THE

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE

[FOURTH SERIES. ]

op

JOSHPH BARRELL.

(1869-1919)

In the passing of Joseph Barrell, American geology
has lost a leader, and one who promised to stand as
high as the highest. His period of preparation and of
storing up fundamental experience was back of him, and
had he lived twenty years longer, it seems clear that
he would have become the chief exponent in the sub- |
jects of geologic sedimentation, metamorphism, the geo- .
logic bearings of isostasy, and the genesis of the earth.
T. C. Chamberlin writes: ‘‘We had come to look upon
him as one of the most promising leaders in the deeper
problems of earth science,’’ and R. S. Woodward adds
that ‘‘Geophysics has suffered a great loss.’’ John M.
Clarke says: ‘‘I feel that the loss to geological science
in this country at this critical time is very great.’’ And
in the opinion of W. M. Davis: ‘‘The tragic news of
Barrell’s death is a truly overwhelming disaster for
American geology. We place him foremost in our
science. ’’ |

Professor Barrell’s death is a severe blow to his col-
leagues at Yale, following so soon after that of Pro-
fessor Irving. Coming to us as a young man, we have
seen Barrell grow into a maturity that exceeded our
hopes and more than justified our choice of him to fill
the chair of structural geology at this University. He
was a power among us, and it was around him that our
graduate courses in geology were built. Personally we
are bereft of a friend whose place can not be filled,—one
whose simplicity of nature and strength of character
were unique. His wonderful fund of knowledge was

Am Jour. Sct.—FourtH Series, Vou. XLVIII, No. 286.—Ocroser, 1919.
18

252 Joseph Barrell.

always gladly placed at our disposal, and his construc-
tive criticism and fertility of suggestion have been the
stimulus to more of our work than we shall ever realize.
We rejoice that the privilege was ours of working with ~
him, and in our hearts there will always remain the
grateful memory of his inspiring personality.

Barrell’s death occurred in New Haven, Connecticut,
on May 4, 1919, after a week’s illness with pneumonia
and spinal meningitis. He leaves a wife, Lena Hopper
Bailey, and four sons, Joseph, Herbert Bailey, Wiliam
Colburn, and Richard Lull. Standing 5 feet 10-5 inches
in height, of the blue-eyed Nordic type, with a full head
of wavy light-brown hair, he was spare of build and yet
of great muscular strength, the ‘‘strong man’’ of his
class at Lehigh. Once seen, he was easily remembered,
and he was quickly picked out in a crowd. This was
due in part to his tall slender build, his long and awk-
ward stride, and his confident bearing, but more espe-
cially to the strength of character reflected in his large
features, particularly the wide mouth and long, narrow
nose concave in profile. He prided himself on the
longevity of his ancestors, and believed. he also would
attain to great age.

Modest and optimistic, with a strong independence of
mind, he prized true worth highly, and was easily aroused
to point out shams and errors, as he does tellingly in
his review of ‘‘The Place of Origin of the Moon,’’ in
‘‘Schaeberle and Geological Climates,’’ and more espe-
cially in ‘‘Fair Play and Toleration in Criticism.’’
Simple in attire and fond of simple living, his intel-
lectual ideals were of the highest, and it was his plan
that his sons should have the best of collegiate training.
An omnivorous reader and a hard worker, he never tired
of unravelling the intricacies of earth structure. Yet
with all his own work, he was always ready to help his
colleagues and students, and those who had problems to
solve found him ever fertile in suggestion. No man ever
had better developed the power of detachment from his
own views than did Barrell. He could examine his con-
clusions from all angles. As Davis says, ‘‘He inter-
ested himself in thinking about how he thought, and
tried to evaluate the results of his thinking. He was
as careful and eritical in this respect as he was fertile
and ingenious in mental inventions.’’ His writings show

Joseph Barrell. 258

nim to be a successful teacher, in that he prepares the
reader for what is to come and then sets forth the pro-
cesses and principles that underlie the results sought
for. This is why most of his studies are detailed and
lengthy.

» Finally, Barrell was above all a staunch American and
a believer in American science, as may be seen in his
paper on ‘‘Sources and Tendencies in American Geol-
-ogy,’’ in which he expresses the conviction that our
country will continue the ‘‘place of world leadership in
geologic science’’ which it has maintained since 1890.

The name Barrell, spelled in many ways, had its origin
among the ancient land-holding knights of Normandy,
and by them was introduced into England in 1066 at
the time of the battle of Hastings and William the
Conqueror. The Barrells used to be numerous through-
out the south of England, but are now confined mostly
‘to Suffolk and Herefordshire. The first American of
the name was George Barrell, a cooper by trade,
who arrived at Boston from St. Michaels, South HKlm-
ham, Suffolk, in 1637, and died there in 1643. He be-
came a freeman of the Boston parish on May 10, 1648,
and owned a house on what is now the southeast side of
Hanover Street between Elm and Washington. It is
interesting to note here that at this time Massachusetts
Colony had a population of about 16,000. In November,
1638, George Barrell bought his home for £28, and soon
added to it about a half acre of land for which he paid
£3 more. At this time he was one of the 246 land-owners
of Boston. He had but two sons, and one of them, John,
also a cooper by trade, married Mary, daughter of Wil-
liam Colburn, one of the twelve original founders of
the colony. It is from this union that have sprung all
of the American Barrells of colonial origin.

Until recently, the Barrells were in the main sea-going
people, ship-owners and merchants. The second John
Barrell was a mariner, and we learn that his son John
was a well-educated man and a: successful shipping mer-
chant. Professor Barrell in his genealogy says of John
III: ‘‘The hazards of travel and of residence in tropical
lands, however, told severely upon their number, so that
notwithstanding several large families of sons, his de-
scendants bearing the name have remained few in number
and widely scattered.”’

254 Joseph Barrell,

The most widely known and wealthiest was Joseph
Barrell of Boston (1739/40-1804), after whom the sub-
ject of our sketch, his great-grandson, was named. He
married three times and had twenty children. This
Joseph Barrell was an original thinker and a good
speaker and writer. He is said to have ‘‘early espoused
and firmly maintained the cause of his country,’’ and
for a time represented the town of Boston in the State
Legislature. He lived well, and it was in his splendid
home that General Washington was entertained during
his visit to Boston. He was also one of the group of
men who fitted out the ship ‘‘Columbia’’ and sent her
into the Pacific, where in 1792 her crew discovered the
Columbia River. Later they purchased of the Indians
the territory about this stream, and in this way began
the colonization of what has since grown to be the
northern Pacific states of the American Union.

The father of Professor Barrell, Henry Ferdinand, -
was born in New York City, October 3, 1833. His son
says he ‘‘grew up with a strongly developed taste for
books, for nature, and for life in the country.’’ Henry
Ferdinand’s father bought him a farm near Warwick,
Orange County, New York, and it was here that he met
Elizabeth Wisner, whom he married on April 15, 1858.
The Wisners, originally from Switzerland, had been land
holders for 150 years and officers in the colonial and
later wars. In 1864, Henry Ferdinand sold this farm
and bought another of seventy acres at New Providence,
New Jersey, and here from 1875 to 1895 he was chair-
man of the trustees of the public schools in which the
subject of this biography received his primary educa-
tion. He was also interested in the public school library,
which later became the town library. He had nine chil-
dren, of which Joseph was the fifth child and the fourth
son.

