons, used in the centripetal fashion characteristic of nas- 
cent intelligence. 
The Seri are distinguished by another trait hardly less 
striking than their pedestrian habits and even more con- 
spicuous than the tooth-and-nail habit and the correlative 
absence of tool-sense; the trait is not tangible enough for 
ready description or definition in terms, but is akin to, or, 
more properly, an exceedingly intensification of, race-pride 
in all its protean manifestations; it may be called race sense. 
Like other primitive folk, the Seri are self-centered in in- 
dividual thought, i. e., they habitually think of the ex- 
traneous phenomena of their little universe with reference 
to self; furthermore, they typify primitive culture in their 
collective thinking, which is tribe-centered i. e., they view 
extraneous things, especially those of animate nature, with 
reference to the tribe, like all those lowly folk who denote 
themselves by the most dignified words in their vocabulary 
and designate aliens by opprobious epithets; but the Seri 
outpass most, if not all, other tribes in dignifying themselves 
and derogating contemporary aliens. Concordantly with this 
habitual sentiment, they glory in their strength and swift- 
ness, and are inordinately proud of their fine figures and ex- 
cessively vain of their luxuriant locks -• indeed they seem to 
exalt their own bodies and their own kind well toward, if not 
beyond, the verge of inchoate deification. The obverse of EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
133 
the same sentiment appears in the hereditary hate and 
horror of aliens attested by their history, by their persist- 
ent blood-thirst, and by the rigorous marriage regulations 
adapted to the maintenance of tribal purity; for just as 
their highest virtue is shedding alien blood, so is their 
blackest crime the transmission of their own blood into 
alien channels. The potency of the sentiment is estab- 
lished by the unparalleled isolation of the tribe after cen- 
turies of contact with the Caucasians, by their irriducible 
love of native soil, by their implacable animosity towards 
invaders, and by their rigorously maintained purity of 
blood; it is manifested in their commonplace conduct by a 
singular combination of hauteur and servility, forbidding 
associations with aliens on terms of equality. . . Every 
human being is panoplied in a personality, perhaps intangi- 
ble but none the less real, which repels undue approach and 
fixes limits to familiarity on the part of strangers, friends, 
kinsmen, and mates, according to their respective degrees 
of mutually elective affinity; but the Seri are so close to 
each other and so far from all others that they are collec- 
tively panoplied against extra-tribal personalities even as 
are antipathetic animals against each other - and the Seri 
can no more control the involuntary snarl and growl at 
the approach of the alien than can the hunting-dog at 
sight or smell of the timber wolf. 
While the highly developed traits represented by pedes- 
trian habit, hand-and-tooth habit and segregative habit 
expressing race-sense are conspicuous during exercise, each 
carries an equally well-marked obverse. Thus, while the 
Seri are known as runners par excellence in a region of 
runners, and were named by aboriginal neighbors from 
their spryness of movement, they have been no less no- 
torious among Caucasian neighbors of two generations for 134 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
unparalleled laziness - for a lethargic sloth beyond that 
of the sluggish ox and somnolent swine, which was an irri- 
tating marvel to the patient padres of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, and it is even today a by-word in the even-tempered 
Land of Manana; eoncordantly the sinewy hands and muscu- 
lar jaws are noticeably inert during the intervals of intense 
functionings, are particularly free from the spontaneous 
or nervous movements of habitually busy persons, and con- 
tribute by their immobility to the air of indolence or lan- 
guor which so impressed padres and rancheros. . . The 
observer is impressed by the long intervals between the pe- 
riods of activity; true, the intense activity may cover hours, 
as in the chase of the deer, or days, as in a distant pre- 
datory raid, or perhaps even weeks, when the tribe is on 
the warpath; yet all the known facts indicate that far the 
greater portion of time of warriors, women, and children 
is spent in idle lounging about in rancherias and camps, 
in lolling and slumbering in the sun by day, and in hud- 
dling under the scanty shelter of jacales or shrubbery by 
night -• i. e., when their activity is measured by hours, 
their intervals of repose must be measured by days. 
On reviewing the more conspicuous somatic functions and 
structures jointly, they are found to throw some light on 
their own development, and hence on the natural history 
of the Seri tribe. 
Certain characteristics of the Seri strongly suggest lowly 
condition, i. e., a condition approaching that of lower ani- 
mals, especially of the carnivorous type; among these are 
the specific color, the centripetally developed body, the 
tardy adolescence, the defective tool-sense, the distinctive 
food habits (especially the consumption of raw offal and 
carrion), the independence of fixed habitations, and the 
extreme alternations between the rage of chase and war EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
135 
and the quiescence of sluggish repose. But these primitive 
characteristics are opposed or qualified by such features as 
the noble stature, the capacious and shapely brain-case, 
the well-developed hands, and the considerable intelligence 
revealed in the native shrewdness as well as in organiza- 
tion and belief. Collectively the characteristics are in 
some measure incongruous; yet all are at least fairly com- 
patible with the inference that the tribe is exceptionally (if 
not incomparably) low in the scale of general human de- 
velopment, yet at the same time highly specialized along 
certain lines; and the inference in turn is corroborated by 
the coincidence between the special lines of development 
and the peculiar conditions of environment characterizing 
the habitat of the tribe. 
Striking correspondence between Seri physique and Seri 
habitat is revealed in the pedal development, with the at- 
tendant development of muscle and bone, lung capacity and 
heart power, together with other faculties involved in the 
pedestrian habit. Seriland is a hard and inhospitable 
home; sea-food is indeed abundant and easily taken but 
water is terribly - often fatally - scarce, and obtainable 
only by distant journeyings from the places of easy food 
supply; moreover, the monotony of the diet is alleviable 
only by extensive wandering for the collection of vegetal 
products or severe chase after land animals; while the war- 
like spirit, inherited apparently from a less humane an- 
cestry and fostered by geographic isolation, combines to 
keep the tribe afoot, avoiding waters, conducting raids, 
and moving constantly from place to place in the endless 
search for safety. There is a widespread Sonoran tradition 
that the Seri systematically exterminate weaklings and 
oldsters; and it is beyond doubt that the tradition has 
a partial foundation in the elimination of the weak and 136 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
helpless, through the literal race for life, in which the bands 
participate on occasion. A parallel eliminative process is 
common among American aborigines; the wandering bands 
frequently undergo hard marches under the leadership 
of athletic warriors with whom all are expected to keep 
pace, and this leads both to the desertion of the weak and 
aged and to increased strength and endurance on the part 
of the strong and enduring; yet it would appear that 
this merciless mechanism for improving the fit and elimin- 
ating the unfit attains unusual, if not unequaled, perfec- 
tion among the Seri. Now pedal development is one of the 
special processes of peripheral (or centrifugal) function- 
ing and growth, involved in the general process of cheiriza- 
tion, which, coordinately with cephalization, defines human 
progress;5 and this developmental process explains the 
specialization of the Seri along one or more lines, and con- 
nects the special development directly with environing con- 
ditions. 
A notable correspondence between structure and func- 
tion, of such character as to reflect the habit and habitat, ap- 
pears in the conspicuous manual development of the Seri. 
Enjoying a climate too mild to make houses necessary, find- 
ing animal food too plentiful to necessitate elaborate con- 
trivances for the chase and milling or other devices for re- 
ducing vegetal food, provided by nature with material (in 
the form of carrizal) for an ideally suitable water craft, 
barred by geographic boundaries from neighboring tribes, 
and having neither material for nor interest in commerce, 
the denizens of Seriland were never forced into the way 
of mechanical development; yet their simple industries, in- 
volving as they do swift stroke and strong grasp and 
dexterous digitation, are mainly such as urge manual de- 
5 ' ' The Trend, of Human Progress, ' ' American Anthropologist. EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
137 
velopment more strenuously than would be normal among 
tribesmen connected with their environment through the 
medium of tools. The demand for manual strength and 
skill among the Seri is intensified by both natural and do- 
mestic conditions; the ever ready (and almost sole) material 
suitable for simple adjuncts to the hand abounds in the 
wave-worn cobble form; these cobbles are easily usable in 
such wise as to serve all ordinary purposes, and their abun- 
dance discourages the production of more highly differen- 
tiated tools; while their habitual use promotes manual 
strength and deftness, coupled with that digital freedom 
(required, for example, in grasping a ball) which most 
clearly distinguishes the human hand from the subhuman 
paw. Conjoined with these natural conditions are demotic 
demands tending to cultivate manual fitness and to elimin- 
ate the manually unfit; for, in addition to the direct in- 
dustrial premium on dexterity, through which the dexterous 
survive while the clumsy starve, there is a special premium 
growing out of marriage custom through which only the 
manually efficient (and at the same time morally acceptable) 
are put in the way of leaving lines of descendants. . . 
Accordingly, the robust-bodied and slender-limbed yet big- 
fisted and big-footed Seri seem to be adjusted, so far as their 
more striking somatic characters are concerned, to distinc- 
tive habits themselves reflecting distinctive habitat; and 
the coincidences appear to reveal and establish the law of 
interaction between the human organism and its environ- 
ment - an interaction effected through the habits and hence 
through the normal functioning of the individual organisms 
as constrained through their collective relations. And 
recognition of the law of interaction opens the way to con- 
sideration of other correspondences between structures and 
functions and environing conditions. 138 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
Conspicuous among the more strictly functional traits of 
the Seri is the intensity of action characteristic especially 
of warriors, though in a less degree of the whole tribe - an 
intensity made all the more striking by contrast with the 
extreme inertness between stresses. Manifestly the capacity 
for concentrated effort is in harmony with the tribal habits, 
themselves reflecting habitat. The resource of prime im- 
portance in Seriland - that which directly and constantly 
conditions the very existence of human inhabitants - is 
potable water. The prime source of life is too heavy to be 
transported and too unstable to be stored with the facilities 
of primitive culture, yet it is always within reach of an 
organism strong enough to journey ten, twenty or fifty 
miles in search of it, and acute enough to follow trails and 
indications. Naturally the meager water-supply serves as 
a mechanism for sorting out and preserving the strong and 
acute, and for eliminating the weakly and dull; hence the 
tribe have developed a faculty or perhaps a potentiality of 
a distinctive sort - the potentiality of providing against 
thirst-death by a reserve power in the organism itself rather 
than in the form of mechanical devices such as characterize 
higher culture. Quite similar are the relations to the re- 
source of the second importance, that is, ordinary food. 
Habituated to dispensing with storage and transportation 
of their primary resource, and accustomed to finding food 
whenever forced to sufficiently active effort to obtain it, the 
Seri have never grasped that first principle of thrift ex- 
pressed in the accumulation of food supplies; accordingly 
they intuitively rely on successful fishing or chase or search 
of vegetal edibles for sustenance, and habitually delay ef- 
fort until they are stirred into activity by the pangs of 
hunger. Naturally this improvidence serves as another 
mechanism for perpetuating families of stored vital- EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
139 
ity; . . . the effect of this mechanism too, is to develop 
a reserve power in the organism itself, in lieu of the mate- 
rial reserve made through thrift in higher culture. Similar 
in their consequences are the relations of the individual or- 
ganisms to the third industry of Seriland, that is the navi- 
gation of the gale-swept and tide-troubled waters. Even 
the buoyant balsa can not weather the williwaws or ride the 
tide-rips of El Infiernillo without exercise of the most 
strength and skill on the part of the navigators; while the 
often persistent storms may delay for days embarkation on 
voyages in quest of fresh water and food. Naturally, the 
frequent delays and not infrequent perils of such naviga- 
tion constitute a mechanism for selecting navigators pos- 
sessed of reserve powers adequate to meet desperate emer- 
gencies with vigor and judgment even after enervating 
waits for wind and tide, while those not so well endowed 
are either brought up to standard in their hard train- 
ing-school or expelled from their class by drowning or dash- 
ing on the rocks, as may happen; so that the effect of this 
mechanism is to preserve individuals and perpetuate gen- 
erations characterized by reserve power, and hence to de- 
velop latent potentiality in the tribe. . . 
Summarily, the Seri are characterized by noble physique, 
by peculiarly lightsome and swift movements, by great en- 
durance coupled with a capacity for vigorous action, by 
animal-like symmetry and slowness of maturation, and by 
various minor attributes combining with the major features 
to form a distinct race-type; and they are still more con- 
spicuously characterized by an acute race-sense, which holds 
them apart from all aliens. At first sight, several of their 
somatic attributes seem incomparably primitive, yet analy- 
sis of the attributes in the light of certain laws which they 
exemplify better than other peoples thus far studied, in- 140 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
dicates not so much a lack of development as an excess of 
growth along somatic lines with a correlative defect of de- 
velopment along demotic lines, and when the lines of growth 
are traced to their sources and conditions, it becomes fairly 
clear that the aberrant development of the tribe is merely 
the reflection of a distinctive environment operating evi- 
dently throughout a long period. In brief, the somatic in- 
terest of the Seri seems to center in the remarkable adjust- 
ment of the tribe to environment - an adjustment of so 
much delicacy as to imply interaction throughout many 
generations. . . 
One of the conspicuous customs of the Seri is painting 
the face in designs by means of mineral pigment. About 
half the tribe are painted. On noting the individual dis- 
tribution of face-painting, it is found to be practically con- 
fined to the females, though male infants are sometimes 
marked with devices pertaining to their mothers, as adult 
warriors are said to be on special occasions; and so far as 
observed all females, from aged matrons to the babe in arms, 
are painted, though sometimes the designs are too nearly ob- 
literated by wear to be traceable. . . The painted de- 
signs vary among individuals but are fairly persistent for 
each. The face-painting seems to be essentially symbolic of 
zoic tutelaries and to signify subspecific characteristics 
maintained by the clan organization and kept prominent by 
the militant habit of the tribe; at the same time it is note- 
worthy that the purely symbolic motive is accompanied by 
a nascent decorative tendency, displayed by the individual 
refinement of form and color in the symbol proper to each 
of the groups. 
Aside from face painting there is a conspicuous dearth of 
decoration or tangible symbolism among the Seri. The 
symbolic or decorative modification of the physique would EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
141 
seem to be limited to two classes of mutilations, of which 
one class was observed at Costa Rica in 1894 while the other 
is apparently obsolete. The observed corporeal modifica- 
tion is the absence of medial superior incisors of the fe- 
males, in consequence of forcible removal at a period not 
definitely ascertained. . . It is probable that the custom 
is connected with marriage. Whatever the period of in- 
fliction Mashem's guarded expressions seem to indicate that 
it was probably a mark of physical inferiority; this sug- 
gestion interpreted in the light of the Seri use of teeth as 
weapons of offense and defense, would seem to indicate that 
the mutilation is at once the badge of corporeal inferiority 
and a means of maintaining the physical superiority of the 
males. . . The second mutilation was the only corporeal 
modification noted by the early missionaries and explorers 
- it was the perforation of the nasal septum for the inser- 
tion of a skewer, perhaps of polished stone, though doubt- 
less more commonly of bone, to which swinging objects 
were attached. One of the most useful records is that of 
the Jesuit, Padre Joseph Och, who described the nasal at- 
achment as a small, colored stone suspended by cords from 
the perforatic septum, and guarded with such jealous ven- 
eration that ' ' one must give them at least a horse or cow for 
one. ' ' Except these two mutilations the corporeal decora- 
tion of the Seri is apparently limited to face-painting. . . 
The most conspicuous single article in their dietary is the 
local green turtle. This chelonian is remarkably abundant 
throughout the Gulf of California. . . Its flesh yields 
food; some of its bones yield implements; its carapace 
yields a house-covering, a convenient substitute for um- 
brella or dog-tent, a temporary buckler, and an emergency 
tray or cistern, as well as a comfortable cradle at the begin- 
ning of life and the conventional coffin at the end; while 142 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
the only native foot-gear known is a sandal made from the 
integument of a turtle flipper. 
Doubtless the eggs and the newly hatched young of the 
turtle are eaten and analogy with other peoples indicates 
that the females are sometimes captured at the laying time 
on the grounds or on their way back to water; but observa- 
tion is limited to taking the adult animal at sea by means of 
specialized harpoons. . . The blood, entrails and all the 
soft parts are at once devoured, and the firmer flesh follows 
at a rate depending upon the antecedent hunger, both men 
and women crushing integument, bone and tendon with the 
hupf, tearing other tissues with nails and teeth, mouthing 
shreds from the shells, and gorging the whole ravenously if 
well ahungered, but stopping to singe or smoke or even 
half-roast the larger pieces if nearer satiety. If the quarry 
is too large for immediate consumption and they are not too 
far from a rancheria the remnants, including head and 
flippers and shells, are hoisted to the top of the jacal im- 
mediately over the open end - the conventional Seri larder 
- to soften in the sun for hours or days; and on these 
tough and gamey tidbits, the home-stayers, especially the 
youths, chew luxuriously, whenever other occupations fail. 
In times of plenty such sun-ripened fragments of reeking 
feasts are rather generously appropriated, first to the chil- 
dren and afterwards to the coyote dogs; and it is a favorite 
pastime for the toddlers to gather about the inverted cara- 
pace, on hands and knees, crowding their heads into its 
noisome depths, displacing the rare scavenger beetles and 
blowflies of this arid province, mumbling at the cartilagin- 
ous processes, and sucking and swallowing again and again 
the tendenous strings from the muscular attachments, until 
overcome by fullness and rank effluvia, they fall asleep with 
their heads in the trough to be stealthily nudged aside by 
the cringing curs attached to the rancheria. . . EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
143 
It is probable that the water fowl, considered collectively, 
stand second in importance as Seri prey; and the foremost 
fowl is undoubtedly the pelican, which serves not only as a 
fruitful food supply but as the chief source of apparel. 
The principal haunt and the only known breeding ground 
of the pelican in the Gulf of California is Isla Tissue, an in- 
tegral part of Seriland. . . At certain seasons, pelican 
harvests are planned; and after some days of preparation, a 
large party assemble at some convenient place and await a 
still evening in the dark of the moon. When all conditions 
are favorable they set out for the island at late twilight, in 
order that it may be reached after dark; on reaching the 
shore the balsas are left in charge of the women, while the 
warriors and the larger boys, armed only with clubs, rush 
on the roosting fowls and slaughter them in large numbers 
- the favorite blow being on the back of the neck. The 
butchery is followed by a gluttonous feast, in which the- 
half-famished families gorge the tenderer parts in the dark- 
ness and noisily carouse in the carnage until overcome by 
slumber. Next day the women select the carcasses of least 
injured plumage and carefully remove the skins, the requi- 
site incisions being made either with the edge of a shell cup 
or with a sharp sliver of cane stalk taken from an injured 
arrow or a broken balsa-cane. The feast holds for several 
days, until the last bones are picked and the whole party 
sated, when the clans scatter at will, laden with the skins 
and lethargic from the fortnight's food with which each 
maw is crammed. . . Probably next in importance in 
Seri prey, as a food source merely, stand the multifarious 
fishes with which the waters of Seriland teem, particularly 
if the class be held to comprise the cetaceous and seals and 
selachians ranked as leaders of the fish fauna in Seri lore. 
Naturally, whales lie outside the range of Seri game, yet 144 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
they are not without place in the tribal economy. During 
the visit to the Seri rancheria near Costa Rica in 1894, it 
was noted that various events - births, deaths, journeys, 
etc. - are referred to as the "Time of the Big Fish"; and 
it was estimated from the apparent ages of children and the 
like that this chronologic datum might be correlated rough- 
ly with the year 1887. . . On visiting Isla Tiburon in 
1895, the interpretation became clear; along the western 
shore of Rada Bellena, near the first sand spit north of the 
bight, lay the larger bones of a whale, estimated from the 
length of the mandibles and the dimensions of the verte- 
brae to have been about seventy-five or eighty feet long. It 
is evident the animal had gone into the shoal water at ex- 
ceptionally high tide and stranded during the ebb, while the 
condition of the bones suggested an exposure to the weather 
of perhaps half a dozen years. On the shrubby bank above 
the beach, hard by the bleaching skeleton, stood the new 
rancheria, the most extensive seen in Seriland, having 
some fifteen or twenty habitable jacales; and fragments of 
ribs and other huge bones about and within the huts at- 
tested transportation thither after the building, while the 
shallowness of the trails and the limited trampling of the 
fog shrubbery gave an air of freshness to the site and sur- 
roundings. The traditions and the relics together make it 
manifest the "Time of the Big Fish" had indeed marked an 
epoch in Seri life; that when the leviathan landed (whether 
through accident or partly through efforts of balsa men) 
it was quickly recognized as a vast contribution to the Seri 
larder; and that some of the clans, if not the entire tribe, 
gathered to gorge first flesh and blubber, next sun-softened 
cartilege and chitin, and epiphyses and then the fatter 
bones. 
