Page 93 - Early Naturalists of the Black Range

1878 photo Henry W. Henshaw, at Camp Bidwell, California
The forerunner of the National Geographic Guide to the Birds of North America.
Henshaw discovered cliff houses on Diamond Creek in the Gila in 1877. They were described as: (they) “are among the first ruins of this character described in the Southwest”. (Antiquities of the Upper Gila and Salt River Valleys in Arizona and New Mexico, Walter Hough; Bureau of American Ethnology, 1907, p. 29
H. C. Yarrow, H. W. Henshaw, and E. D. Cope were the authors of
The Zoological Collections Obtained From Portions of Nevada, Utah, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona During The Years 1871, 1872, 1873, and 1874. This work includes an extensive listing of specimens collected on those expeditions, including many from the Black Range/Gila. There are a few plates at the end of the work.
Grove Karl Gilbert
Gilbert was one of the preeminent geologists of American history. In later life, he helped launch the USGS, was a founding member of the National Geographic Society, and was president of the Geological Society of America. He developed the basin- range geologic theory.
In 1871, Gilbert was conducting his first field season in the western United States, spending time along the Gila. (See note from that period on the following page, from p. 19 of the linked material). In the mid 1870’s, Gilbert named the “Gila Conglomerate” deposit, describing it so: “The upper valleys of the Gila River and its branches, declining southwestward from the cliff southern rim of the plateaus, are occupied by an extensive deposit of conglomerate, that slopes down to the gravel plains between the basin ranges, but unlike these low- level deposits, which are as a rule still accumulating, the conglomerate is now trenched by valleys to a depth of 1,000 or 1,500 feet.” (p. 52)
The material presented here (this and following page) is from the National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoir Grove Karl Gilbert, published in 1922.
Grove Karl Gilbert in about 1910
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