Joseph was born at New Providence on December 15,
1869. As a child, he was more interested in books on
natural history, astronomy, and history, than in litera-
ture. His mother, now eighty-one years old, and after
whom he takes, relates in a personal communication that
‘< Joseph was always a good son and student, and a great
reader. When but a lad he would get down a volume
of the Encyclopedia Britannica and sit for hours reading
it. Nothing distracted his attention. When he was tired

Joseph Barrell. 255

from sitting in one position, he would turn around, put
his book on the chair, kneel down, and continue to read.
When he was about ten years old, his father bought him
a planisphere, and often at night he would take it and
a book on astronomy, along with a lantern, and then
he on his back gazing at the stars and so learning their
names with the use of the planisphere. Joseph attended
the public school in New Providence until he was six-
teen years old. The school combined grammar and high
school studies, but very few scholars went further than
the lower grades. He had two excellent principals, Mr.
J. W. Kenneday and Mr. W. C. Armstrong, both college-
bred men, and they took him through the higher studies
necessary for college entrance. His elder brother Robert
was then at Lehigh, and we could not afford the expense
of two boys at college at the same time, so Joseph passed
the examination for a teacher’s certificate and taught a
~ small school near home during the school year 1886-1887.
His salary was $200, but as “he boarded at home with-
out charge, he saved that amount towards college ex-
pemnses. "The following year he attended Stevens Pre-
paratory School at Hoboken, New Jersey, and won a
scholarship for Stevens Institute, but preferred a col-
lege course at Lehigh University, which he began in
September, 1888. In those days tuition was free at
Lehigh, and Joseph probably did not receive more than
$1,000 from home during the four years he was an
undergraduate, the rest he earned. At home from boy-
hood he helped with the farm work during vacations.
We had a sulky plow which he rode. He early became
interested in geology, and when plowing would stop the
horses and examine every peculiar stone turned up. His
father was a naturalist and early interested his chil-
dren in birds, moths, butterflies, plants, and in fact
everything pertaining to nature.’’

As we have seen, Barrell took up collegiate work at
Lehigh in 1888, and was graduated four years later with
high honors. In 1893 he received from the same Uni-
versity the E.M. degree, in 1897 its M.S., and in 1916 its
honorary degree of Doctor of Science. In conferring
this last degree, President Drinker said: ‘‘ Joseph
Barrell.—Distinguished scientist, a recognized leader in
the study and teaching of geology, known and honored
for his research and writing in the science of the

256 Joseph Barrell.

earth in which the earth’s history has been written by
a mighty hand,—Lehigh is proud of the record of this
alumnus whose lifework has been so modestly yet so
ably done, and through whose work his Alma Mater has
been highly honored.’’

In a sketch of himself written for the twenty-fifth
anniversary of his class at Lehigh, Barrell says that in
1893, when he received his second degree, ‘‘jobs were
rare and I regarded myself as lucky in securing an
instructorship at Lehigh in mining and metallurgy.’’
This position he held for four years, teaching mechani-
eal drawing, mining and metallurgical design, making
shop visits to various metallurgical plants, and practic-
ing mine surveying with students in the anthracite mines.
‘‘Teaching is always better training for the teacher
than for the taught. After the reorganization of the
work in the first year I found some free time. The
summers were put in in gaining experience, parts of
the winters were employed in studying geology and
practical astronomy, for which Lehigh gave me the
degree of M.S. in 1897.’’ His thesis for this degree
is 419 pages long, and is entitled ‘‘The Geological
History of the Archean Highlands of New Jersey, in-
cluding their Extension in New York and Pennsylvania.’’

In 1898, Professor KH. H. Williams, Jr., then of Lehigh,
contemplating a division of his work, got the university
to consent to hold vacant for two years the position of
assistant professor of geology if Barrell would spend
that time at Yale in advanced work. Barrell says this
opportunity ‘‘was a most generous one on the part of
Professor Williams. I spent the following two collegi-
ate years at Yale and the summers working in Mon-
tana. for the U. 8. Geological Survey in general and
mining geology. . . . In 1900 Yale gave me the degree
of Ph.D., and thus a mining and metallurgical educa-
tion, combined with a panic year on leaving college,
had led logically into a career as a geologist. The
initial engineering education and the experience of the
eight years following 1892 formed the broad and solid
base on which the followi ing work has been built.’’

For three years after 1900, Barrell taught geology at
Lehigh, with biology as a side issue. In December, 1902,
he was married at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to Miss
Bailey, and the three summer months of.the year pre-

Joseph Barrell. 257
ceding were spent in Kurope with Professors Herbert
E. Gregory and Charles H. Warren, travelling ‘‘by foot,
by bicycle, and by third-class trains, the object being to
see the countries and study geology rather than to do
sightseeing in the cities. . . . Another turn in the wheel
of fate called me in 1903 to Yale.’’ In 1908 he was
promoted to a professorship and, as he says, was ‘‘fixed
as a staid professor. The position offers opportunity
for three kinds of work, one-third of the time teaching
geology to undergraduates in Yale College, one-third
teaching in the Graduate School future professional
geologists, and one-third of the year for research.
The latter gives the most visible measure of work
accomplished. ”’’

Barrell was a member of the Sigma Xi honorary sci-
entific society, and president of the Yale Chapter in
1911-1912. He was also elected to the Phi Beta Kappa.
chapter of the same University. He was a fellow of
the Geological Society of America, the Paleontological
Society, and the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, and a member of the American Acad-
emy of Arts and Sciences. Only a few days before his
death, there came to him the news of the highest honor
that can be given to an American scientist, election to
the National Academy of Sciences.

A man of science, and especially one deeply interested
im generalizations, should be endowed with imagination
under restraint. Barrell had a great deal of this quality,
and loved to speculate under the limitations of ‘‘mul-
tiple hypotheses.’’ It was a pleasure to listen to him
telling his children about gnomes and elves, and occa-
sionally, as in his ‘‘Central Connecticut in the Geo-
logic Past,’’ or ‘‘A Vision of Yale in 6010,’’ he allowed
himself flights of figurative writing.’’ The most humor-
ous of these only too rare instances appears in a dis-
cussion of a classification of marine deposits in the
Bulletin of the Geological Society of America. Here he
is presenting the view that materials foreign to the sea
may be rafted there by trees and ice. And then he
digresses into this: Man has become ‘‘an important
geological agent. The oxidized and inorganic débris
which he throws overboard from ships must already
mark out the steamer lanes, especially, across the abyssal
ocean bottoms. The unalterable materials which he con-

258 Joseph Barrell.

tributes most abundantly to the deposits of the sea are
coal ashes, broken dishes, and bottles. These are being
permanently incorporated in the crust. . . . The name
being recorded most widely and indelibly on the earth
at the present time is the name of him who made
Milwaukee famous.’’

As a teacher, Barrell was by far the most effective
with graduate students and geologists. The former
were enthusiastic in their praises of their instructor
in dynamical and structural geology, for he gave them
much that was not to be found in books. He succeeded
well with the undergraduates, but many of them found
him exacting in detail, and some would say that he was
‘‘too statistical,’’? referring to the detail that the first-
year man in college geology does not properly appreci-
ate. On the other hand, one of his graduate students,
Carl O. Dunbar, writes: ‘‘I shall prize even more than
ever those golden days when I sat before him watching
the twinkle in his eyes that so often foreshadowed a
briliant thought that was taking shape behind them.
His image will always be my conception of the thinker.’’
Another, Walter A. Bell, says: ‘‘There was our ad-
miration and appreciation of his keen analytical mind
which was balanced on the other hand by the breadth
of his judgment and the depth of his fertile imagina-
tion. But there was more than this—a more elusive
personal charm that bound us to him. He stimulated
the mind as cool mountain breezes and mountain heights
stimulate the senses. You rarély sensed this in his
writings, but always in conversation, in the class room,
or wherever you came into personal touch with his
intellectual vitality.’’

As a lecturer, Barrell was often called on by univer-
sities other than Yale. In 1912 he gave a series of five
lectures at the University of Illinois, dealing with ‘‘The
Bearing of Geology on Man’s Place in Nature,’’ and
‘‘The Measurements of Geologic Time.’’ In 1914 he
gave a course of three Sigma Xi lectures at the Uni-
versities of Missouri and Kansas. At Columbia he gave
two years later six lectures on isostasy, and at New
Haven he presented before both the Sigma Xi and Phi
Beta Kappa societies his interesting talk on ‘‘The
Habitability of Worlds.’’

As a geologic expert, Barrell testified in a number

Joseph Barrell. 259

of lawsuits, the chief ones being in relation to the Utah
Apex Mining Company of Bingham, Utah, the Federal
Mining and Smelting Company of Shoshone County,
Idaho, and the Hudson Blue Stone Company of Kings-
ton, New York. He made a good witness, not only be-
eause of his extensive knowledge of mining and geology,
but more especially because his testimony on the stand
could not be shaken by opposing counsel.

An analysis of Barrell’s writings shows that he pro-
gressed from simpler field relations to the most complex
of geologic problems. It is also clear that his best
results were obtained through generalizing from the
publications of others. He loved to assemble the field
and laboratory observations made by other workers in
comparison with his own, and then, subjecting them to
the test of multiple hypotheses, ascertain the probable
explanation of the facts under study.