Traces of the bones of the seal too were found in a few EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
145 
places indicating that this also furnished food to the simple 
folk, and closely connected with the fish as a Seri food 
source are the various molluscan and crustacean forms, col- 
lectively called shell fish; and these contribute a consider- 
able share of the food supply to the tribe. Among the first 
in importance may be mentioned the Pacific Coast elam, 
then the oyster. . . On the whole, shell fish form a con- 
spicuous factor in Seri economy by reason of the consider- 
able consumption of this class of food; but viewed in the 
broader industrial aspect, the produce is notably primitive 
and significant chiefly as indicating the dearth of mechan- 
ical and culinary devices. 
While by far the larger share of Seri maintenance is 
drawn from the sea, a not inconsiderable portion is derived 
from the land, for the warriors and striplings and even the 
women are more skilful hunters than fishers. . . The 
products of the chase are largely the deer, the hare, hawk, 
and other birds. 
A quantitively unimportant but by no means negligible 
fraction of the normal diet of the Seri is vegetal; and while 
the sources of vegetal food are many and diverse, the chief 
constituent is a single product characteristic of American 
deserts, namely the tuna or prickly pear. All the cacti of 
this region yield tunas in considerable quantity. . . The 
edible tunas average about the size of a lemon, and they re- 
semble figs save that their skin is beset with prickles. The 
portion eaten is a luscious pulp, filled with minute seeds, 
like those of the fig, save that they are too hard for mas- 
tication or digestion, its flavor ranging from sickening 
sweet of the overcultivated fig to a pleasant acidity. While 
occasionally tunas may be found at any time during the 
year, the normal harvest occurs about midsummer, or short- 
ly before the July-August humid season and lasts for sev- 146 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
eral weeks. During the height of the season the clans with- 
draw from, the coast and give undivided attention to the 
collection and consumption of the fruits, gorging them in 
such quantities that, according to the testimony of the 
vaqueros, they are fattened beyond recognition. 
Perhaps the second in importance among the vegetal con- 
stituents of Seri diet is the mesquite bean, which is gath- 
ered at random whenever a well-loaded tree is found and 
other conditions favor. The woody beam and still woodier 
pods are pounded w'ith the hupf on any convenient stone 
until roughly pulverized; if there are no stones at hand, 
they are carried in baskets or improvised bags to the near- 
est shore or other place at which stones may be found. The 
half ground grist is winnowed in the ordinary way of toss- 
ing in a basket; and the grinding and winnowing continue 
alternately until a fairly uniform bean meal is obtained. So 
far as actually observed this is eaten raw, either dry in 
small pinches, or more commonly, stirred in water to form a 
thin atole; but expressions at Costa Rica indicated that the 
meal is sometimes stirred in boiling water or pot liquor, and 
thus partially cooked, in times of rest and plenty. . . 
At first sight Seriland seems an abnormal habitat for a 
primitive people, since its land area is cleft in twain by a 
stormy strait - a strait whose terrors to the few Caucasian 
navigators who have reached its swirling currents are in- 
dicated by their appellations, "El Canal Peligroso de San 
Miguel" and "El Infiernillo," for such a stretch of troubled 
water is commonly a more serious bar to travel than any 
moderate land expanse. This intuitive notion of the effec- 
tiveness of a water-barrier, and the correlative feeling of 
the incongruity of a land barrier insuperable for centuries, 
is well illustrated by a prevailing opinion throughout north- 
western Mexico; for it is commonly supposed in Sonora EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
147 
and neighboring states that Seriland is conterminous with 
Isla Tiburon, that is, that the mainland portion of the prov- 
ince lies beyond the diabolic channel. Yet longer scrutiny 
shows that the superficial impression merely mirrors Cau- 
casian thought and fails to touch essential conditions, es- 
pecially as they are reflected in the primitive minds of the 
local tribe; and careful study of the habits and history of 
the Seri shows that the dangerous strait has been a potent 
factor in preserving tribal existence and perpetuating tribal 
integrity. Naturally the factor operates through naviga- 
tion ; for it is by this means that the tribesmen are able to 
repel or avoid the rare invaders of either mainland or in- 
sular portions of their province, the overland pioneers from 
the east being stopped by the strait and the maritime ex- 
plorers from south and west being unable to maintain them- 
selves long about the stormy shores and never outfitted for 
pushing far toward the mainland retreats and strongholds; 
while by means of their light and simple craft the Seri were 
able to retreat or advance across the strait as readily as 
over adjacent lands to which they were wonted by the ex- 
perience of generations. In their minds, indeed, El In- 
fiernillo is the nucleus of their province. So the Seri were 
among the lowliest learners of that lesson of highest state- 
craft, that lands are not divided but united by intervening 
sea; and their ill-formulated and provincial notions are of 
much significance in their bearing on primitive habits and 
habitats. 
The water-craft of which the Seri make so good use is the 
balsa, made of three bundles of cane lashed together along- 
side, measuring barely four feet abeam, one and one-half 
feet in depth, and some thirty feet in length over all. . . 
The manufacture of the balsa has never been seen by Cau- 
casian eyes, but the processes are safely inferred from the 148 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
structure. The first step is the gathering of the cane from 
one of the patches growing about the three or four perma- 
nent fresh waters of Seriland, the canes being carefully se- 
lected for straightness, symmetry, and uniformity in size; 
these are then denuded of leaves and tassels, tied in bundles 
of convenient size, and carried to the shore. . . In actual 
construction the canes are laid butt to butt, but overlapping 
two or three feet, the overlap being then shifted this way 
and that with successive additions, so that the aggregate 
length of overlapping in the bundle reaches ten or twelve 
feet, that is, the full length of the body of the finished craft. 
The growing bundle is wrapped from time to time with 
lashings of mesquite root or maguey fibre, and kept in 
cylindrical form by constant rolling and by means of lash- 
ing; though the cord used for the purpose is so slender as 
to do little more than serve the purposes of manufac- 
ture. . . As the bundle approaches the requisite size, the 
building process changes; the butts of the successively add- 
ed stalks are thrust obliquely into the interstices extending 
beyond the butts of earlier-used canes and the stems are 
slightly bent to bring them into parallelism with their fel- 
lows; and this interweaving process is continued with in- 
creasing care until, when the bundle is completed, there are 
no visible butts (all being pushed into the interior of the 
bundle), while the only visible tips are those projecting to 
form the tapering extremities. The finished bundle is then 
secured by a spiral winding of a slender cord. Two other 
bundles are then made, the three being entirely similar, so 
far as is known; then the three are joined by a lashing of 
the slender cord like that used for separate bundles. . . 
The cordage is either of mesquite root or maguey fibre, the 
former being the more common (doubtless by reason of the 
dearth of the latter plant) ; it is notably uniform in twist EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
149 
and size, though surprisingly slender for the purpose, bare- 
ly three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, and limited in 
quantity. The only tools or implement used in the manu- 
facture (and repair), so far as known, are light wooden 
marlinspikes; these are used in working the cane-butts into 
bundles. In collecting the canes the tassels are broken off 
and the leaves stripped by the unaided hands, while the 
stalks are broken off usually below the secondary roots in 
the downward taper, and the rootlets and loose ends are re- 
moved either with the hands or by fire. The finished balsa 
is notably light and buoyant. It weighs about two hundred 
and fifty pounds when thoroughly dry. . . It can easily 
be picked up by three or four or even by two strong men 
and carried ashore to be hidden in the fog shrubbery skirt- 
ing the coast. The craft floated high with one man aboard, 
rode better with two, carried three without much difficulty 
even in a fairly heavy sea, and would safely bear four 
adults aggregating six hundred pounds in moderate water. 
The most striking features of the craft are its graceful 
movements and its perfect adaptation to variable seas and 
loads. Carrying twice its weight of (usually) living 
freight, it breasts gales and rides breakers and stems tide- 
rips that would crush a canoe, swamp a skiff, or capsize a 
yawl; while if caught in currents or surf and cast ashore it 
is seldom wrecked, but drops lightly on beach or rocks, to 
be pushed uninjured by the broken wave-tips beyond the 
reach of pounding rollers, even if it is not at once caught 
up by its passengers and carried to complete safety. The 
strength of the craft is amazing, especially in view of the 
slenderness of the cords used in construction. . . 
Among the Seri, as among primitive folk generally, the 
habitation reflects local conditions, especially climate and 
building materials. Now, Seriland is a subtropical yet arid 150 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
tract, where rain seldom falls, frost seldom forms, and snow 
is known only as a fleeting mantle on generally distant 
mountains, so that there is little need for protection from 
cold and wet; at the same time the district is too desert to 
yield serviceable building material other than rock, which 
the lowly folk have not learned to manipulate. Moreover, 
the tribesmen and their families are habitual and perpetual 
fugitives, their movements being too erratic and aimless to 
put them in class of nomads; they are too accustomed to 
wandering and too unaccustomed to long resting at partic- 
ular spots to have a home sense, save for their motherland 
as a whole; and, just as they rely upon their own physical 
hardihood for preservation against the elements, so they 
depend upon their combined fleetness and prowess for 
preservation against their enemies. Accordingly the Seri 
habitation is not a permanent abode, still less a domicile 
for weaklings or a shrine for household lares and penates, 
not at all a castle of proprietary sancity, and least of all a 
home; it is rather a time-serving lair than a house in or- 
dinary meaning. 
Despite the poverty of material and squalor of the struc- 
ture, certain features of the Seri jacal are notably uniform 
and conventional. In size and form it recalls the passing 
' ' prairie schooner, ' ' or covered wagon; it is ten or twelve 
feet long, half as wide measured on the ground, and about 
four and one-half feet high, with one end - the front - 
open to the full width and height, and the other nearly or 
quite closed. The conventional structural features com- 
prise the upright bows and horizontal tie-sticks forming 
the framework. The bows are made of okatilla stems 
roughly denuded of their thorns; each is formed by thrust- 
ing the butts of two such stems, or more if they are slen- 
der, into the ground at the requisite distance apart, bend- EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
151 
ing the tops together into an overlap of a yard or two, 
and securing them partly by intertwisting, partly by any 
convenient lashing; and about five or six such bows suffice 
for a jacal. Next come the tie-sticks, which consist of any 
convenient material, canestalks, mesquite roots, etc., and 
they are lashed to the butts by means of withes, splints, or 
fiber wisps, at a height of four feet above ground, or about 
where the walls merge into the roof. With the placing of 
these sticks the conventional part of the building process 
may be said to end; for up to this point the process is a 
collective one and the materials are essentially uniform, 
while thereafter the completion of the work depends large- 
ly upon individual or family caprice, and the materials are 
selected at random. Moreover, the frame work is fairly 
permanent, usually surviving a number of occupancies 
extending over months and years, and outlasting an equal 
number of outer coverings; so that all Seriland is dotted 
sparsely with jacal skeletons, sometimes retaining frag- 
ments of walls or roofs but oftener entirely denuded, and 
the conversion of the framework into a habitable jacal is 
effected by piling round and over it any convenient shrub- 
bery, by which it is made a sort of a boWer. . . The Seri 
building chant is suggestive. It is not regarded as religious 
or even as ritualistic but merely as a work-song, designed 
to make the task lighter. This seems to be the local in- 
terpretation and if it is correct, the simple chant at once 
offers rational explanation for its own existence, and opens 
the way to explanation of the more elaborate building rit- 
uals of the more advanced tribes. The work-song is a 
common device in many lowly activities, ranging from 
those of children at play to those of sailors at the windlass, 
and doubtless serves a useful purpose in guiding, coordinat- 
ing, and concentrating effort. 152 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
Slightly as they have been affected by three centuries of 
sporadic contact with higher culture, the Seri reveal many 
marks of acculturation; and the most conspicuous of these 
are connected with clothing, especially on the frontier, 
where women and warriors habitually wear a livery of sub- 
serviency in the form of cast-off Caucasian rags. Even in 
the depths of Seriland the native fabrics are largely re- 
placed by white men's stuffs, obtained by barter, beggary, 
or robbery; yet it is easy to distinguish the harlequin 
veneer of borrowed trappings from the few fixed types of 
covering that seem characteristic. 
The most distinctive piece of apparel is the kilt, extend- 
ing from waist to knees, worn alike by men, women, and 
the larger children. Aboriginally it was either a birdskin 
robe, or a rectangle of coarse textile fabric secured at the 
waist by a hair-cord belt. . . The kilt serves other pur- 
poses at the convenience of the wearer; in the chase for 
tunas and for moving game it becomes a bag or pack sheet; 
in case of cold rain it is shifted to the shoulders or exposed 
side; during the siesta it is elevated on a shrub and stick to 
serve as a canopy; at sleeping time generally it forms a 
bed, that is, a combined coverlet and mattress; and in at- 
tack or defense the pelican skin is at once standard, buckler, 
and waving capa to confuse the enemy. 
An almost equally distinctive garment is a short shirt or 
wammus, with long sleeves, worn by women and men, but 
not by children. Unlike the kilt, it is an actual garment 
fitted with sleeves, and fastened in front with hair-cord 
strings. It is undoubtedly of aboriginal local design and 
was made of hair cloth or textile fabrics, and worn rather 
ceremoniously; but latterly it is worn habitually at least by 
the women and on the frontier, and cast aside in prepara- 
tion for any special work or task. These two articles con- EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
153 
stitute the ordinary wearing apparel of the Seri. No cover- 
ing is worn on the head save in the ceremonial masquerade, 
when the heads of animals are worn as masks. . . 
There is only one conspicuous toilet article; this is a hair- 
brush made from yucca fiber bound into a cylindrical form. 
This article is in frequent use; both men and women give 
much attention to brushing their own long, luxuriant locks 
and cultivating the hair and scalps of their children, the 
process being regarded as not only directly useful but in 
some measure sacramental. Ordinarily, the hair is parted 
in the middle and brushed straight, the tresses being per- 
mitted to wander at will and never braided or bound or re- 
strained by fillets save in imitation of Caucasian custom on 
the frontier; though in certain ceremonies the pelage is 
gathered in a lofty knot on the top-head. 
The Seri cradle is merely a bow of pablanco or other 
switch with rude cross-sticks lashed on. On this is laid a 
small pelican-skin robe and a quantity of pelican down for 
a diaper, and perhaps a few pelican plumes to wave over 
the baby's face; though on the frontier these primitive de- 
vices are largely replaced by rags. 
In advanced culture tools are finished products, made and 
used in accordance with preconceived designs or established 
arts for the production of commodities; in primal life, as 
well exemplified by Seri handicraft, tools are mere by-pro- 
ducts incidental to the largely instinctive activities directed 
toward the maintenance of life. Accordingly the tools of 
advanced culture form the nucleus of industries, while the 
designless tools of the prime cluster about the outskirts of 
industrial activities, that is, in developed industries the 
tool is a primary factor, while in nascent industries it is 
but collateral. . . 
Perhaps the most conspicuous general fact in connection 154 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
with Seri tools and their uses is the prevalence of natural 
objects employed (1) either in ways suggested by natural 
functions or (2) in ways determined by the convenience of 
users; the former grading into artificial devices, shaped in 
similitude of natural objects and employed in ways sug- 
gested by natural functions. 
Prominent among the natural objects employed in nat- 
ural ways are mandibles of birds, used in piercing pelts and 
fabrics; fish spines and bones also used as piercers; thorns 
of cacti and mimosas, used in similar ways; teeth and horns 
of game animals, used in rending their own tissues, and 
afterwards in miscellaneous industrial processes; together 
with cane splints, used for incising. . . With these ob- 
jects may be grouped the turtle-shells and pelican-pelts, 
used as shields against alien and animal enemies, or as pro- 
tectors against the elements; and the Seri sages would class 
with these the deer-head masks and deer-hoof rattles worn 
in the dance to symbolize and invoke strength and swift- 
ness. One of the most striking among the artificial devices 
of symbolic motive is the piercer or awl of wood or bone 
shaped in imitation of the avian mandible; yet still more 
significant in a vestigal way is the hard wood foreshaft of 
arrow and harpoon, shaped and used in trenchant sym- 
bolism of the deadly tooth. 
There are two conspicuous classes of natural objects em- 
ployed in ways determined largely by the convenience of the 
users, namely, marine shells and beach pebbles. The marine 
shells are used ordinarily as drinking cups, dishes, dippers, 
receptacles for fats and face-paints, and as small utensils 
generally; and they are used nearly as commonly for scrap- 
ing skins, severing animal and plant tissues, digging graves 
and water-holes, propelling balsas, and especially for scrap- 
ing seeds and sticks in the manufacture of arrows, harpoons, EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
155 
bows, balsas and jacal frames. Indeed the sea shell is the 
Seri's familiar and ever present handmate and helper. . . 
Next to the shells, the most aboundant industrial appli- 
ances of the Seri are beach pebbles or cobbles. They are 
used for crushing shell or bone, for rending the skin of 
larger animals, for severing tendons and splintering bones, 
as well as for grinding or crushing seeds, uprooting canes, 
chopping trees and branches, driving stakes, and other min- 
or purposes connected with the manufacture of arrows and 
balsas and jacals; they are also the favorite woman's weap- 
ons in warfare and the chase. . . The cobble-stone imple- 
ments of the Seri range from pebbles to bowlders and there 
is a corresponding range in function from light hand im- 
plements at one end of the series to the unwieldy anvils and 
metates at the other. The intermediate sizes are not gen- 
erally utilized. . . 
Something is known of Seri warfare through the history 
of the centuries since 1540, and especially through the 
bloody episodes of the Encinas regime during the occa- 
sional outbreaks of the last decade or two. As befits their 
primitive character, warfare has played an important role 
in the history of the folk, forming, indeed, one of the chief 
factors in determining the course of tribal development. 
There is no means of estimating the losses suffered and oc- 
casioned in warfare with neighboring tribes during historic 
or prehistoric times; but the indications are they were much 
greater than the losses connected with Caucasian contact. 
Neither is it practicable to estimate reliably the fatalities 
attending the interminable conflicts with the Spanish in- 
vaders and their descendants, though it is safe to say the 
losses of the Seri against Spanish and Mexicans aggregate 
many hundreds and that the correlative loss on the part 
of the enemies reaches several score, if not some hundred, 156 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
lives. Few if any other aboriginal tribes of America have 
had so sanguinary a history as the Seri, and none other 
has at once so long and so bloody a record. 
According to consistent accounts of several survivors of 
conflict with the Seri, their chief weapons are arrows, 
stones, and clubs - though several survivors manifest more 
fear of the throttling hands and rending teeth of the savage 
warriors than of all their artificial weapons combined. A 
striking feature of their recitals, indeed, is the rarity of 
reference as to weapons; the ambushes or surrounds or 
chance meetings, with their disastrous or happy conse- 
quences, are commonly described with considerable de- 
tail; . . . the ordinary expressions concerning the de- 
spised but dreaded Seri are precisely those employed in re- 
counting conflicts with carnivorous beasts; ... all in- 
dicate that while the Seri are famous fighters, their weap- 
ons- except their "poisoned" arrows which were much 
dreaded, are incidents rather than essentials to savage as- 
saults, and their prowess rests primarily on bodily strength 
and swiftness. 
The stones used in battle are cobbles as large as the fist, 
that is, hupfs of typical size and form. So far as known 
they are never hurled, slung, or projected in any other man- 
ner, nor are they hafted or attached to cords after wide- 
spread aboriginal customs; they are merely held in the 
hand, as in the slaughter of the turtle, etc. . . The most 
conspicuous and doubtless the most effective weapon is the 
arrow, a large part of which is pointless save for the hard- 
wood foreshafts. 
