Josiah Dwight Whitney, Jr.

Josiah Dwight Whitney, Jr.

• Birth:    1819
• Death:    1896
• Nationality:  American, Massachusetts
• Education:  Yale, with honary docorate from Yale as well.
• Author URL:
• Books Written
• Geographical and Geological Surveys
• The United States 
• Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Mountain-Building 
• The Yosemite guide-book 
• Geographical and Geological Surveys. from the North American Review for July and October, 1875 
• Geology, Volume 1 and Geology, Volume 2
• Biography

Josiah Dwight Whitney, Jr. was born 1819 in Massachusetts. He graduated at Yale and surveyed several areas in America and Europe as a geologist. In 1865, he was appointed professor of geology by Harvard in 1865 and received an honorary doctorate from Yale in 1870. In 1860 Whitney was appointed state geologist of California in 1860. Whitney, along with William H. Brewer, Clarence King, Lorenzo Yates, and others, made an extensive survey of California, including the Sierra Nevada and Yosemite region. Some California legislators though his job was just discovering gold and mineral wealth in the state. Whitney would have none of that and conducted a thorough scientific survey of the state. He published a well-regarded six-volume series Geological Survey of California (1864 - 1870), and this excellent volume, The Yosemite Book, among others. It was “among the first American books devoted entirely to photographs of landscape” (Naef and Wood, Era of Exploration, 1975). In The Yosemite Book Whitney was an early voice for conservation. He was the first known person to use the term “national park” and urged the state not to deed some land in Yosemite Valley to early settlers, but to keep the entire valley as a national park. Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the continuous United States was named after him.

When John Muir arrived in Yosemite in 1869, and when The Yosemite Book was first published, the conventional thinking was that of Whitney’s. That is, there were no active glaciers in the Sierra Nevada—the weather was too warm. Whitney thought Yosemite Valley was formed not by glaciers but “the bottom of the Valley sank down...” Muir discovered the first known active glacier in 1871 in the High Sierra. He also found glacier scaring and glacier moraines in Yosemite Valley. Muir published his findings and was made famous from his writings and lectures. Whitney was obstinant. He derided Muir as a “mere sheepherder” and  “ignoramus.” Whitney suppressed evidence found by King and Gardiner of glaciers in Yosemite Valley. But Muir’s view eventually prevailed in the scientific community. Whitney died in 1896 in New Hampshire. He maintained, to his death, that not only there never glaciers in Yosemite Valley, but that no glaciers currently exist in the Sierra Nevada (even though several live glaciers have been discovered by Muir).
From Dan Anderson's introduction in The Yosemite Book found at yosemite.ca.us

I am wondering if the best asset which Whitney had was to bring together good people to conduct surveys.