Barrell’s first publications, in 1899 and 1900, deal
with mining, but since 1901 nearly all of them have had
to do with geology. His bibliography, if completed in
detail, would take note of about 150 notices and reviews
of books, nearly all of which appeared in this Journal.
Of these nineteen contain original matter, and are
therefore included in the bibliography. Nearly all deal
with isostasy, the origin of the earth, and metamor-
phism, subjects most familiar to Barrell. When he set
himself to write a review of a book, he produced a
lucid analysis, with discussions of the conclusion at-
tained by the author. Of short papers and longer
memoirs, there are fifty-one, totalling nearly 1,700 pages.
In addition, there are eight manuscripts in a more or
less finished condition, and some of these, after they ~
have been edited by his colleagues, will probably be
printed within a year.

Barrell’s earliest papers, as has been said, relate to
mine surveys. Then he took up areal geology, studies
of the relations of intrusive masses, and their altera-
tion and mineralization of the invaded geologic forma-
tions. After some years as an instructor of graduate
students in dynamic geology, his ideas in regard to
processes of erosion, sedimentation, the formation of
deltas, and the discerning of ancient climates in the
sediments took form, and it is on these subjects that he
next wrote. Nearly one-fourth of his publications fol-

260 Joseph Barrell.

low these lines. He also did much to build up the sci-
ence of paleoclimatology, and in paleogeography he |
established principles for discerning the shore-lines of
the seas and the extent and elevation of the ancient
lands that were furnishing the sediments. Had he lived
longer, he would have done much more, and an unusual
opportunity for stimulating others would have come to
him as chairman of the new Committee on Sedimenta-
tion in the National Research Council.

Probably Barrell’s most philosophic and most diffi-
eult work relates to isostasy. About one-sixth of his
publications have to do with the strength of the earth’s
erust. He states that ‘‘The larger features of the
earth’s surface are sustained in solid flotation,’’ and
‘‘the suberustal shell is subjected to but little else than
hydrostatic pressure.’’ Isostatic balance is, however,
not everywhere in adjustment, for ‘‘the outer erust is
very strong, capable of supporting individual mountains,
limited mountain ranges, and erosion features of cor-
responding magnitude.’’

The length of geologic time was another problem that
deeply interested Barrell. In his ‘“‘Rhythms and the
Measurements of Geologic Time,’’ he came to the con-
clusion that through the rhythmic oscillations of the
terrestrial processes which the earth has undergone, its
age is many times greater than even geologists in general
have imagined—in fact, that it is of the order of about
1,500 million years.

Another line of research which occupied Barrell was
the origin and genesis of the earth, and here he extended
in modified form the Chamberlin-Moulton planetesimal
hypothesis, 1. e., that the planets and their moons arose
out of the sun during a time of induced tidal disruption.
Some of his best work was to develop along this line.

While an undergraduate student at Lehigh, he be-
came interested in the physiography of the highlands of
New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He had studied Davis’s
works, but on account of the peculiarities of the rivers
that flow through the ridges and the many wind-gaps
in the region with which he was familiar, he concluded
that much of the area must have been beneath the sea
and been covered by sedimentary deposits. This was
in opposition to the prevalent view that the present
rivers were incised in the ‘‘Cretaceous peneplain.’’

Joseph Barrell. 261

His views were formulated for the first time in his
Lehigh thesis of 1897, but it was not until 1913 that he
presentéd the matter in more mature form before the
Geological Society of America. The supposed Mesozoic
peneplain of southern New England was in reality, he
said, ‘‘stairlike or terraced in its character, facing the
sea,’’ and of marine origin. It was this study that
was absorbing him most in recent years, and his magnum
opus on it was to appear a few years hence. There is
a manuscript dealing with it, but this represents only
a small part of what the final publication was intended
to be.

As Barrell also taught biology at Lehigh and historical
geology at Yale, it was natural that he should be in-
terested in paleontology. This side of his activity is
little known away from Yale, but his colleagues there
knew of his deep interest and knowledge in this line.
Animal structures interested him as mechanisms, and
he tried to see the operation of the laws of ‘mechanics
in them. And through his insight into paleoclimatology
he tried to discern the operation of the changing en-
vironment as the most important cause of organic
evolution.

Finally, in one of his last papers, ‘‘Sources and
Tendencies in American Geology,’’ he states that ‘‘geo-
logic research in the past generation has been passing
out of the qualitative stage and has partaken notably
of the quantitative character.’’ In this great advance
he names Dana, Hall, Marsh, Cope, Powell, Dutton, Gil-
bert, Davis, Chamberlin, Van Hise, and Irving as those
who will stand out as the great leaders of the earth
sciences in America.

REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS OF JOSEPH BARRELL.
Mining Engineering.

Barrell’s first experience as a mining engineer was
in 1894, while with the engineering corps of the Lehigh
Valley Coal Company, at Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania.
In June, 1897, he joined the engineering corps of the
Butte & Boston Mining Company of Butte, Montana,
and worked with them and the Boston & Montana Com-
pany for over a year. Of this work he says: ‘‘The
initial wages of three dollars a day seemed a recogni-

262 Joseph Barrell.

tion of some degree of ability until I learned that I was
indebted to the miners’ union which fixed the minimum
wage for laborers underground at that figure. The work
was interesting and involved difficult problems in the
plumbing of crooked shafts, and the measurements of
amounts of ore extracted from old workings.’’ These
experiences led to his publishing in Mines and Minerals
during 1899 and 1900 a series of ftve papers which he
wrote while at Yale studying for the doctor’s degree.
They have to do with the methods and errors of mine
surveying, instrumental errors, methods of keeping
stope books, and the choice of survey instruments. The
papers abound in mathematics and in diagrams, and
thus foreshadow two of Barrell’s future tendencies in
geology.
Regional Geology and Metamorphism.

During the summer months of 1899, Barrell was field
assistant to W. H. Weed of the U. S. Geological Survey,
mapping the ore-bearing formations of the Elkhorn Min-
ing district of Montana. This work, Barrell states, was
done alone, much of it on horseback, in the mountain-
ous region between Butte and Helena. It involved a
study of the great successive intrusions of molten rock
which in the early Tertiary had broken up the crust,
and brought in the wealth of gold, silver, and copper.
The first result of these field studies was the publication
of the ‘‘Geology and Ore Deposits of the Elkhorn Min-
ing District,’? by W. H. Weed, with an ‘‘ Appendix on
the Microscopical Petrography of the District,’? by
Joseph Barrell.

Having done this field work, Barrell returned to Yale
in the autumn of 1899 and made his results the basis
of a dissertation for the doctorate. With the guidance
of Professor L. V. Pirsson, he made an elaborate petro-
graphic study of the rocks, and these results, along with
the geology ‘of the Elkhorn area, formed the meee of :
his dissertation, which is entitled ‘‘The Geology of the
Elkhorn Mining District.’’

As a result of the Elkhorn work, Barrell in his dis-
sertation wrote a chapter on «The: Physical Effects of
Contact Metamorphism.’’ This is also the title of an
article published in this Journal in 1902, and abstracted
from the chapter referred to. In this paper Barrell

ai oseph Barrell. 263

discusses the changes of mass and volume through meta-
morphism, and states, among other things, that the
shrinkage in rock of certain compositions may be ‘‘from
25 to 50 per cent in volume, attended with the evolution
of great quantities of gases which at surface pressures
and temperatures would amount to several hundred times
the volume of the original sediments.’’

Metamorphism always remained one of Barrell’s fore-
most lines of work, and as late as 1914 he wrote a manu-
seript entitled ‘‘Relations of Subjacent Igneous In-
vasions to Regional Metamorphism.’’ It is hoped that
this paper may be printed in 1920.