The most notorious feature of their warfare and that of 
deepest interest to students, is the reputed use of poisoned 
arrows. The scattered literature of the Seri abounds in ref- 
erences to this custom; the Jesuit authorities gave varied EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
157 
yet fairly consistent descriptions of the preparation and the 
effect of these arrows. . . 
The war-frenzy of the Seri fighters is in parallelism with 
the blood-craze of the chase, and even more so in its analogy 
with the warpath customs and ceremonies of most Amarind 
tribes and many other primitive peoples. In typical tribes 
the warpath custom is a most distinctive one, standing for 
an abnormal state of mind and an unaccustomed habit of 
body, perhaps to the extent of an extreme exultation or 
obsession akin to intoxication, in which the ordinary ideas 
of justice and humanity are inhibited; among most tribes 
the condition is sought voluntarily and deliberately when 
occasion is thought to demand, and is superinduced by fasts 
and vigils, exciting songs and ceremonies, and related 
means; while among certain tribes the aid of symbolic 
' ' medicines, ' ' which may be actual intoxicants, is invoked. 
Thus the savage on the warpath is a different being from 
the same man in time of peace; viewed from his own stand- 
point, he is possessed of an alien and violent demon, usually 
that of a fantastic and furious beast-god whose rage he 
must symbolize and enact; viewed from the standpoint of 
higher culture, he is a raving and ruthless maniac whose 
craze is none the less complete by reason of its voluntary 
origin. . . The Seri blood-craze expresses a most pro- 
found and bitter enmity towards aliens - more so than is 
found among most savage tribes - that is, it is instinctive 
and persistent in exceptional degree; it is more spontaneous 
and explosive in its culmination when conditions favor than 
among tribesmen who induce the conditions by elaborate 
preparation. Their war customs, like several other cus- 
toms of the tribe, seem to afford a connecting link between 
the habits normal to carnivorous beasts and the well-or- 
ganized customs of somewhat higher culture-grades; and 158 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
thus they contribute to outlining the course of human devel- 
opment through some of its darker stages. They are ex- 
ceedingly poor in devices for defense, having no earth- 
works, barricades, fortifications, palisades, or other protec- 
tive structures. . . The actually effective protection of 
the Seri in warfare is their fleetness, coupled with their 
habitual and constitutional timidity, that is, their wildness. 
Moreover, they are adepts in concealing their persons and 
movements behind shrubbery and rocks and in finding cover 
on the barest plains; and suggestions are not wanting that 
the protecting shrub-clumps and rocks of their wonted 
ranges are credited with occult powers and elevated to the 
lower places of their zoic pantheon, after the customary 
way of that overpowering zootheism, or animism, which the 
Seri so well exemplify in many of their habits. . . 
The most noticeable social fact revealed about the Seri 
rancherias is the prominence of females, especially the 
elder women, in the management of everyday affairs. The 
matrons erect the jacals without help from men or boys; 
they carry the meager belongings of the family and dispose 
them about the habitation in conformity with general cus- 
tom and immediate convenience; and after the household 
is prepared, the men approach and range themselves about, 
apparently in a definite order, the matron's oldest brother 
coming first, the younger brothers next, and finally the hus- 
band who squats in, or outside of, the open end bower. The 
house and its contents belong exclusively to the matron, 
though her brothers are entitled to places in it whenever 
they wish, while the husband has neither title nor fixed 
place, "because he belongs to another house" - though as a 
matter of fact he is frequently at or in the hut of his 
spouse, where he normally occupies the outermost place in 
the group and acts as a sort of outer-guard or Sentinel. EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
159 
Conformably to their proprietary position, the matrons 
have chief, if not sole, voice in removing the rancherias; 
and such questions as that of the placement of a new jacal 
are discussed animatedly among them and finally decided 
by the dictum of the eldest in the group. . . The initial 
jacal is frequently erected by a solitary female and some- 
times by two or three aged dames; around this nucleus 
other matrons and their children gather in the course of a 
day or two; while it is usually three or four days, and some- 
times a week, before the brothers and husband skulk singly 
or in small bands into the new rancheria. 
It should be observed the identification of kindred by the 
alien observer is difficult and somewhat uncertain, since the 
relationships recognized in Seri socialry are not equivalent 
to those customary among Caucasians. It is found especial- 
ly difficult to recognize the husband of the jacal, partly be- 
cause he is commonly incongruously younger (and hence 
relatively smaller) than his mistress, and partly because of 
the undignified position as outer-guard into which he is 
forced by tribal etiquette. Moreover, his connection with 
the house is veiled by the absence of authority over both 
children and domestic affairs, though he exercises such au- 
thority freely (within customary limits) in the jacais of his 
female relatives. There is, in fact, some question as to the 
clear recognition of paternity; certainly the females have 
no term for "my father"; that is, the term is the same as 
that for '' my mother, ' ' em, though the males distinguish the 
maternal ancestor by a suffixed syllable (e="my father"; 
eta or itah = "my mother") which seems to be a magnifi- 
cative or an intensicative element. It is noteworthy that 
the kinship terminology is strikingly meager. . . 
While the burden of the more permanent property per- 
tains to the women, there is a decided differentiation of 160 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
labor with a concomitant vesting of certain property in 
the warriors - the distinctively masculine chattels com- 
prising arrows, quivers, bows, harpoon, etc. There are in- 
dications that the balsas are regarded as masculine proper- 
ty. The impermanent possessions - water, food, etc. - 
seem to be the common property of men, women, and chil- 
dren, except so far as the right is regulated by regimenta- 
tion ; for the privileges of eating and drinking are enjoyed 
in the order of seniority. In the reckoning of seniority the 
chief ranks first, and the other warriors follow in an order 
affected in an undetermined way by conjugal relations as 
well as by their prowess and sagacity (the equivalents of 
age in primitive philosophy) down to an undetermined 
point, apparently fixed by puberty; then comes the clan- 
mother, followed by her daughters in the order of nominal 
age, which is affected by the status of spouses and the num- 
bers of living offspring; finally come the children, prac- 
tically in the order of their strength, though the girls - 
especially those approaching puberty - receive some ad- 
vantage through the connivance of the matrons. . . 
Every member of the clan is entitled to necessary food and 
raiment and it is the duty of every other member to see 
to it that the need is supplied. 
The division of labor which affects proprietary interests 
is undoubtedly affected in turn by the militant habit of 
the tribe and by the frequent decimation of the warriors. 
In general, the adult males limit their work to fighting and 
fishing, with occasional excursions into the hunting field; 
though by far the greater part of their time is spent in 
listless lounging or heedless slumber, under the incidental 
guard of roaming youths and toiling matrons. The!women 
are the real workers in the tribal hive; they are nominally 
alert and active, passing from one simple task to another, EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
161 
gathering food along the beach or preparing edibles under 
the shadow of the jacal, with an eye ever upon material 
possessions and children; they frequently join in hunting 
excursions of considerable extent; they are the chief manu- 
facturers of wearing apparel, utensils and tools; the scions 
of Castilian caballeros are not infrequently staggered at the 
sight of half a dozen Seri women "milling" a band of 
horses and at intervals leaping upon one to kill it. The 
masculine drones are more petted and courted by reason of 
their fewness, for during a century or two, at least, the 
women have far outnumbered their consorts - a dispropor- 
tion, doubtless, tending in some respects towards the disin- 
tegration of the clan system and, reciprocally, toward the 
firmer union of the tribe. 
One of the most noteworthy functions of women is shu- 
manism. They concoct the arrow "poison," compound 
both necromantic medicines and curative simples, cast spells 
on men and things, and even fabricate the stone arrow- 
points, and counterfeit cartridges. They exercise formal 
legislative and judicial functions; for not only do they hold 
their own councils for the arrangement of domestic busi- 
ness of their rancherias, but they also participate promi- 
nently in the tribal councils, and play important roles in 
carrying out the decisions of such councils - as when they 
cooperate with war parties as decoys, or journey across 
their bounding desert to spy out the land of the enemy. . . 
The most striking and significant social facts discovered 
among the Seri relate to marriage customs. As noted re- 
peatedly elsewhere, the tribal population is preponderantly 
feminine, so that polygyny naturally prevails; the number 
of wives reaches three or possibly four, averaging about 
two, though the younger warriors commonly have but one, 
and there are always a number of spouseless dames, but no 162 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
single men of marriageable age. So far as could be ascer- 
tained, no special formalities attend the taking of supernu- 
merary wives, who are usually widowed sisters of the first 
spouse; it seems to be practically a family affair governed 
by considerations of convenience rather than established 
regulations - an irregularity combining with other facts 
to suggest that polygyny is incidental, and perhaps of com- 
paratively recent origin. 
The primary mating of the Seri is attended by observ- 
ances so elaborate as to show that marriage is one of the 
profoundest sacraments of the tribe, penetrating the inner- 
most recesses of tribal thought, and interwoven with the 
essential fibers of tribal existence. Few if any other peo- 
ple devote such anxious care to their mating as do the Seri; 
and among no other known tribe or folk, is the moral as- 
pect of conjugal union so rigorously guarded by collective 
action and individual devotion. 
The initial movement toward formal marriage seems to 
be somewhat indefinite, or perhaps, rather spontaneous. It 
may be made either by the prospective groom or else by the 
father, though not directly by the maiden or her kins- 
women. In any event the prerequisites of the union are 
provisionally determined in the suitor's family; these relate 
to the suitability as to age, the propriety of the clan rela- 
tion, etc.; for no stripling may seriously contemplate matri- 
mony until he has entered manhood, nor can he mate in his 
own totem, though all other clans of the tribe are apparent- 
ly open to him; while the maiden must have passed (appar- 
ently by a considerable time) her puberty feast. The pro- 
posal is formally conveyed by the elderwoman of the suit- 
or's family to the maiden's clanmother, when it is duly 
pondered, first by this dame, and her daughter matrons; 
and later if the proposal is entertained, it is deliberated EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
163 
upon and discussed at length by the matrons of the two 
clans involved who commonly hold repeated councils for the 
purpose. At an undetermined stage and to an undetermined 
degree the maiden herself is consulted; certainly she holds 
the power of veto, ostensible if not actual. Pending the 
deliberations the maiden receives special consideration and 
enjoys various dignities; if circumstances favor, her kins- 
women build a jacal for her; and even if circumstances are 
adverse, she is outfitted with a pelican robe of six or eight 
pelts and other matronly requisites. When all parties are 
eventually satisfied a probationary marriage is arranged, 
and the groom leaves his clan and attaches himself to that 
of the bride. Two essential conditions - one of material 
character and the other of moral - are involved in this pro- 
bationary union. In the first place, the groom must become 
the provider for, and protector of, the entire family of the 
bride, including the dependent children and such cripples 
and invalids as may be tolerated by the tribe; that is, he 
must display skill and exercise it in turtle fishing, strength 
in the chase, subtlety in warfare and all other physical 
qualities of competent manhood. This relation, with the at- 
tendant obligations, holds for a year, that is, a round of the 
seasons. During the same period the groom shares the 
jacal and sleeping robe provided for the prospective bride 
by her kinswomen, not as a privileged spouse, but merely as 
a protecting companion; and throughout the probationary 
term he is obliged to maintain complete continence - i. e., 
he must display the most indubitable proofs of moral force. 
During this period the always dignified position occupied 
by the daughter of the family culminates; she is the ob- 
served of all observers, the subject of gossip among the 
matrons and warriors alike, the recipient of frequent tokens 
from designing sisters with an eye to share the spoils of her 164 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
spouse and the receiver of material supplies measuring the 
competence of the would-be husband; and through his ener- 
gy she is enabled to dispense largess with a lavish hand, 
and thus to dignify her clan and honor her spouse in the 
most effective way known to primitive life; and at the same 
time she enjoys the immeasurable moral stimulus of realiz- 
ing that she is the arbiter of the fate of a man who becomes 
warrior or outcast at her bidding and through him of the 
future of two elans, that is, she is raised to a responsibility 
in both personal and tribal affairs; which, albeit temporary, 
is hardly lower than that of the warrior-chief. In tribal 
theory the moral test measures the character of the man; 
in very fact, it at the same time, both measures and makes 
the character of the woman. . . At the close of the year 
the probation ends with a feast provided by the probationer, 
who thereupon enters the bride's jacal as a personal guest 
of unlimited personal privileges, subject to tribal custom, 
while the bride passes from a half wanton heyday into the 
duller routine of matronly existence. . . 
The prevailing opinion among the better informed Cau- 
casian neighbors of the Seri is that the tribesmen display 
an inhuman indifference to their dead; and this opinion is 
one of the factors - combining with current notions of 
cannibalism and arrow poisoning and beastlike toothing in 
warfare - involved in the widespread feeling that the tribes- 
men are to be accounted as mongrel and uncanny monsters 
rather than human beings. The opinion that they neglect 
their dead on occasion would seem to rest on a considerable 
body of evidence. The record of numberless neglected 
corpses of warriors polluting the air and poisoning the 
streams in 1757 would seem to be unusual only in its ful- 
ness. Some recognize better qualities among the people but 
declare they utterly neglect the bodies unless they die near EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
165 
the rancherias, when they throw heaps of brambles upon 
them to bar the prowling coyotes; others again say they lie 
where they fall no matter where that may be. Then there 
stands the conspicuous fact, that well-marked cemeteries 
adjoin some of the rancherias of interior Seriland but this 
is unknown to the frontiersman. Another discrepant state- 
ment is that mourning ceremonies are important only among 
women. It is certain that the mortuary ceremonies attain 
their highest development among females. . . 
The special dignification of females in respect to funerary 
rites is without precise parallel among other American ab- 
origines, so far as is known, but is not without analogies in 
the shape of vestiges of a former magnification of matrons 
in the mortuary customs of certain tribes. These vestiges 
are clear among the Iroquois Indians, whose aboriginal so- 
cialry coincided with that of the Seri at various points. . . 
The identifiable cemeteries of Seriland are small - much 
less populous than might have been expected of a tribe 
numbering several hundreds for centuries, and able to main- 
tain well worn trails, threading all parts of the rugged do- 
main. A scant half dozen graves are perceptible in one 
place, five or six in another, and the largest known ceme- 
tery has perhaps a score of evidently ancient graves. When 
near the pebbly beaches, the graves are marked by heaps of 
pebbles and small cobbles. These cairns are about three or 
four feet long, two-thirds as wide, but seldom over twelve 
or fifteen inches high. The graves remote from pebbly 
beaches are marked by heaps of cholla stems and branches, 
rudely thatched with brambles roughly pinned together by 
okatilla stems, the shocks being sometimes nearly as high 
and broad as the jacais. . . 
On the death of a matron, a grave is scooped out by 
means of shells, a few yards from her jacal, preference be- 166 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
ing given to relatively elevated or commanding points. The 
excavation is about thirty inches in depth. Within it is 
placed first the pelican-skin robe of the deceased, so ar- 
ranged as to be folded over her body; then the corpse, 
dressed in the ordinary costume of life is compressed into 
small compass by closely flexing the knees and bringing 
them against the thorax, extending the arms around and 
along the lower limbs, so that the hands and feet are to- 
gether, and bending the head forward on the chest; when 
it is deposited in the receptacle in such manner as to lie on 
the left side, facing northward. Near the face is laid a dish 
of baked clay or a large shell filled with food, and beside it 
a small olla or cup of water and the hairbrush, olla ring, 
and other domestic paraphernalia are placed near the 
hands; next the personal fetishes and votive symbols in the 
form of puppets or dolls are placed beneath the face of the 
dead mother and her paint cup, with a plentiful supply of 
paints, is added; the poor personal possessions, in the form 
of shell beads and other trumpery, are heaped over her head 
and shoulders, and these are covered with superfluous gar- 
ments and miscellaneous property of the deceased. Finally 
the pelican-skin robe is folded over the body and two turtle 
shells are laid over all as a kind of coffin, when the grave 
is carefully filled and so smoothed as to leave no mark of 
the burial. During subsequent hours the stones for the 
cairns and the brambles for the brush heap are piled over 
the spot. . . 
Soon after the death (immediately after the burial as 
nearly as could be ascertained^ there is an apparently cere- 
monial mourning in which the matrons of the clan, and to 
some extent the warriors also, participate. The mourners 
wail loudly, throw ashes or ordure on their heads, and beat 
and bruise their breasts, faces, and arms, being careful 
however to avoid scarifying. This is continued, culminat- EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
167 
ing daily about the hour of interment, for several days - 
unless the rancheria is sooner abandoned, in which case the 
period of formal mourning is shortened. 
In addition to the formal meeting of matrons there is a 
custom of nocturnal wailing after the death of warriors in 
battle. . . The first note of lamentation may be sounded 
at any hour of the night by any of the group to which the 
deceased belonged; it is successively taken up by other 
members of the party until all voices are united in a re- 
sounding chorus of inarticulate moans, wails, shriller cries, 
and wild howls, likened by the auditors to the blood-bellow- 
ing of cattle; if other groups of tribesmen are within hear- 
ing they, too, take up the cry, so that the lamentation may 
extend to the entire tribe and echo practically throughout 
all Seriland at the same moment. The fierce howling and 
attendant excitement may rise so high in the group in 
which the wailing begins, that all seem bereft of customary 
caution; and sometimes they suddenly seize ollas and weap- 
ons, and decamp incontinently, perhaps scattering widely 
and racing for miles before settling again for sleep or 
watchful guard. . . 
They have a belief of a life beyond the grave. So far 
as can be ascertained the belief seems to be that the dead 
find their way back to the primordial underworld whence 
Earth and Beings were brought up by Pelican and Turtle 
respectively and are liable to return by night with mis- 
chievous intent. 
The World's Supply of Fuel 6 
Animal existence depends upon the utilization of poten- 
tial energy stored up in the two forms of food and fuel. 
6 Reprint from The Forum, 1889. 168 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
The first of these sources is utilized by all animals alike, 
but man has risen above his ancestral kindred and has made 
conquest of nature through the use of fuel. Man may in- 
deed be defined as the fuel using animal. In common with 
him, the ant and wasp build habitations well adapted to 
their wants; the mouse, the squirrel, and the bee store up 
provisions against the inclement season, the immature 
butterfly spins a delicate strand, albeit from its own sub- 
stance ; the oriole weaves a strong, smooth fabric to protect 
its young; the tailor-bird prepares thread and sews seams; 
the ant enslaves kindred races that it may be relieved of 
labor, keeps kine for their milk, and is supposed to plant 
and cultivate, and is known to harvest; the beaver cuts 
canals and dams rivers; the monkey bridges the stream 
with its own body that its young may pass safely over; 
the spider lays snares; the ant-lion sets traps for game; cer- 
tain monkeys use missiles in battle; the gorilla arms him- 
self with a rude weapon; many animals effect organization 
for offensive and defensive purposes, and the laws of or- 
ganization are enforced and obeyed; and in all other re- 
spects, the habits, industries, and institutions of the other 
animals graduate into those of man, save that he alone 
utilizes fuel in securing comfort, preparing food, and 
overcoming obstacles to progress, and by the means of 
illuminants, turns night into day, and thus lengthens 
life. Next to food, fuel is the most important topic of 
thought today, as in the days of the discovery and worship 
of fire. 
