Page 137 - Early Naturalists of the Black Range

Edward Alphonso Goldman
An employee of the Bureau of Biological Survey, Goldman was in New Mexico during 1908 and 1909 working extensively with Vernon Bailey. He eventually became the Senior Biologist in the Division of Biological Investigations. Immediately before his time in New Mexico he had been working in Mexico with Edward William Nelson. To quote the Smithsonian, “The biological explorations made by Edward William Nelson and Edward Alphonso Goldman in Mexico from 1892 to 1906 have been described as ‘. . . among the most important ever achieved by two workers for any single country.’ They conducted investigations in every state in Mexico, collecting 17,400 mammals and 12,400 birds, as well as amassing an enormous fund of information on the natural history of the country.” During his time in New Mexico he worked mostly in the borderlands, but in 1909 he reported that Pronghorn were “rather common on the plain 10 or 12 miles to the south of Lake Valley” and Mule Deer were “occurring west of Chloride and Kingston on the east slope of the Mimbres” (Black Range). That year he also reported that the Sonora Deer (Coues Whitetail, Odocoileus virginianus couesi) were present in the Mimbres Range west of Chloride and Kingston. (At that time this subspecies was considered a full species.)
His work was not limited to research on larger mammals, however. At Lake Valley, he noted that Sylvilagus audubonii cedrophilus (Desert Cottontail) was stripping the bark from Acacia and Rhus, apparently because of drought. He described many subspecies of mammal during his career. In this case, however, this subspecies of Cottontail was first described by Bailey in 1906. He noted that Eutamias (now Neotamias) c. cinereicollis, the Gray-collared Chipmunk, was eating Douglas Fir cones in the Mimbres Mountains.
Cynomys ludovicianus arizonensis, the Arizona Black-tailed Prairie Dog, had substantial colonies in and around Lake Valley at this time, according to Goldman.
His collecting and observations during these two years were extensive. He was collecting in Hillsboro, Kingston, and the Black Range at the end of October and the beginning of November 1909. The notes of J. N. Rose indicate that he was reviewing (date unclear) two Opuntia species and an Echinocereus, collected by Goldman in Socorro on August 17-19, 1909, and other species Goldman collected in the San Mateos and San Augustin Plains in September and October 1909, in Hillsboro during November 1909, and Goldman specimens #1847-1849 collected at Las Cruces.
Waldemar Lindgren
Lindgren was one of the principals in the development of the concepts of “economic geology”. He published more than 200 major works and thousands of articles and abstracts. He was often a contributor to, or the editor of, major compilations published by the USGS. The honors and positions he received are myriad.
Lindgren was one of the authors of Ore Deposits of New Mexico, a work which ranged far from a simple discussion of ores. Its discussion of the known geology of the state was significant. Included in its descriptions was early work on the Rio Grande Valley: “The older portions of sand and gravel deposits as much as 2,000 feet thick within the valley of the central and southern Rio Grande and its tributaries, observed covering the base of
Waldemar Lindgren, 1912, photo by Clinedinst
some ranges to a height of 1,500 feet above the river, were called the ‘Palomas gravels.’ These were considered to be of early Pleistocene age, and possibly correlative with the Gila deposits to the west” (Lindgren, Gordon, and Garton, 1910, Ore Deposits of New Mexico, p. 237). “Recognition of these coarse sediment deposits, derived from erosion of the surrounding highlands, reflects very general observations of what was later to prove to be a much more complex, thicker, and longer pattern of sediment deposition in subsiding basins of the Basin and Range and Rio Grande rift regions over the past 25 to 30 million years.” (Celebrating New Mexico’s Centennial - The Geology of New Mexico as Understood in 1912: An Essay for the Centennial of New Mexico Statehood, Part 2, Barry S. Kues, University of New Mexico, p. 39.)
Ore Deposits of New Mexico (see photo on following page), includes a significant amount of information about the geology and mining activity of Sierra (pp. 213-285), Luna (pp. 285-295), and Grant counties (295-348). Lindgren was co-author of the Luna and Grant County sections of the book.
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