In the summer of 1900, Barrell was again employed by
the U. S. Geological Survey in a two months’ recon-
naissance of the surface geology of the Deerlodge region
of Montana and of the underground geology of Butte.
The next year he began, again under the direction of
Mr. Weed, a three months’ geological survey of the sur-
face and underground geology of the Marysville mining
district, Montana. His results were worked out at Yale
and published as ‘‘Geology of the Marysville Mining
District, Montana: a Study of Igneous Intrusions and
Contact Metamorphism.’’ This region was one of the
noted gold-producing centers of Montana, and the mines
were situated around the margins of the irregular
Marysville bathylith of quartz diorite, whose surface
exposure is from half a mile to one and a half miles
broad and two and one-half miles long. This invasion
of igneous rock was primarily the cause of the location
of the mineral wealth in this district. It is ‘‘but 6 miles
at its nearest point from the exposed surface of the
far greater Boulder bathylith, a granitic mass which is
petrographically a quartz monzonite in normal com-
position. The Boulder bathylth possesses a general
rudely rectangular form, occupying about 60 miles in
latitude by about 35 in longitude, and holds within its
confines the mining city of Butte, from which for many
years past has poured a flood of silver and a quarter
of the world’s production of copper. Other smaller min-
ing centers also le within this large granitic area, while
such important ore deposits as those of Elkhorn and
Unionville, south of Helena, have been found about its
margin.’’

In regard to the Marysville report, which has now

264 Joseph Barrell.

become one of the classics in geology, Pirsson says of it
in this Journal: ‘‘The special character of the work
hes in the detailed investigation of the bathylithie body,
of the method of its intrusion, of its form, and of its
relations to the surrounding rock masses both past and
present.’’? The intrusion Barrell could not explain by the
accepted methods, and did so by a new theory, that of
magmatic stoping. Daly, in his book ‘‘Igneous Rocks
and their Origin,’’ states that ‘‘It was in the Cordil-
leran region, at Marysville, Montana, that Barrell in-
dependently invented the stoping theory of magmatic
emplacement. ’’

Because of the large scale on which the Marysville
and Boulder bathyliths are exposed, and because of the
forceful presentation of the field relations and the clear-
ness of Barrell’s inferences therefrom, Suess in his great
work, ‘‘The Face of the Earth,’’ was led to say that
the Marysville report is ‘‘one of the most instructive
works produced in modern times’’ connecting granitic
invasions with voleanoes.

The interesting and popularly written pamphlet,
““Central Connecticut in the Geologic Past,’’ visualizes
the major events in the geologic history of the state.
It is illustrated by a series of eight highly instructive
structure sections drawn by Barrell himself. These
sections show clearly Barrell’s faculty for picturing his
thoughts; not infrequently he would express an idea in
graphic form before he put it in writing.

Erosion, Sedimentation, and Climatology.

The writer of this biography joined the Geological
Department of Yale University in 1904, and at that time
became acquainted with Barrell, then an assistant pro-
fessor. As both of us had our offices in the Peabody
Museum, we saw much of each other, and often our dis-
cussions had to do with sedimentation. I would relate
to him the varied phenomena which I had seen in the
field and the distribution of the formations, and he would
try to decipher their processes of accumulation. Then
in 1905, after I had listened to his course of about twelve
lectures, I urged him to publish his views, especially
as to the depth of water and the climate suggested by
the nature of the sediments. In the following year he

Joseph Barrell. 265

published a series of three papers on the ‘‘Relative
Geological Importance of Continental, Littoral and
Marine Sedimentation’’ in the Journal of Geology.

In these papers he sets forth a quantitative view as to
the relative importance geologically of these three types
of sediments, and the criteria for separating them. It
is a study of facts already assembled in the geologic
literature, but always from their original sources. Fur-
ther, it is the application of changing and cyclic geog-
raphies in their relation to stratigraphy, with the em-
phasis on the fact that by no means all of the sediments
are of marine origin. Among other things he develops
the criteria for discerning subaérial delta deposits, and
he shows that such deposits attain their greatest de-
velopment after epochs of mountain-making unaccom-

panied by notable uplift of the continental platforms.
' He also emphasizes the cyclic relations between conti-
nental and marine sedimentation in geologic history.
The wide and cyclic significance of mud-cracks in asso-
ciation with other features indicating flood-plain deposits
is discussed at length and applied to the interpretation
of Proterozoic deposits in Montana and the Grand
Canyon of the Colorado.

The significance of desert deposits becomes very
striking when one notes that one-fifth of the present land
surface is desert tracts. And Barrell estimates that the
subaerial deposits of piedmont waste, of continental
basins, and of deltas cover about one-tenth of the
emerged continental surfaces. Adding these ‘‘to the esti-
mate of the deposits of arid climates would give a fifth
of the land surface as mantled by continental forma-
tions.’’ The lands in the course of the geological ages
are, however, warped and elevated into mountain ranges,
so that the geological record ‘‘should show a far less
proportion of these and superficial land deposits.’’ On
the other hand, basin and delta deposits should be quan-
titatively as great as those laid down upon the floor
of the epeiric seas.

Having developed the principles of sedimentation for
continental and shallow-water marine deposits, Barrell
applies them in 1907 to a late Mississippian formation
in the paper ‘‘Origin and Significance of the Mauch
Chunk Shale.’’ Here are presented the significant facts
regarding this formation, gathered from the literature

266 Joseph Barrell.

and from personal observation. He concludes that ‘‘In
the anthracite region, more surely in the southeastern
and eastern portions, the whole formation [which is
about 3,000 feet thick], from top to bottom, was a sub-
aérial [delta] deposit laid down under a semiarid cli-
mate.’’ The nearest approach to-day to a similar area
is that of the highly arid Punjab region near the base
of the Himalayas, and of the lower plains of the Indus
River. ‘‘These comparisons, while not intended to con-
vey the idea that the Appalachians were ever of Hima-
layan magnitude, are suggestive of a more massive
range of mountains and a wider land area to the east-
ward of the Pennsylvanian geosyncline than is custom-
arily thought of as existing in Upper Devonian and
Carboniferous times.’

Having seen much of the Carboniferous of ohatoes
Pennsylvania, Barrell had asked himself, ‘‘To what ex-
tent have the tectonic movements and climatic variations
caused the great contrasts seen here in the Lower and
Upper Carboniferous formations?’’ To solve this prob-
lem, he took up in detail the principles that have to do
with the relations between modern climate and terres-
trial deposits, and published his conclusions in ‘‘Rela-
tions between Climate and Terrestrial Deposits.’’ He
writes: ‘‘The environment of the lands may be elassi-
fied into three fundamental and independent factors—
the relations to the surrounding seas, the topography
which forms their surfaces, and the climates which en-
velope them; each of major importance in controlling
the character of the lands.’’ Fundamental are the
relations of continental fluviatile deposits to the cli-
mates, and they may be successfully used in determin-
ing those of the geologic past. ‘‘This is exclusive of
the significance of salt and gypsum deposits on the one
hand or of glacial deposits on the other, which are of
course universally recognized, but these are the marks
of climatic extremes.’’

The first part of the paper under review has to do
with the relations of sediments to regions of erosion.
It deals with the relation of physiography to erosion
and the consequent supply of waste as sediments to
the formations. Then he takes up the relations of sedi-
ments to regions of deposition, and finally the relations
of climate to fluviatile transportation. These parts

Joseph Barrell. 267

lead to the conclusion that ‘‘Climate is a factor com-
parable to disturbances of the crust or movements of
the shore-line in determining the nature and the varia-
tions in the stratified rocks of continental or offshore
origin, thus playing a part of large, though but little
appreciated, importance in the making of the strati-
graphical record.’’

Along with many other things, Barrell finds that
‘‘While the varying powers of erosion and transporta-
tion are delicate stratigraphic indicators of climatic
fluctuations, the chemical and organic control accom-
panying the deposition are the more secure indicators
of the average climatic conditions.’’

Finally, what was the origin, environment, and sig-
nificance of the conglomerate and sandstone formations
intercalated between others of different nature? His
answer is that these coarse materials have three origins:
First, marine conglomerates and sandstones; second,
tectonic conglomerates and sandstones; third, climatic
conglomerates and sandstones.

‘‘Changes in volume of ocean waters, earth move-
ments, and atmospheric activities are the three mixed
and fundamental causes by which the three classes of
deposits become possible, but the records which they
embody are largely distinct and independent. By
separating conglomerates and sandstones into these
three classes, the sedimentary rocks, therefore, present _
a threefold record, the marine conglomerates giving that
of the variable relations of land and sea; the tectonic
conglomerates, the record of variable vertical uplifts;
the climatic conglomerates, the record of variable tem-
perature and rainfall.’’