In the history of the subjugation of natural forces for hu- 
man weal, there is no more interesting episode than that of 
the utilization of the gaseous and liquid carbon compounds 
as fuels and illuminants. Wood and various woody plants 
have been used as fuel, and animal fats and vegetal oils as EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
169 
illuminants, from time immemorial, and there is scarcely a 
savage tribe to which they are unknown. The advance 
from the burning of wood and charcoal to the burning of 
mineral coals was an easy one, and was probably made 
gradually and independently in many centers during his- 
toric and prehistoric time. The last step in the utilization 
of potential energy stored up in mineral substances was far 
longer, and was made within our memory; and, in conse- 
quence of the ready communication in recent years between 
distant lands, was taken in many parts of the world at the 
same time. It is true that natural gas-vents were known 
to and were for ages venerated by the fire worshipers 
whose cult they inspired; it is also true that springs of 
mineral oil have been known from history's dawn and that 
the oil was utilized sometimes as a fuel or an illuminant, 
though more commonly as a medicine or lubricant; and it is 
equally true that natural oils and tars were extracted by 
primitive means and used for primitive purposes by bar- 
barous oriental peoples long before their fame spread to 
the Occident; but it has been only within a few years that 
these natural products have been utilized so extensively as 
materially to modify the course of human progress. Yet 
so rapidly have the applications of those compounds spread, 
that today most of our homes are lighted and many of our 
engines driven, and most of the bearings of our machinery 
and other innumerable mechanical contrivances lubricated 
by petroleum; while within the last lustrum the manufacture 
of such widely-used substances as glass and iron has been 
largely improved, and at the same time reduced in cost, by 
the use of rock gas. Still, the utilization of this and allied 
products is only in its infancy. Within our memory philo- 
sophic thought has been revolutionized by scientific concep- 
tion - the doctrine of evolution; and it would appear that 170 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
we are now in the midst of an equally important industrial 
revolution growing out of the recognition of the unstable 
carbon compounds, as fuels and illuminants. 
Pari passu with the industrial development accompany- 
ing the utilization of rock gas, geologic science made an un- 
paralled stride within a few months. Hunt, Newberry, and 
others have made important contributions to our knowledge, 
concerning the constitution and origin of petroleum and its 
allies, and the exploitation of the Pennsylvania and New 
York fields have afforded valuable additional data relating 
to these minerals. Nearly four years ago, Prof. I. C. White 
deduced from theory - now recognized as a fundamental 
law in gas prognostication - that gas, oil, and brine are ac- 
cumulated in the order of their weight within inverted 
basins and troughs formed by flexures of the rocky strata. 
The importance of these contributions to our knowledge of 
the lighter bitumens must not be underestimated; yet when 
exploitation for gas began in Ohio, in 1886, the geologist 
literally sat at the feet of the prospector, gathering such 
crumbs as fell from his hands, and found himself utterly 
unable either to guide efforts or to predict results. Less 
than two years later the laws governing the distribution 
and accummulation of gas and oil were so fully developed 
that the rock-gas problem found a solution as satisfactory 
as that of the well-known artesian water problem, and 
today the geologist predicts the success or failure of a pros- 
pect bore for gas or oil about as readily and reliably as he 
can prognosticate artesian water or coal. Greater advance 
was probably never before made in so limited a time in any 
economically important branch of knowledge. The solution 
of the rock-gas and petroleum problem marks an era in sci- 
ence no less than in industry. Vast sums of money, possibly 
millions, were spent by prospectors in gathering data. . . EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
171 
The conquest of light hydrocarbons ranks among the 
most exciting episodes of mining exploitation. When the 
oil fever broke out in Pennsylvania, wells were put down 
Without adequate preparation, and the oil poured forth in 
such volume as to burst the barriers erected against it and 
overflowed by the thousand barrels, tainting the air, befoul- 
ing the land, and poisoning the waters. In the fields of 
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana the pressure of rock gas 
was sufficient to blow out drills nearly a ton in weight, and 
to burst the double-riveted tanks and heavy iron mains in 
which it was sought to confine it; and the belief that its 
force was uncontrollable was at one time prevalent. In 
scores of cases the roar of the gases escaping could be heard 
for miles, and compelled the closing of schools and the 
stoppage of business in the vicinity of the well. When 
the gas was ignited by accident or design, the roar was aug- 
mented, and workmen were sometimes permanently deaf- 
ened; while by night the surrounding country was illum- 
inated, the light from a single well being visible over a 
radius of ten, twenty-five, and even forty miles. The cause 
of the enormous pressure under which the gas and oil were 
confined were not at first understood, and the latter sub- 
stance was regarded as mysterious and uncanny, if not 
diabolic. The various ills to which flesh is heir were at- 
tributed to it, its utilization was deprecated as impious, 
and the belief that its extraction was the cause of earth- 
quakes prevailed widely. . . 
Where? Why? Whence? Whither? These are the 
principal questions suggested in any intelligent community 
by the discovery of gas and oil, and propounded by thous- 
ands of laymen; and since the closing months of 1888 the 
geologist has been able to answer them definitely and in 
most respects, satisfactorily. 172 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
The rock gas now so generally recognized as "natural 
gas" in the northern states and Canada, has long been 
known technically as light carburetted hydrogen. In com- 
position it closely resembles the inflammable marsh gas 
frequently seen bubbling from the muddy bottoms of stag- 
nant pools or sluggish streams; indeed, marsh gas is the 
principal constituent of the rock gas of commerce and the 
arts. Marsh gas itself is a simple compound of carbon and 
hydrogen, in the proportion of seventy-five per cent of the 
former to twenty-five per cent of the latter. It is one of a 
large number of compounds of carbon, running through 
petroleum, asphaltum, coal, jet, graphite or plumbago, and 
ending with the diamond. 
One of the compounds which may be distinguished as the 
coal series, comprises in order carbonized and lignitized 
woods, brown coal, bituminous coal, cannel coal, anthracite 
coal, graphite coal, jet, and some graphites. . . The pro- 
cesses by which these compounds were transformed from 
the original to the present state in nature has been imitated 
in the laboratory, and it has been ascertained that the 
essential conditions are that the decompositions shall be 
effected slowly and under some pressure, and that the free 
evolution of the ordinary gases of dissolution shall be pre- 
vented and their constituents largely retained perhaps in 
new combinations. So the compounds of this series present 
not only the original processes of aggregation by which the 
organic matter was accumulated, but later processes of in- 
tegration or evolution by which decomposition was effected 
with little loss of matter. 
Another series of the compounds comprises such as are 
commonly classified as hydrocarbons, whether simple oxy- 
genated, or compound; namely, marsh gas, the different 
varieties of rock gas, naphtha, petroleum, maltha or natural EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
173 
tar, asphaltum, and other mineral waxes and resins, alber- 
tite and its allies, together with certain hydrogenated and 
approximately pure carbons, including some pure graphites 
and probably the diamond. While the origin of some of 
these minerals is doubtful and the exact relations among all 
obscure, enough is known to justify the opinion that the 
various compounds belonging to this series represent pro- 
cesses of evolution and segregation of carbonaceous matter 
(perhaps accummulated elsewhere) within geologic depos- 
its. . . 
Study of the recorded geographic and geologic distribu- 
tion of the bitumens shows that they occur in greater or less 
quantity, and in various forms, in nearly every country, 
and that they are found in nearly every geologic group of 
rocks. The greater part of commercially valuable bitumens 
are, however, concentrated in three widely-separated parts 
of the geologic column; namely: in the Tertiary in great 
volume and nearly all the known forms; in the upper 
Devonian as petroleum and gas, the former probably pre- 
dominating; in the lower Silurian, as gas and associated 
petroleum. . . 
Every richly productive gas field, at least in the eastern 
states and Canada, is a dome or inverted trough formed by 
flexure of the rocky strata; and in every such dome or in- 
verted trough there is porous stratum (sandstone in Penn- 
sylvania and coarsely-grained magnesium limestone in Ohio 
and Indiana) overlain by impervious shales. These domes 
or arches vary in dimensions from a few square miles in 
the Pennsylvania areas, to 2,600 square miles in the great 
Indiana field. Within each gas-charged dome is found 
three or more substances arranged in the order of their 
weight: gas at the top, naphtha, if it exists in the field, and 
petroleum below, and finally water, which is generally salt, 174 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
and sometimes a strong and peculiar bittern. This order 
is invariable throughout each field, whatever its area, 
though in Indiana, at least, the oils are found most abun- 
dantly about the springing of the arch, while towards its 
crown gas immediately overlies brine; and the absolute alti- 
tude of the summit level of each substance is generally uni- 
form whatever the depth beneath the surface. 
In all productive bitumen fields, the gas and oil are con- 
fined under greater or less pressure. When a gas well is 
closed, it is commonly found that the pressure at the well 
head gradually increases, through a period varying from a 
few seconds in the largest wells to several minutes or hours 
in wells of feeble flow; and that afterward the pressure 
gauge becomes stationary. This is the ' ' confined pressure, ' ' 
"closed pressure," or "rock pressure" of the prospect- 
or. . . When a well is open and gas escapes freely into 
the air, it is found that if the stem of a mercurial or steam- 
guage is introduced, a certain constant pressure is produced 
and indicated. This is the "open pressure" or "flow pres- 
sure ' ' of the gas expert, and the capacity of the well may be 
determined from it. This pressure varies. In Indiana it 
ranges from 300 to 350 pounds per square inch, and in 
Pennsylvania it reaches from 500 to 900 pounds. The 
cause of the pressure is due to size of dome. The Cincinnati 
Arch (in which the gas of the great Indiana field is accum- 
ulated) is substantially a dome about fifty miles across, ris- 
ing in the center of a stratigraphic basin fully 500 miles in 
average diameter. Throughout this immense basin, the 
waters falling on the surface are in part absorbed into the 
rocks and conveyed towards the center, where a strong 
artesian flow of water would obtain were the difference in 
altitude greater. . . Gas pressure and oil pressure may 
be estimated in any given case as readily and reliably as 
artesian water pressure. EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
175 
Rock gas is one of the family of bitumens, all of which 
are unquestionably of common or at least related origin. 
There are two theories to explain their origin. They are 
very properly designated organic and inorganic theories. 
The experience of technology, the results of experiments, 
the geologic and geographic distributions of the several 
bitumens, and observations upon the well known phenomena 
of marsh gas, all indicate that rock gas and its allies are 
simple results of the decomposition of organic matter con- 
tained in the rocky strata of the earth, and that their evolu- 
tion is now in progress, in all rocks containing partially-de- 
composed animal remains, at the rate depending upon the 
amount of matter yet undecomposed, and upon the depth 
of the burial, or in general terms upon geologic age. This 
inference coincides with the first generalization deduced 
from geologic distribution. 
The other theory is that which ascribes the hydrocarbons 
to reactions among inorganic substances in deep lying strata 
of the earth. This theory is widely accepted in Europe; but 
it is not in harmony with the phenomena of American gas, 
oil, asphaltum fields, and is not held by any American geolo- 
gist or chemist of note, and requires no further considera- 
tion. The latest competent American opinion concerning the 
origin of the bitumens may be summed up in the following 
propositions: (1) that rock gas, petroleum, and the heavier 
members of the bitumen series are simple products of nat- 
ural processes of decomposition of the organic matter con- 
tained in their sediments; (2) that their weight and other 
attributes depend upon the conditions under which decom- 
position takes place. 
The exploiter and consumer of rock gas daily inquires, 
with a degree of anxiety, "Is the natural gas yet form- 
ing ? ' ' The affirmative answer may be given and it is pre- 176 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
dieted that gas will continue to form until the organic mat- 
ter disseminated throughout, the formations of the world, 
is completely decomposed, though the rate will ever de- 
crease, and the proportion of oil to gas generated as the 
ages go on will constantly but slowly increase. But this 
affirmative answer and prediction can scarcely be regarded 
as encouraging to the prospector of today. . . 
The use of rock gas has forced upon practical fuel con- 
sumers a conviction long held by students, namely, that the 
gaseous is the most convenient and economical form of fuel 
as well as illuminant. Even if the supply of rock gas were 
exhausted tomorrow, manufacturers of glass, certain grades 
of iron, and other products would substitute an artificial gas 
for the natural product rather than return to coal. Enor- 
mous waste would thereby be prevented, the gas by which 
the air in all coke-burning countries is contaminated would 
be utilized, and the carbon of the dense smoke-clouds by 
which manufacturing cities are overclouded would be 
turned to good account. Moreover, it is an easy step from 
the manufacture of coal gas to the distilization of bitu- 
minous shales abounding in carbon available only in gaseous 
form. Even if it had no other use, rock-gas is a boon to in- 
dustry, in that it has led to the modification of manufactur- 
ing methods and the reconstruction of manufacturing plants 
in such a manner as to secure better and more economical re- 
sults from other coal sources, in that it leads to the utiliza- 
tion of waste products, and in that it opens the way to the 
use of fuels not hitherto available. 
At the present rate of consumption (1888) the known 
anthracite of America will be exhausted within a few 
decades, the known bituminous coal fields of the Carbon- 
iferous within a few centuries, and the vast bituminous coal 
beds of the Cretaceous in the Rocky Mountain region within EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
177 
a millennium or two; and since the rate of consumption is 
ever increasing, the entire available stock of fixed carbons 
in this and other explored countries must melt away in a 
few centuries. Some coal fields in this and other countries 
unquestionably remain to be discovered; magnificent pos- 
sibilities lie within the little-explored areas of South Amer- 
ica, Africa, and Asia; but the surface and sediments of the 
earth have been examined so thoroughly as to prove that the 
final exhaustion of coals cannot be far off. To the geolo- 
gist, who regards each coal-forming period as an epoch, 
the immeasurably shorter period of coal consumption is but 
a fleeting episode in the history of the earth - an episode 
so brief as to require multiplication by millions in order 
to be made commensurable with the terms of geochrony. 
With the growth of population and the ever-increasing con- 
trol of natural forces by human intelligence, food sources 
multiply, while the sources of mineral fuel remain unre- 
newed ; and were there no other fuel source than the fixed 
carbons of the coal seams, and lignite beds, the prospect for 
the future would be gloomy indeed. But while the stock 
of fixed carbons is so limited that its exhaustion is becom- 
ing a serious menace, the stock of bitumens in the rocks of 
the earth is practically unlimited. It is true that gas and 
oil are but sparsely disseminated through the strata; it is 
true that under existing commercial conditions they can 
be successfully exploited only where accumulated in excep- 
tional volume; but despite the extravagant waste of gas ac- 
companying the processes, oil was economically extracted 
before the great natural reservoirs were discovered, and 
with the increasing values following exhaustion of these 
reservoirs, the limits to improvement in methods of ex- 
traction and to material extractable are indefinitely remote. 
The rocks are as inexhaustible a source of hydrocarbons as 178 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
the soil is of carbohydrates, and under suitable stimuli, 
bountiful nature will probably give forth the one as lavish- 
ly as the other. 
Rock gas and the related bitumens are the fuels and il- 
luminants of the future; upon them, in conjunction with 
the foods extracted from the soil and waters, we must de- 
pend for the energy by which the wheels of future progress 
will be kept in motion. 
Desert Thirst as Disease 7 
. . . In viewing thirst as a pathological condition, it is 
needful to review the role of water in normal physiology. 
The average human body is about one-fifth solid matter and 
four-fifths liquid, i. e., H,O, or water. This liquid forms the 
chief distributing or circulating agency of the organism; it 
is no less essential to assimilation and metabolism than to 
circulation in the artero-venous and lymphatic systems; it 
forms the bulk of the softer tissues, and enters into the com- 
position of the harder, and permeates or flows through all 
structures either by osmosis or through specialized vessels. 
As an agency connecting the individual with the external, 
i. e., with environment, water is far more important than 
"food," more important even than air; water streams 
through the entire organism, entering chiefly through the 
alimentary system and escaping through the skin and mem- 
branes as well as through the main secretory channels; 
water as liquid and vapor in connection with the lungs and 
skin affords the chief means of equalizing and controlling 
the temperature required for organic existence; and water 
is undoubtedly the primary requisite for that ironization 
7 Reprint from Interstate Medical Journal, vol. xiii, St. Louis, 
1906. EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
179 
to which it is customary of late to reduce the chemistry of 
vital existence and growth. It is in harmony with the es- 
sential and distinctive role of water in the normal organ- 
ism that the average human dietary embraces 4 to 12 parts 
of liquid to one part of solid matter - a mean ration for 
adults, say, of six pounds of liquid and one pound of dry 
food; it is in harmony, too, with the demonstrations of Dr. 
Tanner and others that with water a fast of forty days is 
feasible but without liquid is fatal in one-sixth of that 
time; indeed, water is to be regarded not so much a mere 
solvent of food-matter as an actual aliment - and by far 
the most important aliment in animal economy. Accord- 
ingly, in this view of the role of water in the normal body, 
thirst, in extreme stages at least, is seen to constitute and 
express a general and fundamental derangement of the 
vital system. 
It may be convenient to define three types of thirst, i. e., 
(1) the Ordinary Thirst, experienced in humid lands, caves, 
mines, etc., in which the air is charged with aqueous vapor 
and the tissues little affected by salts external to the sys- 
tem; (2) the Thirst of the Sea, experienced where the air 
is heavily charged with vapor and non-potable liquid 
abounds, while the tissues are subjected to the action of 
salts; and (3) the Desert Thirst, experienced where water 
is lacking both as liquid and vapor, and where free salts ex- 
ternal to the system are (commonly) absent. The third of 
these types is, of course, the most distinctive; and it is this 
alone which I have had opportunity to study in sufficient 
detail to warrant discussion. My data embrace personal 
observation on a score or more of thirsty men at divers 
times and in sundry places; reminiscences gathered per- 
sonally from a dozen or more survivors of extreme thirst, 
and from a considerably larger number of men who have 
chanced to succor the thirsty; portions of the abounding 180 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
thirst-lore in the arid districts of Arizona, California, Ne- 
vada, New Mexico, and Sonora; numerous newspaper and 
magazine accounts -• all more or less pointless and inac- 
curate; a few unwittingly faithful records like that of 
Manley in "Death Valley in '49"; conferences with men 
like artist Lungren, naturalist Merriam, litterateur Lum- 
mis, et al., who have both seen and felt; and - safest of all 
- several personal experiences, one extending over half way 
through the successive stages. 
It is convenient to recognize five stages of desert thirst, 
falling into three successive stages: . . . 
1. The Stage of Normal Dryness. The normal system 
deprived of water reacts mechanically with a sensation of 
dryness in mouth and throat, and instinctively in the gen- 
eral craving for liquid denoted as thirst; in conditions of 
extreme aridity and heat the sensation of dryness and the 
instinct of thirst frequently arise without actual depriva- 
tion in persons not inured to desert life. If not relieved, 
the initial condition passes into general uneasiness, dis- 
comfort, or irritation, accompanied by rise of tempera- 
ture and other febrile symptoms. Commonly the condition 
is alleviated by a moderate quantity of water; sometimes 
fruit acids and other sapid substances exciting flow of 
liquid are requisite for relief; and in the practical life of 
the range a pebble or nail carried in the mouth is often 
efficacious. This stage - and phase - may be of little con- 
sequence save as the beginning of a series; it is experienced 
again and again by all men of arid regions, and excites an- 
noyance rather than apprehension on the part of the pa- 
tient, hilarity rather than pity among the company - it is 
the clamorous stage or the stage of complaining. 
2. The Stage of Functional Derangement. In the in- 
cipient phase of pathologic dryness, a general febrile condi- EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
181 
tion becomes marked and is accompanied by special local 
symptoms; saliva and mucus in mouth, throat, and nostrils 
becomes scant and sticky, and there is a feeling of dry 
deadness of membranes extending to the epiglottis and even 
into the lungs - the sensation of in-breathed air changing 
from one of refreshing coolness (the chief physical pleasure 
of life in the desert) to one of oven-like heat; the tongue 
may cling irritatingly to the teeth, or stick to the roof of 
the mouth; a lump seems to rise in the throat and starts 
endless swallowing motions to dislodge it; discomfort and 
pain run from throat to ears along the eustachian tubes and 
through the tissues; the tympana may snap and drum an- 
noyingly, while the ear-openings itch and the eyes smart. 