Barrell next took up for study ‘‘Some Distinctions
between Marine and Terrestrial Conglomerates,’’ the
gist of which he presented before the Geological Society
of America in 1908. Of this study there is printed only
a half-page abstract, but back of it lies over 200 pages
of manuscript completely rewritten in August, 1910,
and entitled ‘‘Marine and Terrestrial Conglomerates.”’
It is hoped that this paper may be printed before the
close of 1920. In the abstract he states that ‘‘The truly
terrestrial forces produce vastly more gravel, spread it
far more widely, and provide more opportunities for
deposition than do the forces of the littoral zone.’’

AM. JOUR. pang Series, Vou. XLVILT, No. 286.—OctosEr, 1919.

268 Joseph Barrell.

Marine conglomerates are ‘‘limited to considerably less
than 100 feet in thickness,’’ while terrestrial ones are
‘‘frequently measured in hundreds and occasionally in
thousands of feet.’’

Having finished the paper on conglomerates, Barrell
now sought out a thick and unfossiliferous conglomerate-
sandstone series whose age relations were obscure. Such
a series he found in the southern Appalachians, and upon
this he made another study that remains unpublished.
The conglomerates, sandstones, and slates of the Ocoee
and Chilhowie groups of Tennessee, North Carolina, and
Alabama, have long been a stumbling block in elassifi-
cation, because it is only near the top of the long series
that fossils have been found. On the basis of these
fossils, Keith finally referred all of the Ocoee and Chil-
howie to the Lower Cambrian. Barrell discusses the
many formations of this series, aggregating between
9,000 and 13,000 feet in depth, and concludes that the
lower part, with a maximum thickness of 7,500 feet, is
of terrestrial origin. The middle formations, with a
thickness of 3,400 feet, are at least in part a terrestrial
deposit, though a part is probably marine. The remain-
ing 2,700 feet are entirely of marine origin.

In 1912, Barrell, in continuation of his studies of
sedimentary formations, published the paper entitled
‘‘Criteria for the Recognition of Ancient Delta De-
posits.’’ He defines a delta ‘‘as a deposit partly sub-
aérial built by a river into or against a body of
permanent water.’’ This study concerns the detailed
structures of deltas and the physiography of the land
that furnished the detritus. It is a difficult study be-
cause of the great variability in the extent of deltas, the
marked variation in the character of their sediments,
the size and streaming power of the river or rivers that
bring the material, and finally the wide variation in the
wave and streaming forces of the water body and the
depth of the water in which and in front of which the
deltas are laid down.

The underlying principle of this work is the cyclic
one. The erosion by rivers ‘‘passes through its cycle
of youth, maturity, and age, and the characteristics of
the river valley and river waste change with the dis-
tance from the headwaters and with the progress of the
erosion cycle. There must also be a delta cyele, and it

Joseph Barrell. 269

is to be expected that the size of the delta and the
character of its deposits will depend not only on the
original relation of the other physiographic elements of
the continent, but on the progress of the cycle of ero-
sion on the one hand and of the cycle of deposition on
the other.’’

In 1915-1914 followed the application of the criteria
of the previous paper to an ancient or fossi delta in
the study entitled ‘‘The Upper Devonian Delta of the
Appalachian Geosyncline.’’ This is one of Barrell’s
best pieces of work, and a very philosophic one, for it
brings out the relations of the Appalachian delta, both
to the interior sea and to the extensive eastern land
Appalachia and the Atlantic Ocean beyond. This exten-
sive delta system began to form in the Middle Devonian
and ceased in early Mississippian time. Its sedimen-
tary volume Barrell computes at about 16,500 cubic
miles for the Middle Devonian and 63,000 cubic miles for
Upper Devonian time. ‘‘This is an impressive measure
of the volume of the adjacent land which was eroded in
Upper Devonian times. But it is a minimum measure,
since that part of the rocks which was taken into solu-
tion was carried farther away, and of the mechanical
sediments it represents only that part which was carried
westward into the trap of the geosyncline.’’

This great amount of Upper Devonian sediments im-
plies a much greater Appalachia than is usually assumed.
In elevation it must have exceeded the present Sierra
Nevadas. Barrell states that this old land ‘‘was not
confined to the limits of the present continental shelf.

. The foundations of Appalachia are buried some
thousands of feet beneath it, extend beyond it, and
doubtless slope gradually for an unknown distance
toward and beneath the basin of the Atlantic,’’ where
is now deep ocean. ‘‘In Upper Devonian times the
mountains which rose above these foundations stood on
the eastern side of the Appalachian system.’’ Accord-
ingly, great parts of eastern Appalachia have been frag-
mented and sunk into the depths of the Atlantic during
Mesozoic time.

As early as 1905, Barrell began to ask himself, ‘‘ What
were the geographic and climatic conditions which con-
trolled the nature of the Old Red Sandstone deposits?’’
In 1907 he wrote out his views but withheld them from

270 Joseph Barrell.

printing, thinking that he and the present writer would
find means of visiting Scotland. As this opportunity did
not come, he presented his views in 1916 in the paper
‘‘Dominantly Fluviatile Origin under Seasonal Rainfall
of the Old Red Sandstone.’’ A copy of this was sent
to Professor T. G. Bonney of University College, Cam-
bridge, England, and his letter of thanks to Barrell
opened with the word ‘‘Hureka.’’ Truly we have here
the correct explanation of the origin of the Old Red
Sandstone.

‘«The central conclusion reached in this paper is that
the Old Red Sandstone formations were not deposited
in lakes and estuaries, nor are they of desert origin.”’
They are ‘‘river deposits accumulated in intermontane
basins,’’ ‘‘exposed to air in times of drought,’’ and
‘‘similar to the basin deposits of the western United
States laid down in the Tertiary period between the
growing ranges of the Cordillera.’’ ‘‘The Great Valley
of California may therefore in the present epoch, both
in physiography and in climate, be cited as a striking
illustration of the nature of the Old Red Sandstone
basins.”’

Physwography.

Previous to 1908, most physiographers held that the
flat sky-line of the land seen in the southern part of
the New England states represented a Cretaceous pene-
plain uplifted in early Tertiary time, but in 1912 Barrell
put forward a view long entertained by him, namely,
that not only was this plain not of Cretaceous age, nor
even of subaerial erosion, but rather that the supposed
plain is a series of seven sea-cut terraces, the result of
wave planation, made at different times during the late
Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. This fundamental change
in interpretation was presented before the Geological
Society of America in 1912 under the two titles ‘‘Pied-
mont Terraces of the northern Appalachians and their
Mode of Origin,’’ and ‘‘Post-Jurassic History of the
Northern Appalachians.’’ Since then from time to time
Barrell had been working on this alternating series of
uplifts and strand-lines, and most of the time in the
laboratory with topographic maps. On October 16, 1915,
he guided the New England Intercollegiate Geological
Excursion across four of these terraces, made since Mio-

Joseph Barrell. OTA

cene time, from New Haven northwest to Litchfield, a
distance of about 35 miles. It was a memorable and
proud day for the writer to see Professor Barrell pre-
senting his views and defending them against all comers
before a more or less dissenting audience, among which
were W. M. Davis, R. A. Daly, W. W. Atwood, and
D. W. Johnson. If these gentlemen were not at that time
convinced, they were -at least unable to make headway
against the leader of the party.

It was Barrell’s intention to spend some of the sum-
mer of 1919 and most of that of 1920 in the field to try
out in critical places between Virginia on the south and
Rhode Island on the northeast what he had observed
first about Lehigh and later in Connecticut. This plan
is now broken, but he has left a long manuscript treat-
ing of these terraces, and a great mass of annotated
folios and generalized drawings showing the various
facets in their present eroded condition. This manu-
script is now being edited by H. H. Robinson, and will
be published in the course of the year.

Rhythms and Geologic Tume.

Barrell was one of the participants in a symposium
on the interpretation of sedimentary rocks at the Albany
meeting of the Geological Society of America in 1916.
Here he presented a part, but only the smallest part,
of a study on ‘‘Rhythms and the Measurements of Geo-
logic Time.’’ This is his most important study, and will
long remain a source of information and stimulation to
research along several lines of philosophical thought.

He had long been attracted by the cycles of sedimen-
tation, and now he states that ‘‘Nature vibrates with
rhythms, climatic and diastrophic.’’ The viewpoint of
the six parts of the study is geological, though the evi-
dence furnished by radio-activity is thoroughly reviewed.
Part I treats of the rhythms in denudation, and shows
that ‘‘erosion is essentially a pulsatory process,’’ and
that ‘‘a single rhythm is the erosion cycle; and small
partial cycles are superimposed on larger.’’ Here then
is developed the hypothesis of compound rhythms. This
part leads to the conclusion that the present rate of
denudation is high, and ‘‘very much greater than the
mean of geologic time.’’ Part II deals with rhythms

272 Joseph Barrell.

in sedimentation, and shows that sedimentation is ‘‘not
a continuous process, even during a stage of crustal
depression.’’ Therefore the stratigraphic record is
replete with ‘‘breaks’’ of varying time lengths, the
non-seeable greater disconformities and the lesser but
more numerous diastems.

Part III treats of the estimates of time based on geo-
logic processes, on erosion, sedimentation, hypothesis
of compound rhythms, amount of oceanic salt, and on
the loss of primal heat. In this presentation we get a
more adequate idea of the quantitative lengthening of
geologic time. ‘‘Measurements of time based on radio-
activity’’ is the subject of Part IV, which is a worthy
associate of A. Holmes’s ‘‘ Radioactivity and the Meas-
urement of Geological Time,’’ published in 1915. Fin-
ally, in Part VI, ‘‘Convergence of Evidence on Geologie
Time and its Bearings,’’ the geological and physical
arguments are bound together into a unity, resulting in
the conclusion that at least 550 million, and a maximum
of 700 million years have elapsed since the beginning
of the Cambrian. This is, moreover, less than one-half
of geologic time, for the Laurentian or post-Ladogian
granites, the oldest great invasions of igneous magmas
into vast thicknesses of sedimentary formations, have
an age as great as 1,400 million years. The earth is,
therefore, much older than even this great figure.

Harlow Shapley, the astronomer, accepts Barrell’s
geologic time estimates, and says: ‘‘We may study the
stars, indeed, with the aid of fossils in terrestrial rocks,
and acquire knowledge of atomic structure from the
climates of Precambrian times.’’ ‘‘In the growth of
our concepts of the age of the earth, Barrell’s discus-
sion is likely to mark an epoch because of its consistent
carefulness, its great expansion of geologic time beyond
the commonly accepted limits, and its decided rebellion
against the stringent limitations set by Kelvin and later
physicists. ’’

Tsostasy.

It is interesting to note Barrell’s early independence
of mind and his love for quantitative studies and philo-
sophical analyses in geology, as shown in his notice in
this Journal in 1904 of T. M. Reade’s ‘‘Hvolution of
HKarth Structure.’’ In August, 1906, he notices, also in

Joseph Barrell. Ds

this Journal, J. F. Hayford’s paper, ‘‘The Geodetic
Evidence of Isostasy,’’ and gives a brief historical re-
view of the place of this subject in geological literature
and of the problems upon which it bears.

In 1914, Barrell was led to study the theories leading
to the conclusion that the poles of the earth are not
fixed. Astronomers and some geologists are opposed to
the theory of polar wanderings, but students of ancient
climates and of the geographical distribution of floras
and faunas have been adherents to this view. In his
‘‘Status of Hypotheses of Polar Wanderings,’’ Barrell
states: ‘‘From these considerations it is seen that
closer examination tends to cut down more and more
even those moderate limits of polar migration set by
[the mathematician] Darwin. It would appear that the
assumption of polar wandering as a cause of climatic
change and organic migrations is as gratuitous as an
assumption of a changing earth orbit in defiance of the
laws of celestial mechanics.’’

During the years 1914 and 1915, Barrell published in
the Journal of Geology a series of eight papers that
were later collected and bound in one volume under the
title ‘‘The Strength of the Harth’s Crust.’’ This work
at once placed him high among the geodesists. Arthur
Holmes writes of it as a ‘‘remarkable series of papers,
which is worthy of the most careful study,’’ and ‘‘con-
stitutes a valuable and stimulating contribution to
terrestrial dynamics.’’ L. V. Pirsson says: ‘‘They
constitute probably the most serious and profound dis-
cussion, which has yet been attempted, of the facts -
which are known and of the theories which have been
deduced from them, concerning the strength of the
earth’s outer shell.’’

The first part of this series of articles treats of the
geologic tests of the limits of strength. In Parts IT
and III is discussed the ‘‘Regional Distribution and
Influence of Variable Rate of Isostatic Compensation.’’
Part IV deals with the ‘‘Heterogeneity and Rigidity of
the Crust as Measured by Departures from Isostasy,’’
while Part V is on the ‘‘Depth of Masses producing
Gravity Anomalies and Deflection Residuals.’’ Part VI
is devoted to the ‘‘Relations of Isostatic Movements to
a Sphere of Weakness—the Asthenosphere,’’ and Part
VII to ‘‘Variation of Strength with Depth, as Shown

274 Joseph Barrell.

by the Nature of Departures from Isostasy.’’ The final
part has to do with the ‘‘Physical Conditions Control-
ling the Nature of the Lithosphere and Asthenosphere.”’
It is evident that Barrell intended to publish other parts
in this series, for we have found among his papers the
manuscript for Part IX on the ‘‘Problems involved in
the Temperature Gradient conforming to the Curve of
Crustal Strength.’’ During the winter of 1914-1915 he
wrote still another manuscript that appears also to have
been intended for this series; it 1s entitled ‘‘ Relations
of Pleistocene Warping to Strength of Crust.’’ These
two articles we have been advised not to publish in their
present form; they will, however, be of service to the
Geological Department of Yale University.

Pirsson says of these papers: Barrell ‘‘finds that
the crust is very strong when measured by its capacity
to support great deltas, mountain ranges or large in-
ternal loads due to variations in density not in accord
with topography, while on the other hand the altitudes
of the continents as a whole or in large sections show
nearly perfect isostasy. The maintenance of such iso-
static conditions through geologic time, in spite of op-
posing geologic activities, is held to imply the existence
of a zone of undertow below the zone of compensation,
which is both thick and weak to shearing stresses. Geo-
logically, such a zone, called the asthenosphere—the shell
of weakness—must have important bearings, which are
treated in the later portions of the work.’’

With this biography are printed two other papers on
. lsostasy written by Barrell for this Journal, the longer
one having been completed shortly before his death. This
paper was written in answer to certain recent adverse
criticism of the theory. Here Barrell gives an easily
readable outline of the theory of isostasy, a long pre-
sentation of the problems connected with it, and his final
interpretation of the isostatic data of India, the birth-
place of the hypothesis.

Genesis of the Earth.

In 1907, Barrell was aroused into eriticism by Pro-
fessor W. H. Pickering’s paper, ‘‘The Place of Origin
of the Moon.’’ This place the latter thought to be the
Pacific Ocean, thus giving rise to that basin, an hypoth-

Joseph Barrell. od

esis first stated, but cautiously, by Osmund Fisher in
1882. Barrell quickly demonstrated that oceanic basins
could not have arisen in this way.

Barrell left a long manuscript on the genesis of the
earth that it is hoped may be published in book form
along with some of his other geologic essays. As an
instructor of historical geology, and because of ques-
tionings by the writer of this biography, but more
especially through the writings of Chamberlin, he was
gradually led to delve more and more deeply into this
subject. Then in 1916 appeared Chamberlin’s book,
‘“The Origin of the Earth,’’ a work ‘‘which has long been
desired by geologists as well as other scientists,’?’ and
as Barrell wrote a critical review of it in Science, those
who wish may obtain from this review some of the
points in which he differs from Chamberlin. Another
place where he presents his modified views of the
planetesimal hypothesis is in the book entitled ‘‘The
Evolution of the Earth and its Inhabitants,’’ 1918, to
which he contributed the first chapter.

Paleontology and Evolution.

Since the days at Lehigh when Barrell taught zoology
as well as geology, he had remained deeply interested
in the more fundamental problems of paleontology and
zoology. He never was much concerned with species and
genera, however, or with classification, but rather with
the bony mechanism of vertebrates, evolution, and the
environmental causes that bring about the sweeping
changes in organisms.