There is a feeling of fullness in head and face (doubt- 
less due to shrinking of skin) usually accompanied by head- 
ache and throbbing pains in the nape and down the upper 
spine; the hearing is disturbed and seeing capricious, so that 
illusions and hallucinations - especially the delectable pic- 
tures engendered by the desert mirage - spring constantly 
unless checked by connected effort; irascibility arises, and 
companions quarrel and separate; perhaps to reunite for the 
very satisfaction of further dispute; the solitary sufferer 
may soliloquize, largely in impassioned invective - though 
the voice becomes cracked, husky, or hoarse, and given to 
unexpected breaking into high tenor or dropping into an 
absurd whisper. The intellections are insensibly distorted 
more and more as the phase advances; prejudices are in- 
tensified, unreasoned revulsions arise against persons and 
things, while water and wetness are subconsciously exalted 
as the end of all excellence; the victim may gravely, after 
deliberate discussion in his quavering and ill-controlled 
voice, discard hat or shoes - for it is in this stage that Mex- 
icans generally and Americans frequently begin to strip 182 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
themselves of clothing - or spurn the gold he has been 
seeking or the tobacco which has been his solace, or perhaps 
burden himself with a heavy cask or fragile demijohn. The 
face grows pinched and care-marked, the eyes bloodshot and 
perhaps tearful, the movements ill-aimed, the utterances 
capricious, while the temperature rises and the pulse quick- 
ens : the sufferer is a walking fever patient, passing or 
passed into a delirium usually wild and paralyzing in the 
tenderfoot, but concentrated on a central instinct in the 
desert habitue - the instinct of the trail, or the way to 
water. The disordered state of body and brain is often 
revealed by ceaseless talk; the sufferer strains tongue and 
throat to talk and talk and talk without prevision of the 
next sentence or memory of the last - and all the talk is of 
water in some of its inexpressibly captivating aspects. 
Some of the party of thirst-dying men talk of portable ap- 
paratus for well-boring, of keeping kine by means of the 
bisnaga - a savagely spined cactus yielding poisonous 
water - and revelling in milk, of the memory of certain 
mint juleps in famous metropolitan hostelries on the far- 
ther border of the continent, of the best form of canteen, 
(which should hold at least two gallons - three would be 
better) ; they were bright men, clear and straight and force- 
ful thinkers when fully sane; and yet they knew not that 
their brilliant ideas and grandiloquent phrases were but the 
ebullition of incipient delirium. . . It is called the cot- 
tonmouth phase of the disease and this phase is best relieved 
by water - water swallowed in quarts - water slushed over 
the face, head, neck, snuffed anon into the nostrils; and 
where conditions permit, hot coffee or soup, the nearer the 
scalding point the better. Some desert rovers limit the 
quantity - and wisely when the water is salt-charged or mi- 
crobe-laden - though there is little risk to the habitue if the EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
183 
water be pure; the tenderfoot may overcharge his system 
and so burden his heart and invite collapse next day. When 
water is scant it may be economized by a method well 
known in arid regions - that of alleviating local dryness 
of bueal and other membranes by sipping and sniffing a few 
drops at a time, and allowing the general condition to take 
care of itself. Many vaqueros and prospectors become art- 
ists in mouth-moistening and carry canteens only for this 
purpose and unwittingly follow the example of desert plants 
in habituating their external tissues to conservation rather 
than evaporation of the organic water; the sipped liquid lu- 
bricates the membranes, permeates both cavities and tissues, 
facilitates automatic swallowing of saliva and spitting of 
effete mucus, and compensates that evaporation accompany- 
ing respiration which most effectively controls the body tem- 
perature - as demonstrated by the sweatless but panting 
dog. On this empirical practice of the range even expert 
medicine may hardly improve; and unless complications 
arise, dry medicaments are useless - or worse. 
The later phase of functional derangement is an intensi- 
fication of the earlier; saliva ceases and membrane mucus 
dries into a collodion-like film which compresses and re- 
tracts the lips, tightens on the tongue until it numbs and 
deadens, shrivels the gums and starts them from the teeth, 
and shrinks linings of nostrils and eyelids giving irritating 
sensations of dust and grit; tears fall until they are gone, 
when the eyelids stiffen and the eyeballs set themselves in a 
winkless stare; . . . articulate speech ends, though 
hoarse moanings or weirdly unhuman bellowings may issue 
from the throat. Gradually the shrinking extends from 
membrane to skin; numbness creeps over the face, then over 
the hands and under the clothes, imparting a dry, rattling, 
husk-like sensation so nerve-trying that few longer resist the 184 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
impulse to cast off clothing in automatic outreaching for re- 
lief ; the feeling of fullness in the head increases and extends 
to the chest; the sufferer spasmodically snatches at hat and 
hair and tears the scalp with his nails, while breathing be- 
comes labored and gasping; the heart-beat grows slow and 
heavy, . . . the head throbs painfully, and excruciat- 
ing twinges shoot down the nape and spine and through 
head and shoulders. . . With the advancement of this 
phase fever burns more and more fiercely; yet several ob- 
servers have concurred in denoting it by perhaps the most 
distinctive local condition: it is the phase of the shriveled 
tongue. 
In this phase, too, thirst is relieved only by water - 
water in gallons, applied inside and out, with caution as to 
rate lest the desiccated tissues be saturated so suddenly as 
to set up dangerous disorganization. . . In the absence 
of water little can be done! heart stimulants or nerve-tonics 
might be beneficial if available, although alcohol does more 
harm than good; the over-stressed system seems to respond 
sluggishly and slightly to ordinary drugs; . . . It is in 
this phase if not before, that most sufferers are led, either by 
aimless instinct, or the reasoned desire of keeping the mem- 
branes moist, to have recourse to urine - either their own 
or the still saltier stale of their stock; a desperate device 
which sometimes saves life at the cost of some poisoning of 
the system, but doubtless hastens the end of the uninured. 
3. The Stage of Structural Degeneration. The passage 
of the thirst-patient into the earlier phase of this stage de- 
pends largely on his physical condition, especially the in- 
urement to heat and dryness; the tenderfoot makes the 
transition quickly and completely, while the well-inured 
victim whose membranes and skin are toughened and hab- 
ituated to conservation of organic water may resist the EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
185 
tissue-disorganization up to and even beyond dissolution 
when the air is dry enough and the heat high enough - 
the dissolution in this case being a progressive mummifica- 
tion of the initially living body beginning with the extrem- 
ities and slowly approaching the vital organs. In the or- 
dinary case the fourth phase begins with an acceleration of 
the drying process due to the disorganization of external 
tissues; the collodion-like coating on the lips cracks open 
and curls up, and the clefts push into membrane and flesh 
beneath so that thickened blood and serum exude; . . . 
each cleft is a wound which excites inflammation, and the 
fissuring and fevering proceed cumulatively until the lips 
are everted, swollen, shapeless masses of raw and festering 
flesh. The gums and tongue soon become similarly affected, 
and the oasis in the desert appears in delirium when the 
exuding liquid trickles in mouth and throat; the shrunken 
tongue swells quickly, pressing against the teeth, then 
forcing the jaws asunder and squeezing out beyond them, a 
reeking fungus on which flies - coming unexpectedly, no 
one knows whence - love to gather and dig busily with a 
harsh, grating sound, while an occasional wasp plunks 
down with a dizzying shock to seize or scatter them. . . 
Then the eyelids crack and the eyeballs are suffused and 
fissured well up to the cornea and weep tears of blood; 
and as the gory drops trickle down the shrunken cheeks are 
welted with raw flesh. . . The agony at the nape con- 
tinues, the burden of the heart-throb increases, but as the 
skin opens its pain passes away; the fingers wander me- 
chanically over the tumid tongue and lips, and then they, 
too, begin to chap and swell and change to useless swinging 
weights. . . 
In this stage there may be little alleviation; even if the 
degenerated tissues are reorganized, the cerebral and neural 186 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
structures may scarce recover from the shock and the suf- 
ferer remains a gibbering imbecile for life. 
In the final phase of desert thirst the external symptoms 
are but little changed. The benumbing and chapping and 
suffusion of the periphery and extremities continue and in 
this way the blood and serum and other liquids are con- 
veyed to the surface and cast out on the thirsty air . . . 
and insects gather to feed on the increasing waste and the 
unclean blow-fly hastes to plant its foul seed in ears and eyes 
and nostrils, while the greedy vulture soars low and the rav- 
ening coyote licks his chops. . . A child in a single gar- 
ment wandered out on Mohave desert, and was lost before 
the distracted mother thought of trailers; his tracks for thir- 
ty hours were traced and showed that the infant had aged to 
the acuteness of maturity in husbanding strength and not- 
ing signs of water, and had then slowly descended into the 
darkness and automatic death of the fifth phase of thirst - 
had at last dug the shadow-cooled sands with tender baby 
fingers, and then courted and kissed the siren cactus even 
unto the final embrace in which he was held by a hundred 
thorns too strong for his feeble strength to break. 
In this final phase, there is no alleviation, no relief save 
the end; for it is the ghastly yet possibly painless phase of 
living death in which senses cease and men die from with- 
out inward, as dies the desert shrub whose twigs and 
branches wither and blow away long before the bole and 
root yield vitality. . . 
The Cult of Conservation 8 
A new patriotism has appeared. It was born of Enlight- 
enment inspired by International Comity. Fittingly, it 
s Reprint from Conservation, September, 1908. EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
187 
first saw light in the land in which Enlightenment found 
birth in the principle of equal rights of all men to life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; yet its field of future 
activity is the world. Its object is the conservation of 
national resources; its end the perpetuation of People and 
States and the exaltation of Humanity. The keynote of its 
cry unto the spirit of men is The Greatest Good to the 
Greatest Number for the Longest Time. 
The house of this nation was founded on Land. The 
Fathers saw no value, no means of enrichment in purse 
or enlargement of character in aught else; even their sons 
and their sons' sons sowed maxims and sang ballads assur- 
ing all the world that "Uncle Sam is rich enough to give 
us all a farm." Iron was a luxury from Sweden, steel a 
sybaritic morsel from Sheffield; coal was unknown, except 
as laboriously burned from willow as a dentifrice, or aspen 
for the furnace; petroleum and rock-gas were beyond 
dreams; forests were obstructions to settlement, the haunts 
of savages and beasts, and nigh unto a public evil. Every 
day was Arbor Day on which a youth won praise not by 
planting but by felling a tree - unless perchance the tree 
was a cherry tree and the chronicler of its fall a hero- 
worshipful Weems. Apart from men and their homes and 
fields, but a single resource was noted, and that merely as 
appurtenant to the land - i. e., the estuaries and streams 
used mainly for carrying over-sea commerce; which ap- 
purtenance happily inspired a Waterways Commission, 
yielded a Constitution, and established a Nation in a man- 
ner none foresaw save possibly Washington. 
To the Fathers the Land, with its incidentally appurte- 
nant water, was enough; they wanted little more - and 
none too much of that! George Rogers Clark and Benja- 
min Franklin were viewed askance because they brought 
into the infant country more territory beyond the moun- 188 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
tains than the strip for which the Fathers fought along- 
shore, and Jefferson was all hut sent to Coventry when he 
bought an empire for a song - just as within our own 
memory "Seward's Folly" was a synonym for resourceful 
Alaska, and even within a decade McKinley and Wilson 
and Day were derided for opening over-sea lines for our 
teeming growth. Lulled by woodland zephyr and prairie 
breeze, the pioneer forgot Eden and its penalty in the sweat 
of his brow for the posterity of men; revelling in bound- 
less acres, he even forgot the line of his loins, and cravenly 
and impotently sware, "Posterity be condemned! Let pos- 
terity take care of itself ! ' ' Thus he blasphemed the blood 
of those who fought for Land and Liberty, and foolhardily 
jeopardized the Nation woven of their lives! So patriotism 
waned. 
Yet posterity spread apace over fair America; for the 
fruit of the ages was ripe unto the harvest. The half of 
what he did not eat the settler wasted, and most of the rest 
he turned over to budding trusts to be used in shaping 
shackles for his own ankles and wrists ; so that after thir- 
teen decades of the freedom for which the Fathers fought, 
certain seven men - none chosen of the people - hold in 
their hands the industrial and commercial destiny of more 
than eighty millions of citizens! So substance was scat- 
tered away and tyranny trained up. 
A new revolution began - for every revolution is at bot- 
tom mental - when citizens saw in a decade past that rav- 
age of woodlands sacrifices streams. Already the story is old. 
There is still wood enough to last half a lifetime at the cur- 
rent increasing rate, and it is growing a quarter as fast as 
cut; but the homestead spring has dried up, the mill-stream 
has shrunken to a slimy thread, the old-time dell is torn by 
storm torrents, the river is beset by bars, the river-side EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
189 
field caves into the flood a rood at a slump, while the richest 
of the soil washes into the sea at the rate of half a ton each 
acre-year. Such is the lesson of the disappearing forest; 
naturally it led first to uneasiness, later to full awakening; 
and at last to an inventory of resources, and an analysis 
of their relations. 
During the thirteen decades of American independence, 
domestic iron production has increased from nearly nothing 
to over 50,000,000 tons per year; the consumption from less 
than ten pounds to 1,300 pounds per capita. The original 
stock was some 10,000,000,000 tons; and while about 
750,000,000 tons have been consumed and wasted to date, 
if the current rate of increase continues the annual produc- 
tion will within thirty years reach more than half that 
amount - and before the end of the present century our 
iron will be gone. 
When the Declaration of Independence was signed there 
were in what is now mainland United States about 2,000,- 
000,000,000 tons of coal - then but a useless black stone, 
of which little was used until within a century. Already 
some 9,000,000,000 tons have been wasted and destroyed, 
and 7,500,000,000 have been consumed in ways so wasteful 
that less than five per cent of its heat value has been turned 
to useful account. The consumption is increasing beyond 
belief in any earlier decade; the mere increase in 1907 over 
the use in 1906 was greater than the total consumption in 
that Centennial Year (1876) in which America became 
known as a leader among the world's manufacturing na- 
tions. In 1907 some 450,000,000 tons, or over five tons per 
capita for our 84,000,000, were taken out of the ground; 
and if the current rates of production and increase continue, 
all will be gone by the end of the next century. And still 
more woeful is the tale of oil and gas, already largely squan- 
dered ! 190 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
The birthright Land of the thirteen Colonies for which 
the Fathers fought comprised some 200,000,000 acres, of 
which full half was felt forever worthless save for rocks 
and swamps and trees; but the remaining 100,000,000 
was thought enough for the Nation for all time. With the 
Clark-Franklin claim allowed at Geneva, Jefferson's Louis- 
iana Purchase, the Florida acquisition, the Oregon discov- 
ery and the demand (less the spiritless surrender) of "Fif- 
ty-four forty or fight," the California conquest ratified at 
Guadalupe Hidalgo, the Gadsden Purchase, and the Texas 
adhesion, the estate increased ten-fold. . . Today "Uncle 
Sam's farm" is virtually gone; no more arable acres re- 
main to be given away. Whenever a vacated parcel is 
opened to settlement, it is seized in a day by soul-searing 
gamble or disgraceful rush or paralyzing wait-in-line. Ex- 
cept as Science bids the desert blossom or commands the 
field to yield two ears of grain where a blade of grass grew 
before, the limit of the land has been reached. 
When the American Constitution was framed on the 
foundation of interstate waterways, the rain fell on the just 
and unjust alike, little checked by either; now the inter- 
state rain is the basis of prosperity, and a coming founda- 
tion for even closer union among the People than that 
written down in the Constitution. Some 200,000,000,- 
000,000 cubic feet of rain descends from the heavens each 
year on the 2,000,000,000 acre farm of mainland United 
States; and with a half or even a third of the acres to re- 
ceive the boon, were it equally distributed the population 
and productivity, the manufacturing and merchandizing, 
might be great as they are - with an advantage in reduced 
cost of transportation. Nominally, lands sell by the acre 
or foot; actually the price within ten per cent is fixed by the 
associated water. In verity the 200,000,000,000,000 cubic EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
191 
feet of annual rainfall is the sole effective capital of the 
country; without it the land would be a desert, devoid of 
tree or shrub or other living thing. More than half of all 
is evaporated to temper climate, form dews, and re-descend 
elsewhere; a fifth goes down to the sea in rivers, say 
an eighth is stored for a time as ground water; the 
remaining twentieth, or a half of a Mississippi, is 
stored or used in the ontosphere - in the living struc- 
tures and functions of animals and plants. The time 
of storage is short; an animal may survive a week, a 
humid annual plant six weeks or a tree six months without 
renewed supply; springs fail and brooks run dry under a 
three-months' drought. Were a rainless year to come, half 
the lesser rivers of America would dry up; within seven 
such years in succession, the Mississippi and Colorado 
would cease to flow, and within ten the lake-fed St. Law- 
rence and Columbia would be no more. While the witchery 
of water still appeals - and all the more by reason of bet- 
ter knowedge - the days of witchcraft and mystery of 
waters are numbered; for Science has arisen to show the 
sources of spring and well and brook and river, of flowing 
sap and pulsing life-blood - and all run back to the life- 
giving benediction of the clouds. Yet because the grand- 
sires of the Fathers were from riverless islands of ample 
rains and virtually waterless statutes, they and their sons 
were slow to see natural wealth in water; and it is the irony 
of American history that the interstate waters which yield- 
ed a Constitution were half-forgotten for a century - be- 
fore a realization of their value arose, begotten of bitter ex- 
perience in arid regions. For the deepest impulses of Hu- 
manity have been inspired by water in dearth rather than 
abundance; the altruism of which Civilization is the fruit 
bloomed first in the world's deserts - and necessarily so. 192 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
The rivers of America form ways of commerce, virtually 
abandoned through legislative ineptitude and an admin- 
istrative apathy now happily ended; and in their natural 
head lies power, far beyond that of the hundreds of millions 
of tons of coal consumed each year, of which but a fraction 
is harnessed - and most of that monopolized. Their fresh- 
ets due to deforestation destroy houses and goods to the 
value of $150,000,000 annually; their increasing impurities 
cost lives in thousands; their myriad feeders lick the cream 
of the soil from the Nation's fields to the measure of a bil- 
lion tons a year, cutting down the annual crop-yield griev- 
ously- say from $8,000,000,000 to $7,000,000,000. The 
destruction wrought by waters running wild is vast; the 
half of an average year's loss applied over a decade of ju- 
dicious improvement would tame them forever, terminate 
their destruction for all time, and bring the Nation's rich- 
est resource under complete control. How long will the 
folly of sluggardly somnolence continue? How long will 
the People permit the penny-wise pound-foolish policy to 
persist ? How long - how long! 
"When the lotus-eaters forgot the travail of the Nation's 
birth, and condemned their own posterity to perdition un- 
known, national spirit oozed out of their idle fingertips. 
They wasted what Nature saved through the ages, scattered 
that which their sires garnered, ceased to consider the fate 
or even the fact of posterity - so that the very blood of the 
birthright Land is become of alien tincture, and homes are 
given over to foreign Lares and Penates. Thus unity grew 
lax, and patriotism weakened; standards of morality sank 
below normal instead of rising steadily as is their wont; 
and the budding notion of national efficiency was chilled 
back. Monopoly sought to enslave citizens to its sordid be- 
hest, and workers retaliated by resticting their own ca- EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
193 
pacify to that of the most incompetent of their class, where- 
by actual efficiency - which grows by exercise - was low- 
ered. The industrial twins, Labor and Capital, quarreled 
and disturbed the national household by their bickerings 
and anathemas of each against the Mother of the other; 
and from darker corners Anarchy thrust a hideous head. 
Yet, as deeper darkness presages dawn, the enfeeblement 
of national spirit but made way for the new era in which 
Patriotism looms loftier and larger than ever before - and 
with farther foresight. No longer able to dispense acres 
equally to all, the Nation instead affords equal opportunity 
for all to develop a wider range of resources. Today there 
are four foundations for prosperity in lieu of one. The 
Land remains, and in increased worth by reason of in- 
tensive treatment rather than extension of settlement; the 
Forests accumulated above-ground during the centuries and 
the Minerals below-ground during the ages have acquired 
worth through the orderly growth and natural development 
of the country; and Water is coming within ken as the 
basis of prime values on which all others must depend, and 
as an inalienable birthright of the People - a common her- 
itage for the common interest, to be administered by Nation 
and States jointly as befits its interstate character, but 
never to be withdrawn or withheld from direct control by 
citizens for their own common good. 