Through the determining of ancient climates as dis-
cerned in the nature of the geologic formations, and more
especially in the continental deposits of the Silurian and
Devonian, Barrell’s interest was directed to an hypoth-
esis first set forth by Chamberlin, as to the first habitats
of fishes and the origin of lungs and limbs in dipnoans
and amphibians. His ideas on these subjects culminated
in 1916 in his ‘‘Influence of Silurian-Devonian Climates
on the Rise of Air-breathing Vertebrates.’’ The prob-
lems he seeks to answer are two: ‘‘first, as to the en-
vironment in which fishes develop; second, the changes
in the environment and the associated organic responses
which brought forth amphibians from fishes. It is the

276 Joseph Barrell.

solution of the second problem which is here especially
sought.”’

‘‘Tt is shown to be probable that fishes arose in land
waters. As such they constituted primarily a river
fauna.’’ It is in the Middle Devonian that ‘‘the fishes
first really begin to conquer the ocean and its former
rulers.’’ On the other hand, in the fresh waters of this
time fishes abounded in greater variety than in the seas.
In the Upper Devonian, crossopterygian fishes had risen
to a dominant place, and they were adapted to live in
warm climates marked by alternation of wet and dry
seasons. It was this environment that gave rise to the
amphibians. ‘‘The warm and stagnant waters of the
dry season compelled those fishes which should survive
to make larger and larger use of air.’’

‘“‘The evidence is regarded as strong that the air-
bladder was originally developed as a_ supplemental
breathing organ, although in modern fishes it has been
mostly diverted to other uses.’’ Barrell also quotes this
significant passage from W. D. Matthew: ‘‘The evo-
lution of land life in adaptation to recurrent periods of
aridity supplies a satisfactory background of cause for
the whole evolution of the higher vertebrates.’’ And he
adds: ‘‘The rise of amphibians from river fishes in
an epoch of semiaridity was one of the major steps in
the evolution of man.’’ ‘‘Climatic oscillation is a major
ulterior factor in evolution.”’

The study of the natural environment as recorded in
the sediments that also entombed the fossils led natur-
ally to the work entitled ‘‘Probable Relations of Cli-
matie Change to the Origin of the Tertiary Ape-Man.”’
Here we again read that climatic variation is for ter-
restrial life its most fundamental evolutionary factor.
And this was especially true for the Pleistocene, when
the land biotas ‘‘have come and gone at the command
of climatic change. Those animals which were trapped
on the northern sides of mountain ranges or water bar-
riers were remorselessly exterminated by the waves of
advancing cold; those which could escape to the south
returned with milder climates, but changed in their
assemblage.’’ Barrell held that man was brought to
his present high physical and mental state not as the
‘(mere product of time and life,’? but that he is
‘peculiarly a child of the earth and is born of her

Joseph Barrell. ONG

vicissitudes.’’ ‘‘The progress of life on the earth has
been highly favored, consequently, by the rhythmic
pulses of diastrophic and climatic changes which have
remorselessly urged forward the troop of living crea-
tures. The progress of organic evolution has de-
pended on a series of fortunate physical events, condi-
tioned in the internal nature of sun and earth, rather
than the by-product of mere life activities as expressed
in orthogenesis through long periods of time. Organic
evolution is in no sense an inevitable consequence of life,
and the compulsion of climatic change has been more
than once a fundamental factor in the age-long ascent
from protozoan to man.’’

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Published Works.

1899—Rocky Mountain mine surveying: Some convenient methods which
are especially suited to the conditions there met. Mines and Min-
erals, vol. 19, pp. 241-244.
Corrections for errors in mine surveying. Ibid., vol. 19, pp. 433-437.
Stope books. Methods for keeping precise records of stopes. Ibid.,
vol. 20, pp. 97-100.
1900—The real error of a survey. Some notes on the accuracy of surveys
in inclined seams and an analysis of the sources of error. Ibid.,
vol. 20, pp. 299-301.
Surveys in inclined shafts. Theoretical and practical considerations
governing the choice of instruments. Ibid., vol. 20, pp. 420-421.
Review of ‘‘A memoir on the Paleozoic reticulate sponges consti-
tuting the family Dictyospongide,’’ by James Hall and John M.
Clarke. This Journal (4), vol. 9, pp. 224-228.
1902—Microscopical petrography of the Elkhorn mining district, Jefferson
County, Montana. U. 8. Geol. Survey, 22d Ann. Rept., pt. 2, pp.
511-549.
The physical effects of contact metamorphism. This Journal (4),
vol. 13, pp. 279-296.
1904—Review of ‘‘The evolution of earth structure,’’?’ by T. M. Reade.
Ibid., vol. 17, pp. 250-251.
Recent studies of the moon’s features. Ibid., vol. 18, pp. 314-318.
Review of ‘‘ Treatise on metamorphism,’’ by C. R. Van Hise. Ibid.,
vol. 19, pp. 251-256.
1906—Relative geological importance of continental, littoral, and marine
sedimentation. Jour. Geology, vol. 14, pp. 316-356, 430-457,
524-568.
Review of ‘‘A contribution to the oceanography of the Pacific,’’ by
J. M. Flint. This Journal (4), vol. 21, pp. 333-335.
Review of ‘‘The geodetic evidence of isostasy,’’ by J. F. Hayford.
Ibid., vol. 22, pp. 185-186.
1907—Geology of the Marysville mining district, Montana: a study of
igneous intrusion and contact metamorphism. U. S. Geol. Survey,
Prof. Paper 57, pp. 178, 16 pls.
Review of ‘‘lunar and Hawaiian physical features compared,’’ by
W. H. Pickering. This Journal (4), vol. 23, pp. 228-229.

bo
=I
(0/8)

Joseph Barrell.

Review of ‘‘Manual of the geology of Connecticut,’’ by W. N. Rice
and H. H. Gregory. Ibid., vol. 23, pp. 385-392.

Review of ‘‘ The place of origin of the moon—the voleanic problem,’’
by W. H. Pickering. Jour. Geology, vol. 15, pp. 503-506.

Origin and significance of the Mauch Chunk shale. Bull. Geol. Soe.
America, vol. 18, pp. 449-476. Abstract in Science, new ser., vol.
25, p. 766. :

1908—Relations between climate and terrestrial deposits:

Pt. I. Relations of sediments to regions of erosion. Jour.
Geology, vol. 16, pp. 159-190.

Pt. II. Relation of sediments to regions of deposition. Ibid.,
pp. 255-295.

Pt. III. Relations of climate to stream transportation. Ibid.,
pp. 363-384.

Abstracts in ‘Science, new ser., vol. 25, 1907, p. 766; and Bull.
Geol. Soc. America, vol. 18, 1906, pp. 616-621. :

Schaeberle and geological climates. Science, new ser., vol. 28, pp.

371-373.

1909—Review of ‘‘The tidal and other problems—Contributions to cos-
mogony and other fundamental problems of geology,’’ by T. C.
Chamberlin and others. This Journal (4), vol. 28, pp. 188-196.

Review of ‘‘Research in China,’’ by Bailey Willis, Eliot Black-
welder, and R. H. Sargent. Science, new ser., vol. 29, pp. 257-260.

Some distinctions between marine and terrestrial conglomerates.
(Abstract.) Science, new ser., vol. 29, p. 624; also Bull. Geol.
Soe. America, vol. 20, 1910, p. 620.

Fair play and toleration in criticism. Science, new ser., vol. 30,

p. 21-238.

1910—Influence of earth shrinkage on the distribution of continental seas.
In ‘‘Paleogeography of North America,’’? by Charles Schuchert.
Bull. Geol. Soc. America, vol. 20, pp. 506-508.

Discussion of paper by Ellsworth Huntington on ‘‘Post Tertiary
history of the lakes of Asia Minor and Syria.’’ Ibid., vol. 21,
p. 756.

Discussion of paper by W. H. Sherzer on ‘‘Criteria for the recogni-
tion of sand grains.’’ Ibid., vol. 21, pp. 775-776.

Review of ‘‘Radio-activity and geology,’’ by J. Joly. This Journal,
(4), vol. 29, pp. 83-85.