Just as the land for which the Fathers fought was at 
once the tangible basis and the inspiration for patriotism 
in an earlier day, so in this day the birthright Land, the 
soil-making Forests, the native Minerals, and the life-giv- 
ing Waters inspire Patriotism anew. Each is well worthy 
of story and song and shrine; and each inspiration is 
warmer and the whole are knit in closer union by reason 
of each other. . . 194 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
The Five-fold Functions of Government 9 
I 
Organizations, like organisms, are products of develop- 
ment. Governmental organizations, like most others, are 
increasingly designed and shaped in the light of conscious 
experience. Thus, the constitution of the United States 
epitomized the lessons of history so far as recognized by its 
framers, whereby the instrument became the embodiment 
of governmental practice and theory gained through known 
experience. Naturally, by reason of the ability of the 
framers and the stress under which they wrought, the in- 
strument is notable - certainly among the most notable ever 
produced, whatever may be thought of Gladstone's view as 
to the divinity of its inspiration. Naturally, too, the framers 
specified most clearly those governmental powers with 
which they were familiar and which they most desired to 
adopt; and, no less naturally, their action was guided quite 
as much by the desire to eliminate that which they thought 
objectionable as by the aim to perpetuate that which they 
deemed desirable. Seeing that government is an expression 
of law, their first care was to provide for the framing of 
laws, the second to provide for the execution of these laws, 
and the third to provide for the interpretation of law; and 
in this way arose what came to be known as the "three co- 
ordinate branches" of the United States government. The 
branches are indeed coordinated, though they are far from 
coequal, since the power of creating the third is entrusted 
to the second "by and with the consent" of a part of the 
first; yet they by no means constitute the entire govern- 
ment- as becomes clear in the light of earlier phases of 
social organization made known largely since the instru- 
9 Reprint from Popular Science Monthly, September, 1910. EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
195 
ment was framed, no less than in that of discussion before 
and during the framing of the constitution. 
Early in that primitive social type in which tribal or- 
ganization rests on consanguinity traced in the female line, 
the elder-woman is both law-giver and judge, while her 
elder-brother acts as an executive in case of need, and the 
two jointly or severally exercise administrative authority 
throughout the clan; later the elder-women become priest- 
esses or seeresses still giving and interpreting the clan laws, 
and their elder-brothers form an avuncular council of grad- 
ually increasing administrative and executive powers; yet 
at every step all primary power is imputed to a mystical 
pantheon of which the beldames are only vicars and the 
sages merely indirect agents. In the next stage of develop- 
ment (i. e., in the patriarchate, in which organization rests 
on consanguinity traced in the male line), the elder-man 
becomes vicar or priest, and hence law-giver and judge as 
well as both administrative and executive - as when a 
patriarch communes with his deity over sacrificing a son or 
a daughter, or a kalif commands of his own impeccability, 
sits in judgment, awards and rewards, imposes and deposes, 
and (like a later emperor) personifies the state; yet his pri- 
mary power is imputed mainly or solely to that super- 
natural source of which he is deemed but the agent. With 
the growth of cities and those civic usages in which the or- 
ganization arises in proprietary right (especially in lands), 
rulers long remain vicars of mystical or spiritual powers 
manifested in symbols and ceremonies though often exer- 
cised through arms and armies ; and until within recent 
centuries each monarchy was virtually a hierarchy whose 
king or emperor stood -• panoplied in the ' ' divinity which 
doth hedge about a king" - as the source and exponent of 
both temporal and spiritual power, performing so much as 196 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
he would of all governmental functions, his rule ranging 
from hierarchic to autocratic according to the faith and 
custom of the time. Gradually (the rate being accelerated 
by the American Revolution) the monarchs surrendered 
legislative functions, delegated judicative powers, divided 
administrative and executive duties with the agents of 
courts and parliaments, sometimes shared their vicarial 
powers with ecclesiastic potentates, and began yielding to 
the inevitable growth of petition into suffrage; yet no mon- 
arch was ever quite independent of putative supernatural 
powers residing within or conveyed through his own per- 
sonality, or of the symbolism or ceremonial tending to 
perpetuate the imputation. 
In brief, during each stage of governmental growth from 
the simplicity of primal clan to the pomp and circumstance 
of gilded empire, the primary functions remain much the 
same despite sweeping changes in structure. In logical or- 
der the functions are (I) initiatory, and (II) directive, the 
former connoting the source and the latter the aim or con- 
trol of constitutional power. In genetic sequence, or in 
that order of successive manifestation illustrated, e. g., in 
the natural family of which the clan, gens, city, and nation 
are outgrowths, they are (1) administrative, or concerned 
with the current regulation of every-day affairs; (2) legis- 
lative, or concerned with the establishment of rules of con- 
duct (always finally adopted only through common con- 
sent) ; (3) judicative, or concerned with the peaceful set- 
tlement of disputes in accordance with custom and estab- 
lished rules; (4) executive, or concerned chiefly with the 
carrying out of rules and judicative decisions; and as the 
natural source of power gradually comes into ratiocinative 
view in the light of the general good, (5) determinative or 
concerned with the primary expression of common judg- 
ment and desire. EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
197 
Now when the founders of the American nation under- 
took to frame a governmental organization, little was known 
of the natural stages in the course of human development. 
The notable works of Maine and McLennan on primitive 
law, of Fustel de Coulanges on "The Ancient City," of 
Lewis H. Morgan and Herbert Spencer and Auguste Comte 
on early society, and of Taylor and Powell and Brinton on 
lowly religion had not been written - indeed the epoch- 
marking investigations of these and other writers run back 
to the unprecedented efforts of the American revolutionists 
to ascertain the ultimate foundations of human government, 
efforts not disparaged but only accentuated by the rapid 
growth of human knowledge since they were made. Since 
then, science has come into being on the earlier foundation 
laid by Bacon and Linne and a few others: of the five car- 
dinal principles of science (outlined in an address of the 
president of the Anthropological Society of Washington, 
delivered before the Washington Academy of Sciences and 
affiliated societies February 19, 1900), the first (the inde- 
structibility of matter) was established by a contemporary 
of the Revolution, Lavoisier; the second (the persistence of 
motion) grew out of Rumford's experiments begun under 
the influence of this American rennaissance; while the others 
(the development of the species, the uniformity of nature, 
and the responsitivity of mind) came scores of years later - 
indeed nearly all of the current branches of science have 
arisen since the Revolution. Since then, too, historical 
knowledge has been both expanded and refined; geographic 
knowledge has extended over the full half of the earth then 
practically unknown; invention has revolutionized indus- 
tries, largely through American example; steam and elec- 
tricity and high explosives have been harnessed; the 
world's population has doubled; man's conquest over na- 198 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
ture has advanced further than during all earlier time; 
statecraft in the modern sense has taken form, and diplo- 
macy has been reconstructed, both largely through the 
world-touching influence of the seventh and eighth decades 
of the eighteenth century; and the American governmental 
model has been adopted in spirit if not in form by far the 
greater part of the nations of the earth. In the light of 
the vast advance since 1776, the sagacity and courage dis- 
played by the signers of the declaration and the articles of 
confederation, and especially by the framers of the constitu- 
tion, shine forth among the greater marvels of human his- 
tory. 
The founders included eminent scholars and statesmen, 
yet they were practical men confronted by problems of 
which the issue meant life or death; and on surveying the 
field of experience in governmental organization within 
their reach, they seized on the essentials and wisely with- 
held their hands from both the collateral and the contro- 
vertible. Dwelling long on the pressingly practical (as 
shown by the record of discussion in the constitutional con- 
vention) they defined clearly the legislative and executive 
and judicial functions of the nascent government, leaving 
the then relatively unimportant details of administration -• 
over which controversy arose whenever the subject was ap- 
proached - to the sense of their successors; while they pro- 
ceeded so circumspectly as to reveal implicitly rather than 
by explicit statement their chief - and history's greatest 
-• contribution to governmental principle, i. e., the substi- 
tution of human power exercised through an electorate for 
the inscrutable might manifested through a hierarchy as 
the basis of government. Strong as is the constitution in 
every feature and department, its chief strength lies in that 
last-written but first-placed paragraph, "We, the people of EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
199 
the United States, ... do ordain and establish this 
Constitution." With this utterance the mysticism of the 
ages fell away, and the foundation of humane government 
became fixed forever; and the new light has already gone 
around the world and entered every land. 
Now in addition to the specific powers expressed in the 
first, second, and third articles of the constitution, others are 
so clearly implied or expressed inter se that they were un- 
hesitatingly exercised from the day the instrument was 
adopted. These embrace the administrative power im- 
plied throughout, together with that primary power 
ranking all the others combined (since they rest on 
and arise from it), i. e., the determinative (or elective) 
power implied in the first, second, fourth, fifth, and sixth 
articles and expressed in the preamble. So any complete 
enumeration of the powers of our government (or any other 
representative type) necessarily comprises those pertaining 
to the five innate and coordinate functions involved in all 
governmental organizations from the most primitive to the 
most advanced; in logical order -which is that reflected 
in the constitution-they may be denoted (1) elective, ex- 
ercised by the people; (2) legislative, exercised by the con- 
gress; (3) administrative, exercised by the president and 
his cabinet officers; (4) judicative, exercised by the court, 
and (5) executive, exercised primarily by the president. 
II 
The popular movement for the utilization of our water- 
ways first marked an awakened public sentiment; now it is 
stirring the national conscience in a manner not unlike the 
movement of 1776. A round century of public indifference 
since G-allatin followed Washington in pointing a way, and 
a half-century of national incompetence attested by the de- 200 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
cline of river and canal navigation - these unwittingly set 
the alarm now ringing. As befits democracy, the awaken- 
ing began with the extremities of the body politic; yet signs 
are not lacking that it is reaching the somnolent centers. 
When the declaration and the constitution were framed, the 
sense of citizenship still lay dormant in all but a few lead- 
ing minds, and in some of these soon turned sluggishly for 
longer slumber; then the legion prodigals were fed with the 
swine on husks of party welfare rather than on the sound 
corn of public weal until a shadowy " no-man 's-land" grew 
up between citizen and state and a "twilight zone" spread 
between state and nation. Yet, stirred at last by the water- 
way movement and a forest policy uniting in the cult of 
conservation, the people are at last preempting the shadowy 
middle ground, and thus coming into their own as citizens. 
Two years ago (1908) the governors - the actual sponsors 
for the welfare of their commonwealths - felt the stir; they 
responded vigorously, and now they and their people are 
moving together against a tyranny of regnant apathy not 
greatly different from that of his ease-loving and privilege- 
giving majesty George III. 
Within a few months the congress began to respond to 
the popular demand by authorizing the publication of re- 
ports of the Inland Waterways Commission and National 
Conservation Commission and the Proceedings of the Con- 
ference of Governors; then the senate created a strong com- 
mittee on the conservation of natural resources; and within 
a month this committee reported favorably a bill for the 
establishment of a "National Commission for the Conserva- 
tion of Natural Resources. ' ' The report meets the popular 
movement half way, declaring that "The measure is de- 
signed to conform with various actions, both legislative and 
administrative, growing out of one of the strongest popular EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
201 
movements in the history of our country," the document 
outlines the movement, summarizes the nature and extent 
of our natural resources, indicates the leading wastes and 
industrial diversions attending development of resources, 
and concludes with a plan for action framed to meet the 
people's will. Even more significant than the body of the 
report is the appendix; for at last the senate has yielded to 
the voice of the people sufficiently to print the expressions 
adopted in great conventions of citizens - among others, 
the declaration of the Fourth Deep Waterway Convention 
(adopted in New Orleans November 2, 1909) "comprising 
duly appointed delegates to the number of 5,000 from 44 of 
the 46 states of the union, including the governors of a 
majority of the states," which finally turned over a new 
leaf by recognizing and declaring the rights of citizenhood 
to "demand and direct" action by their representatives - 
in lieu of the far lesser rights of subjecthood to "petition" 
or "submit" or "respectfully request," or "forever pray" 
with which Americans have been content for a century - 
and then nailed down the new leaf by the public pledge of 
personal honor proper to full citizenship! Surely if these 
5,000 delegates mean what they say - and who can doubt 
their sincerity ? - no more significant utterance has been 
made on American soil since the declaration of July 4, 1776. 
The final paragraph of the declaration reads: 
Believing in our hearts that the needs of the country and the 
fundamental principles of the government set forth herein involve 
moral no less than material issues, and believing that the time has 
come for us and the other citizens we represent to exercise our con- 
stitutional powers by the means provided when the constitution of 
the United States was framed, we, the delegates in this convention 
assembled, representing more than half the people and three-fourths 
the productive energy of the United States, do hereby deliberately 
and firmly, and in the full realization of our duties and responsibil- 
ities, demand and direct that a definite and vigorous policy of water- 202 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
way improvement beginning with the Lakes-to-Gulf Deep Waterway, 
be adopted and put into operation by the national government with- 
out delay. To the enforcement of this demand we pledge our in- 
dividual effort and our united support; and we hereby publicly pledge 
our public honor, each for himself and to each other, to support no 
candidate for public office who will not unqualifiedly endorse and 
maintain that policy. 
Academically, such an utterance is in so full accord with 
the constitution and with the principles of popular govern- 
ment as to be common-place; actually it is so far out of ac- 
cord with current governmental methods that the third of 
the representatives and senators in attendance at the con- 
vention generally (except perhaps a dozen progressives) re- 
pudiated and condemned the utterance of the measure more 
or less openly as "socialistic" or "anarchistic." Still the 
voice of the people has echoed and reechoed; and at last it 
has reached print in a public document. 
The spirit of the Lakes-to-the-Gulf Deep Waterway As- 
sociation expressed in their declaration has cropped out in 
various conventions other than those noted in the senate re- 
port. During the past two years the question has been 
growing more and more incisive, Is this nation competent 
to protect the interests of the people? The question has 
been pressed in non-partisan assemblies held in every sec- 
tion, including citizens of every state, and with constantly 
increasing directness and pointedness; and it is a sign of 
the times that it is put with a sense of power and a realiza- 
tion of responsibility unprecedented in the century and a 
quarter since Washington moved towards the constitution. 
America - the collective mass of ninety million souls - is 
a long-suffering if not lethargic giant, slow to wrath and 
show of strength; yet as to its power when aroused - who 
can doubt ? Its full strength lies in the spirit of the ninety 
millions; the force of a first effort lodges in some eighteen EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
203 
million voters, the half temporarily tied by one special in- 
terest or another - but nine millions are full freemen, and 
five millions more are ready to follow their lead. Now 
that the giant is aroused, in conscience no less than in senti- 
ment, the demand of the people is attracting attention. Al- 
ready the waterway advocates can point to a partial re- 
sponse to their demands in enlarged provision for river sur- 
veys, in provision for a national waterways commission em- 
powered to extend and apply plans framed by the last ad- 
ministration, and in a recent declaration of the administra- 
tive and legislative authorities that "pork barrel" appro- 
priations must cease - indeed, to the longest steps in the 
right direction since Washington prevised and Gallatin 
planned and Windom pleaded for rational waterway de- 
velopment. Verily, the waterway workers have not wrought 
in vain! 
The significant fact lying behind the past and prospective 
legislation is the power of the people when once aroused - 
a power not to be confounded for a moment with that of 
tumult or mob, but inhering in the very spirit and lodging 
in the innate structure of democracy. True, this power is 
too often ignored by those for the moment responsible for 
the public welfare, too little felt by its own possessors; it is 
seldom stirred save by war or rumors of war, rarely tempt- 
ed to exercise save by partisan calls at times of political 
stress; yet although a virtually neglected factor of our 
national life, it is worthy of weighty consideration. 
Ill 
The first, second, and third articles of the constitution, 
respectively, define the legislative, the executive (including 
the administrative) and the judicative functions of govern- 
ment. The specifications of the executive function are gen- 204 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
eral to the point of vagueness - naturally enough, to the 
then current antipathy to concentrated authority. Few 
matters were so faithfully discussed during the constitu- 
tional convention as the powers of the president; and few 
of the discussions better exemplify the superlative caution 
which constantly led the delegates away from definite speci- 
fications and towards bare generalities in compromising 
mooted points. So, just as the instrument is silent on the 
primary governmental function save in the preamble, the 
commonplace functions of administration are implied rather 
than explicitly stated in the second article - being most 
clearly (or most nearly) defined in the oath or affirmation by 
the president-apparent that he will "faithfully execute the 
office of president, ' ' which ' ' office ' ' manifestly covers minor 
governmental affairs, not otherwise specified. The indefin- 
iteness was not due to inattention or indifference concerning 
the administrative function, as the debates clearly show. . . 
Unhappily the indefiniteness begat uncertainty, which has 
multiplied with the growth of the country; for public af- 
fairs requiring administrative attention tend to increase 
geometrically (just as do transportation lines) with the 
number of individuals and communities touched. Under 
the natural desire to protect prerogatives and with a facil- 
ity due to the weight of numbers, the congress gradually 
grew inattentive to the first duty of the president under the 
constitution ("He shall from time to time, give to the 
congress information of the state of the union . . .") 
and drifted into the habit of obtaining "information of the 
state of the union" by more cumbrous methods directly 
through their own committees or indirectly, (and of course 
unconstitutionally), from the administrative departments. 
Moreover, they increasingly ignored the warning of George 
Washington (the presiding officer and moving spirit in the EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
205 
constitutional convention) in that ever-memorable farewell 
address read annually in their hearing: "Let me . . . 
warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful 
effects of the spirit of party generally . . . the alter- 
nate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by 
the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension . . . 
serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble 
the public administration " - so that the nominally repre- 
sentative congress has virtually ceased to act in behalf of 
the people and come to act instead in behoof of party, in 
ways for which no shadow of constitutional warrant ex- 
ists. It would appear that the gravest apprehensions of 
Washington and Morris have been realized in a policy of 
special legislation so pronounced that - mirabile dictu! - 
fully 99 per cent of the bills introduced during an ordinary 
session are special, local, or personal in whole or in part, 
while far the larger part of the committee work and public 
debate appear to be devoted to special or local interests! 
Naturally little time and thought are left for general laws, 
touching alike the entire citizenry: and naturally the cus- 
tom of special legislation under party control opens easy 
way for such machine organization that a half-dozen shrewd 
manipulators may assume leadership in either house and 
completely dominate legislation. So far has this tendency 
run that it is today a grave question - the gravest in our 
history - whether our current laws are framed in the in- 
terests of our ninety millions or in the interest of special 
privilege reducible in the last analysis to a scant dozen 
"captains of industry"; and hence whether after all repre- 
sentative government is inherently and permanently stable. 
The "propensity" of the congress "to legislate too much" 
has indeed been checked from time to time in the manner 
forecast by Morris; for while some administrations acquiesce, 206 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
others hold out for a stricter conformity with the constitu- 
tion. George Washington sought to carry out the intent 
of the instrument framed under his chairmanship, and was 
so savagely assailed for "usurpation" that he declared 
death preferable to public service; Abraham Lincoln car- 
ried forward the administrative affairs of his terms through 
sheer force of personality, aided indirectly by the military 
activity of the time; no less competent authority than the 
present president of the United States once signalized 
Grover Cleveland's insistency that the presidency carries 
power coequal with those of the congress as the notable 
feature of his administrations; and Theodore Roosevelt's 
policy was consistently parallel and still more vigorous, 
even to his final and most trenchant presidential message 
pointing out the unconstitutionality of an item in the 
sundry civil act passed as his term closed. Meanwhile 
some heads of executive departments shrank from assuming 
administrative responsibilities; yet under growing necessity 
they have gradually become our chief administrative of- 
ficers. 
Verily the price of indefiniteness as to the administrative 
function in our fundamental law has been large! Not only 
have confusion and friction arisen, with enormous attend- 
ant expense, but the relatively simple duties of administra- 
tion are ill-performed. The advocates of waterway im- 
provement were among the first to notice that nearly all 
our waterway enactments to date are special, and tend to 
magnify rather than merge sectional and political interests; 
and that the flood of special bills and local items has so far 
diverted effort from general legislation that even unto this 
day the country lacks fundamental laws relating to waters, 
and is weakly perpetuating monarchial common-law doc- 
trines not only unsuited to current conditions but such as EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
207 
the constitution was designed to annul and forestall. The 
waterways workers are no longer slow to condemn methods 
which have permitted - if indeed they have not caused - 
the decline and disappearance of navigation from the finest 
river system of the world in a country suffering from the 
lack of transportation facilities. Already a majority of 
states are moving, and many citizens are astir; and the pre- 
vailing sentiment runs along the lines forecast century- 
before-the-last by Governeur Morris and George Washing- 
ton. 
IV 
When popular assemblies "demand and direct" action 
relating to waterways, regardless of party and under a suf- 
frage penalty, the awakening means more than mere recog- 
nition of bad legislative and administrative methods; it 
extends to that innate and primary power seized on by the 
founders as a substitute for the "divine right of kings" - 
i. e., the power of the people defined in the preamble to the 
constitution and exercised through suffrage. While this 
power has existed throughout our history, the act of suf- 
frage is the last to be realized as essentially fundamental - 
indeed as the supreme function of democratic government. 
The spirit of free citizenship arises slowly; to the anthro- 
pologist it is the latest self-conscious attribute acquired by 
mankind in that long course of human progress stretching 
from the prime to the present. Even in our Atlantic tide- 
water states, the real home of democracy, few citizens feel 
the franchise as in and of itself a function of government; 
in oratorical flights they hear and even declare that ours 
is a government of the people by the people for the people, 
yet only the exceptional citizen actually senses the casting 
of his ballot as a function no less governmental in char- 
acter than those delegated thereby to his fellow-citizens aet- 208 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
ing as president and representative and judge. Now this 
is the sense stirred by the non-partisan waterway and other 
conventions particularly in the newer states west of the 
Appalachians; it is the sense stirred as well in Des Moines 
and other municipalities governed by the commission sys- 
tem carrying provision for initiative and referendum and 
recall - the sense of innate poxver exercised through the 
elective function. 
Concurrently with the sense of power the realization of 
rights is arising; and naturally enough, first as to the 
waters. Finding nation and most states apathetic, the 
more progressive waterway advocates looked into funda- 
mental questions for themselves; and now, as a member of 
the supreme bench recently declared half querulously, 
' ' The country is full of constitutional lawyers. ' ' Five 
years ago, a few citizens cared to consider the ownership 
of water in itself; today tens of thousands are familiar with 
the tenth amendment ("the powers not delegated to the 
United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to 
the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the 
people"), and hold that since this resource was never grant- 
ed to the nation or conveyed to the states it necessarily be- 
longs to the people as a heritage no less indefeasible than the 
common title to sunlight and air, or indeed the equal rights 
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and three 
great conventions during the last year adopted in substance 
the water plank made public by the senate committee on 
the conservation of natural resources. 
We adhere to the principle arising in our constitution and incor- 
porated in statutes recently enacted in several states that the waters 
belong to the people, and maintain that this right of the people is in- 
herent and indefeasible; and while recognizing the necessity of ad- 
ministering this invaluable possession of the people by state and 
federal agencies, each within its appropriate jurisdiction, we deny EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
209 
the right of municipalities or of state and federal governments to 
alienate or convey water by perpetual franchises or without just con- 
sideration in the interests of the people. 
With the sense of power and the realization of rights, 
the consciousness of duty is spreading. Until recently, pro- 
vision for waterway appropriation was commonly deemed 
chimerical; and citizens were led by advice of their repre- 
sentatives and the policy of congress to look on local ap- 
propriations as sports of conquest rather than general con- 
tributions to the public good - whereby the ''pork barrel" 
was kept open and appropriations went for "works" with 
little regard for actual navigation of the waters. Now, see- 
ing that despite the expenditure of hundreds of millions on 
waterway "works" navigation of the rivers has declined, 
the people demand business-like methods whereby public 
funds shall be expended only for commensurate public ben- 
efits; and since the people have spoken, presidents, gov- 
ernors, and probably a majority of the congress are con- 
curring in the wisdom of issuing bonds to cover the cost of 
continuously and increasingly beneficial public improve- 
ments. Almost never before has the issue of bonds been 
contemplated without more or less open guarantee from 
Wall Street; but now legion citizens clamor for opportunity 
to share public burdens directly on a patriotic basis rather 
than indirectly through the expensive medium of special 
interests -• for in the end the people pay. Under this 
pressure bills have already been introduced in the congress 
providing for waterway improvement on the basis of bonds 
issued in small denominations bearing interest too low to 
tempt bankers and brokers; and the adoption of this pop- 
ular policy promises to mark America's most definite step 
toward making her citizens joint owners rather than pas- 
sive tenants of their common country, and thereby at once 210 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
raising patriotism to a higher plane and insuring stability 
of the nation. 
The recognition of rights and duties respecting the waters 
leads to juster appreciation of other resources, which were 
of no account when the constitution was framed but have 
acquired value through the natural growth and orderly 
development of our population and industries; and today 
several of our forty-odd state conservation commissions 
hold that in legislative or other action looking toward wiser 
use and conservation of the natural resources the people 
are but protecting their own. The growth of the sense of 
common welfare has been greatly impeded by court deci- 
sions based on common-law doctrines which the constitu- 
tion was designed to displace, decisions sometimes tincturing 
later legislation; yet several courts have fairly kept pace 
with the growing sense of eternal equities among the peo- 
ple - they who adopted the constitution partly to provide 
a judicative mechanism adapted to their own needs and 
subject to their own supreme will: The decision of the su- 
preme court of Maine that the public are entitled to a voice 
in the management of forests affecting stream-flow; the 
finding of the New Jersey court of errors and appeals, 
sustained by the supreme court of the United States, that 
the people have a residuary right in the waters; . . . 
these and other decisions tending toward closer union of 
interests among all the people are signs of the times. . . 
The waterway and conservation movements are still 
young, and may reasonably be expected to contribute con- 
tinuously to that public welfare by which they were in- 
spired. Whatever they may be in the future, they have 
already done much. They have revealed to the people a 
growing sense of their own powers and rights and duties 
as citizens; they have brought to light and started toward 
rectification our ineffective if not actually repressive meth- EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
211 
ods of administration by legislative machinery; they have 
shown the inherent rights of the people in and to those 
material resources given value by their own work, and on 
which their own prosperity and perpetuity depend and 
thereby they have warmed the spirit of unity among citi- 
zens and states; they have stirred patriotism more than 
any peaceful issue before, deeply as only bloody war has 
done in the past; incidentally, they are surely establishing 
the elective function as the primary power of representa- 
tive government, and will no less surely establish the ad- 
ministrative function as correlative with those of legislative 
and judicative character. 
Flood Plains of Rivers10 
Fire, flood, famine, war, and pestilence were long reckoned 
foremost among the evils to which mankind is subject. With 
the growth of knowledge concerning the relations of man to 
his environment, and with the development of far-sighted 
altruism, men have united in devising and applying means 
for suppressing, or at least opposing, four members of this 
maleficent family. Fire is provided against by numerous 
devices adapted to all modes of life and to all stages of 
culture; by legislative enactments and municipal ordinances 
in civilized nations, and by special organizations of men 
and appropriations of money throughout the more advanced 
countries. Famine flies before the community of interests 
and the ready interchange of products that measure the 
advance of nations in material and moral development. 
War in most countries is opposed by two of the most potent 
determinants of conduct, namely, private principle and 
public policy; and of late a powerful movement toward the 
io Reprint from The Forum, 1891. 212 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
abolition of war among civilized nations has been gaining 
strength. Pestilence is weakened by combinations among 
men for mutual aid, it is crippled by the decadence of per- 
sonal and national strife, and it is disarmed by cleanliness 
of modern times. Even now biology and medicine are 
uniting to invade the last stronghold of this evil agency. 
They are isolating her protean germs, laying bare her in- 
sidious processes, turning her own weapons against her by 
opposing bacterium to bacterium and ptomaine to microbe, 
and if the signs of the times are not misleading, are surely 
encompassing her downfall. Fire, war, pestilence, and fam- 
ine have been successfully met by human ingenuity, fore- 
sight, benevolence, and sagacity; but the flood remains, a 
barely mitigated evil, a hardly-appreciated obstacle to pro- 
gress. Indeed, as population has increased, men have not 
only failed to devise means for suppressing or escaping this 
evil, but have, with singular short-sightedness, rushed into 
its chosen paths. 
A fertile bottom land was the goal of the American pio- 
neer, as he bent his tedious way from the Atlantic seaboard 
across the mountains and into the broad basin beyond. 
Moreover, his course was constrained by hills and forests 
to the valleys of rivers and streams. So it happened that 
the early homesteads and settlements were located on the 
flat and fertile plains flanking the waterways, and that the 
early routes of travel traversed the same plains. Thus, in 
one stage of the settlement of the Mississippi Valley, the 
population was confined mainly to the narrow belts of 
alluvial land skirting the streams. 
As time passed, isolated homesteads grow into settlements, 
and settlements into towns; and as the towns waxed in 
population, wealth, and trade, some of them became cities. 
Meantime the bridle paths and wagon trails of the earlier EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
213 
periods were transformed into stage routes and turnpikes, 
and at the same time navigation was established on the 
larger streams. Yet in this stage, as in the earlier one, the 
centers of population and the lines of travel and traffic 
were confined to the waterways, and only a small propor- 
tion of the nomadic and agricultural population pushed 
into the forest fastnesses of the uplands. During this stage 
such cities as Wheeling, Cincinnati, and Louisville came into 
being on the Ohio; and as the border land between the 
white settlements and Indian hunting grounds slowly ad- 
vanced, such cities as St. Louis, Keokuk, Dubuque, and La 
Crosse on the upper Mississippi, La Salle and Peoria on 
the Illinois, Terre Haute and Vincennes on the Wabash, 
St. Charles, St. Joseph, and Omaha on the Missouri, and 
a score of lesser towns on a dozen other rivers, were planted. 
But during the earlier era of overland staging and river 
navigation, as during the earlier era of pioneer travel, settle- 
ment followed the waterways, population gathered on the 
river-side plains, and the uplands were sparsely inhabited 
or quite unsettled; so that, despite the greater area of 
upland, the larger part of the population was concentrated 
on the lowlands. 
A third stage in the settlement of the Mississippi Valley 
was characterized by steam locomotion. During this stage 
the railways were first extended along the smoothest lines 
and through the largest towns, thus adding to the popula- 
tion and wealth already accumulated on the alluvial low- 
lands ; and steam navigation cooperated with steam railway 
in accomplishing this end. But later the railways were 
pushed out over the uplands, carrying trails of settlements 
in their divergent courses; and at the same time the influ- 
ence of river navigation waned. This stage was that of 
the dispersion of population, and it has reached to the pres- 214 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
ent time; yet today, as during the earlier stages in the 
occupation of the Mississippi Valley, population continues 
to follow the rivers, and cities, towns, and homesteads are 
found on the alluvial lowlands by which the rivers are 
flanked. 
It would be interesting to determine the relative density 
of population upon the riparian lowlands and upon the 
intervening uplands, not only within the Mississippi Valley, 
but throughout the United States; but the data are inade- 
quate. Only limited areas are mapped with such accuracy 
as to distinguish between lowlands and uplands, and even 
in these the cities stretch from lowland to upland, the 
towns often stand on slopes, and the civil divisions by 
which the rural population is enumerated are independent 
of physical boundaries; so that without a special census the 
common population cannot be divided. A rough evaluation 
of the relative areas of alluvial lowlands and intervening 
upland in the eastern half of the United States, and a still 
rougher estimate of the riparian and non-riparian popula- 
tion, may, however, be made. Detailed maps of typical 
tracts indicate that from five per cent to fifteen or twenty 
per cent, or an average of about ten per cent of the 
given area may be classed as alluvial land. Probably this 
ratio may safely be extended to the 1,500,000 square miles 
of the eastern United States, exclusive of the delta plain 
of the Mississippi. This single alluvial tract is 1,100 miles 
long, measured on the river, or one-half as long, measured 
in a direct line; more than 100 miles in average width; and 
fully 60,000 square miles in extent. The total area of 
alluvial lowlands in the eastern half of the country would 
thus appear to be not less than 210,000 square miles, or 
fourteen per cent. 
The concentration of population upon alluvial lowlands, EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
215 
commencing in the interior with the arrival of the pioneer, 
is still notable, and is displayed in New England, and along 
the Atlantic seaboard, in the Gulf states, and on the Great 
Lakes, as well as in the Mississippi Valley. Eighteen of 
the twenty-one principal cities and towns recorded by the 
eleventh census in Illinois are located upon rivers, and their 
business blocks are built upon alluvial lowlands. Fifteen 
of the eighteen recorded cities and towns in Indiana were 
founded upon alluvial plains, though several have since 
extended partly upon adjacent uplands. The nucleus of 
every city and town recorded in Iowa was fixed upon a 
riparian plain, and more than half the urban population of 
the state today is confined to such plains. In Missouri all 
the leading cities are partly or wholly riparian. In Ohio, 
only a half dozen of the more prominent centers of pop- 
ulation stand upon uplands, though the larger cities orig- 
inating on the alluvial lands, have commonly encroached 
upon the adjacent hills. Two thirds of the cities and towns 
of Pennsylvania are built largely upon lowlands by the 
river sides. The eastern cities marking the "fall line" 
from New York to Richmond are essentially riparian, de- 
spite the dearth of alluvial deposits along the line of recent 
earth movement. If the 355 cities recorded by the eleventh 
census in the United States between New England and the 
one-hundredth meridian are grouped according to their 
situation with respect to waterways, 204, with an aggregate 
population of 5,593,340, are found to be riparian. There 
are fifty-nine seaboard and lakeside cities, with a population 
of 880,043; and twenty-eight unclassified cities aggregating 
675,676 in population. Excluding the seaboard and un- 
classified cities, there remains 48 centers with an aggre- 
gate population of 6,033,806, of which eighty-nine per cent 
is riparian; or, including the various classes, there is a 216 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
total urban population of 13,989,529, of which forty per 
cent is riparian. The concentration of population on the 
alluvial lands is even more notable among towns and villages 
than in the larger cities, which have commonly outgrown 
the valleys and spread over the adjacent uplands. The 
smooth plains are favorite sites for homesteads and ham- 
lets, for villages and country towns; the most practicable 
railway routes traverse them; river navigation and indus- 
tries that depend upon water power attract capital and 
labor toward them; the most fertile soils are found upon 
them; and so the banks of the waterways bristle with lesser 
as well as with greater aggregations of populations. Sum- 
marizing the values published by the census bureau and 
the well-known facts of like import with respect to smaller 
towns and individual residences, it seems safe to estimate 
that fully twenty-five or thirty per cent of the population 
of the United States is crowded upon the fourteen per cent 
of alluvial lowland. If this estimate is just, then the den- 
sity of lowland population is about twice as great as that 
of upland population. In view of certain conditions to 
which alluvial lands are subject, it would be surprising 
even to find the population uniformly distributed over low- 
lands and uplands; it is doubly surprising to find men 
massed on the lowlands. 
The river makes its own bed. Common observation shows 
that streams of high declivity and rapid flow attack their 
banks and bottoms, now here, now there, and thus progres- 
sively corrode their channels; that streams of low declivity 
and sluggish flow deposit sand and mud along their banks 
or on their bottoms, now here, now there, and thus pro- 
gressively fill their channels with silt; and that streams of 
medium activity and moderate flow sometimes corrode their 
sides and bottoms, and again deposit comminuted matter EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
217 
thereon, thus modifying their channels through a combi- 
nation of processes. Moreover, it is a matter of common 
observation that such changes in channels are most rapidly 
affected during high-water stages, so that the aspect of a 
trout brook or a mill stream, with its banks of gravel, its 
glistening cascades, and darkening pools, its grassy banks 
and flower-fringed meadows, may be completely changed by 
a single freshet. 
These common observations have been extended and sys- 
temized by students of the earth and its features; and 
it has become a fundamental tenet in geologic doctrine, 
that not only the channel but the valley in which it 
lies, is fashioned by the stream. There was a time, 
indeed, when pioneer geologists, misled by the mag- 
nitude of the work and the minitude of the agent, 
ascribed the origin of the valleys to rock-fissuring pro- 
duced by profound earth movement; but since the days 
of Lyell the competence of streams to excavate the broadest 
valleys and the deepest and the most notable canyons has 
been recognized. The chasm in which the Hudson breaks 
through the highlands - albeit possibly located by a line 
of earth fracture -• was excavated by the same river that 
now sluggishly washes the lofty cliffs; the gorge of the 
Mississippi from St. Paul to Dubuque is the product of 
corrosion unaided by rock-fracture; the Grand Canyon of 
the Colorado, foremost among the wonders of a wonderful 
mountain land, was carved by the sand-reddened river 
despite the obstructions thrown in its course by earth move- 
ment. This appalling chasm is commonly regarded as the 
most impressive illustration of the efficiency of rivers in 
trenching the rocky earth crust, yet attentive reading of 
the geologic record shows that even lesser rivers have 
wrought even greater results. Thus, during a long-past 218 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
age the Susquehanna and the Potomac not only carved 
canyons twice as deep, though perhaps never so steep of 
wall, as that of Colorado, but continued their work until 
the cliffs, spurs, ridges, plateaus, divides, and indeed nearly 
all of the vast rock mass rising above river level, were borne 
bit by bit into the Atlantic to build a new land, part of 
which lies between the "fall line" and the coast. The 
mountain peaks are shaped by the storm, the mountain 
gorges are carved by storm waters; the rugged hills and 
crags are rugged, not because of earth movements, but be- 
cause of the activity of running water stimulated by steep- 
ness of slope; and the broader valleys are more slowly fash- 
ioned by the streams winding through their bottoms. 
There is an important result of river work whose origin 
may be recognized through observation or deduced from 
geologic principles with equal facility; namely, the alluvial 
plain by which the channel is commonly flanked. The over- 
flowing Nile spreads a veneer of sediment over its delta, 
and the Egyptian fields are annually fertilized thereby. 
Before the advent of man the floods of the Mississippi in 
like manner distributed sediment over the broad delta plain 
stretching from the mouth of the Ohio to the Gulf; and 
there are today intelligent planters in the levee-protected 
parishes of Louisiana who hold that the interests of the 
delta country would be best promoted by allowing the 
great river and its tributaries to discharge their waters 
and to spread their sediment freely over the adjacent low- 
lands. Lesser rivers in like manner overflow their riparian 
plains during freshets, dropping sand and silt in depres- 
sions and on gentle slopes; and during the great flood 
which comes once in a decade or once in a century, the 
entire plain is flooded from bluff to bluff, and the re- 
ceding waters leave great sheets of river mud, together with EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
219 
some fresh-cut channels and more banks and bars of silt. 
It is true that streams of exceptionally great declivity, such 
as mountain torrents, corrode their channels so rapidly 
that each freshet falls short of the last; but these are com- 
monly without alluvial plains, and so form a class by them- 
selves. It is patent to every observant resident on rivers 
and smaller streams conditioned in their usual way, that 
the freshet waters encroach upon alluvial plains, now here, 
now there, sometimes over their entire extent, and 
that, while part of the material is carried far away, 
part is transported only a few rods, and some that has 
been brought from a distance is deposited. It is evi- 
dent, too, to the resident who continues his observations for 
a decade or a generation, that the degradation, shifting, and 
deposition of material is commonly such as to preserve the 
general form of the plain, and to maintain its general rela- 
tion to the low-water channel on the one hand and to the 
bounding bluffs on the other. 
The flood sediments of the Nile and Mississippi, and the 
analagous deposits of other rivers, are sands, silts, muds, 
perhaps gravels, assorted and distributed by currents and 
eddies in a manner depending upon the configuration of 
the overflowed plains. Commonly these same materials are 
identical in character with those of which the entire plain 
is built, and analogous to them in assortment and distribu- 
tion. The fisherman by the river side and the husbandman 
in the riparian field, as well as the systematic student, 
recognize the substantial identity of the older and newer 
alluvial deposits, and ascribe both to the agency of the 
river. The fellah on the Nile, the planter on the lower 
Mississippi, and the trucker on the mill stream perceive that 
the annual deposits assume the form of sheets of stratified 
sediment, here coarse, there fine, now thick, now thin, some- 220 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
times interrupted, and that successive sheets may be sep- 
arated by layers of vegetal matter. He commonly per- 
ceives, too, that these structural conditions of the surface 
are repeated in all directions in the mass of material that 
constitutes the alluvial plain. 