Review of ‘‘The figure of the earth and isostasy from measurements
in the United States,’’ by J. F. Hayford. Ibid. (4), vol. 29,
p: 193:

Review of ‘‘Paleogeography of North America,’’ by Charles
Schuchert. Ibid., vol. 29, pp. 552-557.

Review of ‘‘The mechanics of the earthquake’’ (California, 1906),
by H. F. Reid. Ibid., vol. 30, pp. 287-290.

A vision of Yale in 6010. Yale Alumni Weekly, March 11, pp.
611-612.

The lithology of Connecticut. Pt. I, An outline of lithology. Con-
necticut State Geol. Nat. Hist. Survey, Bull. 13, pp. 17-131, 6 tables.

1912—Criteria for the recognition of ancient delta deposits. Bull. Geol.
Soc. America, vol. 23, pp. 377-446.

Review of ‘‘On the origin of the Himalaya Mountains, a considera-
tion of the geodetic evidence,’’ by S. G. Burrard. This Journal
(4), vol. 34, p. 489.

1918—Piedmont terraces of the northern Appalachians and their mode of
origin. (Abstract.) Bull. Geol. Soc. America, vol. 24, pp. 688-
690. Also in Preliminary Program, New Haven meeting, Geol.
Soe. America, 1912, pp. 18-20.

Post-Jurassie history of the northern Appalachians. (Abstract.)
Bull. Geol. Soc. America, vol. 24, pp. 690-691, 694-696. Also in

Joseph Barrell. 279

Preliminary Program, New Haven meeting, Geol. Soc. America,
1912, pp. 20-21.
Discussion of paper by A. W. Grabau on ‘‘A classification of marine
deposits.’’? Bull. Geol. Soc. America, vol. 24, pp. 713-714.
Field and office methods in the preparation of geologic reports;
measurements by compass, pace, and aneroid. Hcon. Geology, vol.
8, pp. 691-700.
A Yale honors school. Yale Daily News, Dec. 16, pp. 1, 6.
1913-1914—The Upper Devonian delta of the Appalachian geosyncline:
Pt. I. The delta and its relations to the interior sea. This Journal
(4), vol. 36, pp. 429-472.
Pt. Il. Factors controlling the present limits of the strata. Ibid.,
vol. 37, pp. 87-109.
Pt. III. The relations of the delta to Appalachia. Ibid., pp.
225-253. =
1914—( With Charles Schuchert.) A revised geologic time-table for North
America. Ibid., vol 38, pp. 1, 17-23, 26, 27.
Review of ‘‘Principles of stratigraphy,’’ by A. W. Grabau. Science,
new ser., vol. 40, pp. 135-139.
The status of hypotheses of polar wanderings. Ibid., vol. 40, pp.
333-340.
The seismograph at the Peabody Museum. Yale Daily News, Dec.
Seaparo-
1914-1915—The strength of the earth’s crust:
Pt. I. Geologic tests of the limits of strength. Jour. Geology, vol.

22, pp. 28-48.

Pt. II. Regional distribution of isostatic compensation. Ibid., pp.
145-165.

Pt. III. Influence of variable rate of isostatic compensation. Ibid.,
pp. 209-236.

Pt. IV. Heterogeneity and rigidity of the crust as measured by
departures from isostasy. Ibid., pp. 289-314.

Pt. V. The depth of masses producing gravity anomalies and deflec-
tion residuals. Ibid., pp. 441-468, 537-555.

Pt. VI. Relations of isostatic movements to a sphere of weakness—
the asthenosphere. Ibid., pp. 655-683.

Pt. VII. Variation of strength with depth, as shown by the nature
of departures from isostasy. Ihbid., pp. 729-741, vol. 23, pp. 27-44.

Pt. VIII. Physical conditions controlling the nature of the litho-
sphere and asthenosphere. Ibid., pp. 425-443, 499-515.

1915—Origin of the solar system under the planetesimal hypothesis. In
‘“Text-book of geology,’’ by L. V. Pirsson and Charles Schuchert,
pp. 513-526.

Review of ‘‘ The climatic factor as illustrated in arid America,’’ by
Ellsworth Huntington. Jour. Geology, vol. 23, pp. 95-96; also in
this Journal (4), vol. 38, 1914, pp. 563-567.

Intercollegiate geological excursion of New England. (Unsigned.)
Bull. Amer. Geog. Soc., vol. 47, pp. 872-873.

Factors in movements of the strand line and their results in the
Pleistocene and post-Pleistocene. This Journal (4), vol. 40, pp.
1-22. In modified form in Jour. Washington Acad. Sci., vol. 5, pp.
413-420.

Central Connecticut in the geologic past. Connecticut State Geol.
Nat. Hist. Survey, Bull. 23, pp. 6-44. Originally published in
much shorter form under the same title in Wyoming Hist. Geol.
Soc., Proce. and Coll., vol. 12, 1912, pp. 25-54.

1916—Review of ‘‘Origin of the earth,’’ by T. C. Chamberlin. Science,
new ser., vol. 44, pp. 239-244.

The fourteenth New England Intercollegiate Geological Excursion.

Ibid., vol. 44, pp. 701-703.

280 Joseph Barrell.

1916—Geology an important part of a comprehensive education. Yale
Daily News, April 12, pp. 1, 5.

Discussion of paper by Sidney Paige on ‘‘ Mechanics of intrusion of
the Black Hills Precambrian granite.’’ Bull. Geol. Soc. America,
vol. 27, pp. 104-105.

Discussion of paper by R. W. Sayles on ‘‘ Banded glacial slates of
Permocarboniferous age, showing possible seasonal variations in
deposition.’’? Ibid., vol. 27, pp. 112-113.

Dominantly fluviatile origin under seasonal rainfall of the Old Red
Sandstone. Ibid., vol. “27, pp. 3845-386. In shorter form in Proce.
Nat. Acad. Sci., vol. 2, pp. 496-499.

The influence of Silurian-Devonian climates on the rise of air-breath-
ing vertebrates. Bull. Geol. Soc. America, vol. 27, pp. 387-436.
In shorter form in Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., vol. 2, pp. 499-504.

1917—Rhythms and the measurements of geologic time. Bull. Geol. Soe.
America, vol. 28, pp. 745-904.

Probable relations of climatic change to the origin of the Tertiary
ape-man. Sci. Monthly, vol. 4, pp. 16-26.

1918—A century of geology, 1818-1918: The growth of knowledge of earth
structure. This Journal (4), vol. 46, pp. 133-170. Also in ‘‘A
century of science in America,’’ pp. 153-192, Yale Univ. Press,
1918.

The origin of the earth. In ‘‘The evolution of the earth and its
inhabitants,’’ pp. 1-44, Yale Univ. Press.

1919—Sourees and tendencies in American geology. Sci. Monthly, vol. 8,
pp. 193-206.

The place of modern languages in research, particularly in geological
research. Ibid., pp. 481-495.

Review of ‘‘ Fossil plants from Bolivia and their bearing upon the
age of uplift of the Eastern Andes,’’ by Edward W. Berry. The
Geogr. Review, May, 1919, pp. 353-354.

The nature and bearings of isostasy. This Journal (4), vol. 48,
pp. 281-290.

Outline of the theory of isostasy. Ibid., pp. 291-338.

Unpublished manuscripts.

1897—The geological history of the Archean highlands of New Jersey,
including their extension in New York and Pennsylvania (not to
be published).

1908—Report upon the fire clays in the vicinity of the Illinois River south
of Peoria, Illinois (not to be published).

1910—Marine and terrestrial conglomerates.

1914—Relations of subjacent igneous invasions to regional metamorphism.

1915—Genealogy of the Barrell family (not to be published).

Relations of Pleistocene warping to strength of crust (not to be

published).

1916—Geological relations of earth condensation and resulting acceleration
in rotation.

1917—The genesis of the earth.

Undated—The strength of the earth’s crust. Pt. IX. The problems

involved in the temperature gradient conforming to the curve of
crustal strength (not to be published).

The Lower Cambrian of the southern Appalachians.

Piedmont terraces.

Description of the Housatonic quadrangle.

Index to structure section, Sheffield-Sandisfield folio.

Gaylord

PAMPHLET BINDER ;
Syracuse, N. Y. :
Stockton, Calif. °