All observant dwellers on alluvial lands are aware that 
the immediate river banks are higher than the more re- 
mote portions of the plain. During freshets the water is 
charged with detritus, and in the swift current of the main 
channel this detritus, being kept afloat by the whirls and 
eddies of the raging waters, is transported freely; but as 
the flood rises, and as the waters escape from the channel 
over the plain, the current is checked by the shoaling of the 
water and by the brakes of the bottoms, and so the con- 
tained detritus is in part deposited. Now this deposition 
takes place most rapidly over the lands in the immediate 
vicinity of the main channel, and in consequence the im- 
mediate banks, being most rapidly built up, soon come to 
be the highest lands in the entire plain. The land may 
even incline from the river banks to the bases of the distant 
bluffs. Thus are built, low, broad, natural levees like those 
of the intricate network of tributaries and distributaries in 
the Mississippi delta; and thus the stream channels are 
rendered so unstable that, as time passes, they shift from 
side to side of the alluvial zone. 
The secular shifting of great river channels is recorded 
in the conformation of the plains. The abandoned chan- 
nels of the upper Mississippi, for example, are plainly 
marked by "sloughs," or minor channels, through which 
part of the current passes; by meandering moats clogged 
with alluvial sands at one end or both ends; by crescentric 
lakes completely dissevered from the main and minor chan- 
nels; and by irregular depressions and morasses scattered EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
221 
here and there over the plain. That these are the tracts 
left by the wandering river, is shown by the observations 
of the river pilot as well as by the inferences of the geolo- 
gist. When the channel is first diverted, during some great 
flood, a part of the water flows for a time through the old 
channel; but the new was selected because it offered a lower 
level or a shorter course, and it therefore gains on the old 
until the greater volume of water flows through it. The 
new passage is rapidly widened by the swift current, while 
in the old the current lags and the indolent waters drop 
their sand and silt; so the old channel becomes a slough. 
Then, during some freshet, the shifting currents build a bar 
across an extremity of the old channel, and it is finally 
abandoned save during the highest floods. As time goes 
on, the other extremity is dammed, and the slough becomes 
a moat. Next, the ever-wandering river shifts far upon its 
plain, and may leave the moat miles away from its main 
channel, to be gradually transformed into a lake of clear 
water, perhaps fed by two or three streamlets and a dozen 
springs from the adjacent bluffs, and drained into the main 
river, or into one of its numberless sloughs, through a deep- 
cut runnel in the alluvial sands and silts. Finally the 
lake is filled with the sediment delivered by its streamlets 
and brought over its banks during freshets, and only an 
indefinite impression and a meandering stream may remain 
to tell of its former existence. Thus each cycle of shifting 
is completed. 
One of the earliest generalizations in geologic doctrine 
grew out of observations on the manner in which rivers 
build alluvial plains. As such plains lie within reach of 
the river and suffer overflow by freshets, or at least by great 
floods, geologists have applied to the alluvial plain the 
name "flood plain." Nature has thus inscribed in the 222 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
valley of each river, and in that of every smaller stream 
that is conditioned in the usual way, a conspicuous and in- 
effaceable flood mark. This flood mark is the fertile bottom 
land of which the pioneer dreamed, the alluvial land upon 
which the early settlement was founded and on which the 
modern city is located, the flat lowland over which the 
engineer builds railroads, the zone upon which population 
is massed. 
The flood plains of scores of rivers are annually over- 
flowed. The floods of the Nile are seldom disastrous, be- 
cause the customs and industries of the fellahin are ad- 
justed to the conditions growing out of the remarkably 
uniform cycle through which that river annually passes. 
The great rivers of the Orient are more erratic, and once 
or twice, or even five times, in each decade the capricious 
Ganges, the powerful Brahmapootra - "terrible son of the 
Brahma" - the muddy Yang-tse-Kiang, and the loess-tint- 
ed Hoang Ho, burst their barriers, devastating the lowlands 
and destroying human lives by scores, or even by thousands. 
The annual cycle of the Mississippi is far less uniform than 
that of the Nile, the floods vary widely in date and in 
height, and prevision is handicapped by the levees, both 
natural and artificial, which protect the lowlands - until 
the crevasse opens. Yet the customs and industries of the 
delta country are so well adjusted to the conditions grow- 
ing out of the variable regimen of the river that the losses 
from overflow involve property rather than life. The 
planters, with their families and dependents, resort to up- 
land habitations, take refuge on the higher levees and 1 ' tow 
heads," or fly to the "gin houses," whose strong supports 
of framed timbers resist the force of the flood. And the 
watchful planter, who has learned the strength and weak- 
ness of the mighty river, controls it by a sandbag here, EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
223 
a barrow of earth there, a handful of knot grass yonder; 
for if the feeble but timely check be not applied, the waters 
quickly gain such strength as to defy the skill of the en- 
gineers and the wealth of states, as at the Bonnet Carre, 
the Nita, and other crevasses. 
Every day experience shows that floods are not confined 
to the greater rivers. They affect as well the smaller ones 
and their tributaries, down to mill streams and even to 
storm runnels; and the smaller streams are so many that 
their aggregate effect of floods is large. Once or oftener 
during each decade a cry of distress comes from Cincinnati, 
for the basements of business houses built upon the flood 
plain are inundated and the residents of the city front are 
driven from their homes by the prodigious floods of the 
Ohio; once or twice in each decade East St. Louis and the 
part of St. Louis standing on the Mississippi alluvium are 
flooded; from three to five times in each decade the trans- 
Mississippi traffic at Dubuque is stopped because the flood 
waters submerge the railway tracks and extinguish the 
fires of the locomotive. And no year passes without records 
of disaster in dozens of towns and villages built on the flood 
plains of smaller streams. And the flood not only works 
destruction directly; it sows the germs of malarial and 
enteric disorders by which human life is shortened. 
The experience of a decade shows that occasionally ex- 
ceptional floods inundate a part of the flood plain which 
the usual vernal freshet barely reaches. On May 27, 1881, 
passengers on the first train south from Council Bluffs after 
a memorable freshet in the Missouri River, viewed an im- 
pressive but pitiable spectacle. The extensive bottom land 
was plastered with mud and sand; sites of farm houses 
were marked by debris and by ruined chimneys; staunch 
barns were undermined, tilted, and rent with unequal set- 224 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
tling, their doors and lower planking were torn away, and 
banks and bars of rotting grain marked the direction of the 
flood; the great corn-cribs, hundreds of feet in length, were 
represented only by heaps of half-decayed and sprouting 
corn; the fences were reduced, here to scattered timber, 
there to tangled hoops of barbed wire clinging to the 
stronger posts and clasping the carcasses of cows, horses, 
and swine; the railway track of a month before was scat- 
tered to right and left in hundred-yard links of rails and 
ties, in bent and twisted rails still grasped by a tie or two, 
or in scattered ties and broken fish-plates - in short, the 
fair land of a month before was replaced by a picture of 
utter desolation, and the air was poisoned by reeking mud, 
rotting grain, and decaying flesh. This is but one of the 
many reminders that man may not encroach upon the 
domain of a river with impunity, 
The recorded experience of a century shows that floods 
unprecedented in memory or in written history sometimes 
come. Throughout May, 1889, the rainfall in the drainage 
basin of the Potomac River was exceptionally heavy and 
continuous, and the ground became saturated to an excep- 
tional degree; and during the closing days of the month 
heavy showers or persistent rains chanced to fall in the bas- 
ins of the main stream and its tributaries in such order that 
the resulting freshets culminated simultaneously. The con- 
sequence was an unprecedented flood. The water rose from 
six to eight feet above the level reached by the highest flood 
previously known; the canal and railway skirting the river 
were washed out at many points, so that the traffic was 
stopped for many days on the railways, and the canal was 
so nearly destroyed that it has not yet been restored. Lock- 
houses supposed to be far beyond the reach of the highest 
freshets, and locks supposed to be indestructible, were EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
225 
swept away. Over the site of 1 ' the log dam " - a structure 
at Great Falls designed to protect the canal from great 
freshets - standing above all previous flood marks and 
above the flood plain of the river as well, the water rushed 
in a seething torrent seven or eight feet deep, sweeping 
away the woodwork and most of the masonry of the struc- 
ture. The broad slack-water estuary at Washington was 
transformed into a rushing tide which the most powerful 
steam tugs were unable to stem, and which carried schoon- 
ers into the broader estuary below in spite of the aid of 
tugs and anchors; and the water rose in the city until boats 
plied on Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol and the 
Treasury, and until cellars and basements were flooded 
and stores of goods were destroyed in the very heart of the 
capital. Measurements showed that the discharge was at 
the rate of more than 600,000 cubic feet per second - a 
discharge at least one and one-third times that of the 
greatest freshet previously recorded, nearly forty times 
that of the average for the memorably wet season of 1889 
and nearly 600 times that of the minimum low water in the 
same river. Fully to appreciate this flood, it should be 
remembered that while the drainage basin of the upper 
Potomac is less than one per cent of that of the Mississippi, 
the discharge during this flood closely approached the mean 
annual outpour of the great river. The builder of a bridge 
is not satisfied to make his bridge strong enough to bear the 
expected load, but provides for the unexpected by applying 
' ' a factor of safety, ' ' of three, or five, or even ten times the 
anticipated strain; and unprecedented floods like that of 
the Potomac in 1889 remind builders on the flood plains of 
rivers that their structures too require a factor of safety. 
The lessons of a millennium of observation, those of 
scientific principle, and those of current experience, are all 226 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
the same; but they are either carelessly conned or reckless- 
ly ignored by short-sighted men. The spider weaves her 
web across the well-trodden pathway, to be rent and de- 
stroyed by the next passer; the ant, despite its high insect 
intelligence, persistently burrows in the roadway, unchecked 
by passing wheels, until its little life is crushed out; the field 
bunting busies herself in building a nest in the stubble, 
regardless of the approaching turns of the plow, which must 
shortly wreck the tiny domicile; the squirrel hides his hoard 
of nuts a rod from the brink of an advancing railway cut, 
where it must be undermined on the morrow. Better things 
might be expected of reasoning man; yet, with equal faith 
in the fixity of the earth and with equal blindness to the 
inevitable, he builds his house upon the river sands below 
nature's unmistakable flood mark. The contemporaries of 
Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett located their cabins on 
the flood plains a yard below lodged driftwood, and their 
descendants still defend the preemption despite the annual 
inundation. Along the Ohio and in the lower Mississippi 
region, scores of pioneers make their homes on the very 
spots on which their flood-borne flatboats grounded, and 
were naively surprised when the waters of the succeeding 
spring washed their floors. During the past summer a 
residence on an island in Reelfoot Lake was placed ten feet 
above low water mark, while the mud of the 1890 flood still 
coated the neighboring cypress boles eighteen feet above 
the lake. Verily, the short-sighted dumb creatures may 
find exalted precedents! 
The first requisite for protection against a maleficent 
agency is just appreciation of its magnitude; the second is 
acquaintance with its mode of operation. The magnitude 
of the evils of fire, famine, war, and pestilence has long been 
appreciated, and their modes of operation have been so EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
227 
thoroughly studied that means of protection have been 
devised; but, while the magnitude of the flood was appre- 
ciated in the olden days, its operations were not analyzed 
until men, blinded by the conceit born of successful con- 
quest in other directions, forgot its power and crowded into 
its proper paths, much in the same wTay that the devotees 
of a ghastly cult threw themselves before their Juggernaut. 
Yet the ways of the flood are now so well known that its 
ravages may be easily escaped, if only its potency is ap- 
preciated. River floods may be controlled, expensively by 
storage reservoirs for storm waters and melted snows (which 
should be utilized also for irrigating lands and as sources 
of power), partially by forest-planting about head-waters 
and by deforesting the deltas and lower flood plains, and 
temporarily by levees and cut-offs. But, under existing 
social and commercial conditions, these methods, which 
might indeed be applied locally, will probably not be adopt- 
ed, either during this century or in the next, over the 
150,000 square miles of bottom lands skirting the minor 
rivers and mill streams in the eastern United States. Still, 
floods may be successfully opposed or escaped. Railways 
and wagon roads may and must be laid on the flood plains 
of rivers; but the embankments, and trestles, and bridges 
should be raised not only above the latest freshet mark, but 
well above the great natural flood mark found in the plain 
itself, and the reciprocal effects of embankments and other 
structures on future freshets should be cautiously reckoned. 
Farms may be and ought to be located on fertile bottom 
lands enriched by annual or decennial overflow; but the 
farmer should dig deep for his foundations and build his 
superstructures strong and high. On every flood plain of 
eastern America he should provide for loss of crop and 
fences once in three, five, or ten years; and both common 228 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
humanity and economic policy urge that dumb beasts should 
be pastured and fed on the uplands, so that the fertile bot- 
toms may be devoted to their best use, namely, the produc- 
tion of plant crops. Cities and towns ought not to be 
built on the flood-ridden and miasmatic lowlands; yet as 
they have been in the past and will be in the future, the 
townsman, like the farmer, should build high and strong, 
and hold himself ready to remove his family and to carry 
his goods to upper stories. And the flood-swept bottom 
lands of the American rivers afford opportunity for a kind 
of business curiously neglected in the past, though destined 
to success at no distant day; namely, insurance against 
floods. 
The great desideratum is general recognition of the facts 
- which are demonstrated by the observations of thousands 
and gainsaid by none, though ignored by the multitudes - 
that rivers bear their own flood marks in the alluvial plains 
by which they are skirted and that men occupy these plains 
at their peril. 
Symtomatic Development of Cancer11 
So little is apparently known of the external symptoms 
of internal cancer in its early stages that any contribution 
of attentive observation would seem useful. The following 
personal case is fairly paralleled by another which need 
not be described; and the parallelism would seem to give 
some weight to the inferences. 
During my second expedition to Seriland in the autumn 
of 1895 my party had occasion to climb Sierra Seri, the 
culminating range of the region. After leaving the wagon 
camp the party moved on foot (with two pack animals) 
ii Reprint from Science, September 13, 1912. EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
229 
over some ten miles of gently upsloping plain to the foot- 
hills, where the real elimb began; the pace taken was rather 
rapid and I was somewhat but not excessively tired on 
reaching the foothills, where the pack horses were to be sent 
back. Within a few minutes after starting the climb I ob- 
served a condition novel in my experience, i. e., inability to 
life the feet (especially the left) more than a few inches 
above the level at which I stood. There was no pain, scarce- 
ly any discomfort - merely the inability to raise the feet 
without help from the hands. Assuming it a manifestation 
of exhaustion, I halted the party for a time and ate lunch; 
but, on resuming, the condition almost immediately re- 
turned. Greatly puzzled, I abandoned the climb and started 
back with the Indian in charge of the pack-horses, finding 
no difficulty in going down-slope. Within fifteen minutes I 
was startled by a call from one of the remainder of the 
party making the climb, "El Gringo es muerto [the Amer- 
ican is dead]." Even without explanation I knew this 
referred to W. D. Johnson, topographer of the expedition; 
and stimulated by the apparent tragedy I immediately 
turned to resume the climb to the point of the disaster - 
but despite the intense excitement, I had not climbed fifty 
steps before the former inability to lift the feet returned. 
So I remained in a virtually helpless condition (sending 
my Indian up to the climbing party with specific inquiries) 
for perhaps half an hour; when the Indian returned with 
the gratifying intelligence that "El Gringo" had come to 
life and had gone on up the mountain - for it appeared 
he had merely swooned under the stress of the long walk 
and the early stages of a stiff climb, and, recovering, had 
gone on with his accustomed persistence. This episode 
marked the first observed abnormality in locomotory powers 
which had been above the average. 
The next noteworthy manifestation appeared during the 230 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
expedition of 1900, when I frequently found myself unable 
to raise the left foot to the stirrup on mounting - indeed 
it became necessary generally to modify the attitude in 
mounting so as to permit giving a hitch upward to the left 
foot with the hand. Sometimes, too, on dismounting the left 
leg partially gave way; so that I acquired the habit of swing- 
ing out of the saddle in such a manner as to land on both 
feet. During subsequent months in office work I noticed an 
abnormal condition, although I failed at the time to associate 
it with that experienced in the field, i. e., on rising after 
occupying my chair for a considerable time, either a sharp 
pain or a sensation of weakness was experienced in the left 
groin. This condition continued until the habit was ac- 
quired of rising with care and putting the weight at first 
wholly on the right foot. 
In 1902 I noticed that the foot-fall sounds of my 
two feet as I walked the pavement were unlike; and 
I made considerable vain effort, sometimes with the 
help of friends, to find the reason for the asymmetry in 
movement indicated by the diversity in sound. This ab- 
normality was not then associated with the abnormal con- 
ditions observed in field and office; but when within a year 
I noticed that the sole of the left shoe wore out twice as 
rapidly as that of the right I began to associate the several 
conditions, though without forming any idea as to cause. 
In 1906 I suffered an epididymitis on the left; and in 
casting about for the cause of this attack ... I gladly 
welcomed the occasion to have an expert blood examination 
made by a practitioner recently from an expert school of 
note in London. The examination . . . gained my con- 
fidence by detecting evidences of a typhoid fever through 
which I had passed some years previously; but it left the 
epididymitis totally unexplained. EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS 
231 
About this time I made a trip through the Sierra Nevada 
region, largely in company with Gifford Pinchot, then 
Chief Forester, and J. A. Holmes, now Director of Mines; 
and in the course of the trip was much embarrassed by in- 
ability to climb or to ascend slopes of more than moderate 
degree - the trouble lying in the same inability to lift the 
feet first observed in Seriland. 
In the autumn of 1909 while in field work in Washington 
state I noticed uncertainty in coordination of the control 
and movement of the left foot, especially in passing over 
slippery rocks or logs; and on one occasion suffered an acci- 
dent of some severity due to a needless slip of the left foot. 
About this time also I noticed a slight bladder difficulty 
which continued increasingly for over a year - when . . . 
in April, 1911, I underwent an operation which revealed a 
cancerous condition in which the carcinomatous tissue was 
of an exceptionally hard type, and too extended for com- 
plete extirpation. Recovery was tedious and complicated, 
and within a few weeks after leaving the hospital an epidi- 
dymitis on the right developed - this time with little doubt 
in my mind as to the cause. The symptom of weakness 
and pain in the left groin also recurred with increased in- 
tensity, and a hitching gait was developed. The bladder 
never became completely normal; and in January, 1912, the 
lower intestine evidently became affected, producing assimi- 
lative difficulties of growing gravity. 
In April, 1912 - a year after the operation - a condition 
gradually developed in the tendons of the left knee similar 
to that observed in the groin - the twinge of pain on sud- 
dent movement, inability to exercise full control, etc. The 
general burden on the system attending the abnormal de- 
velopment was noticed (without realization of the cause) 
about 1904, and unceasingly thereafter. 232 
LIFE OF W J McGEE 
Any significance this record may have lies merely in 
bringing out the association between a series of obscure and 
puzzling symptoms developed in the course of several years, 
which finally seem to have found explanation in the can- 
cerous growth revealed well toward the end of the series. 
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LIFE OF W J McGEE 
Reconnaisance Map of U. S. Am. Geol., Vol. 16, 1895, 
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Geologic Map of U. S. and Canada. Longman's New 
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Relative Positions of Forest Bed and Associated Drift 
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Superposition of Glacial Drift Upon Residuary Clays. 
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The "Laterite" of the Indian Peninsula. Geol. Mag., 
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Additional Oservations on Iowa Kames. Iowa Acad, of 
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The Geology of Iowa Soils. Iowa State Horticultural 
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Shale and Davis' "Glaciers." Sci., vol. 2, 1881, pp. 581- 
584; 624-630. BIBLIOGRAPHY 
235 
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