Emerson, Benjamin Kendall

(b. Nashua, New Hampshire, 20 December 1843; d. Amherst, Massachusetts, 7 April 1932)

geology.

Emerson belonged to a distinguished New England family that was eminent in the educational world. His father, Benjamin F. Emerson, was a lawyer; his mother was Elizabeth Kendall. Emerson received his secondary education at Tilton (Vermont) Academy. Inspired by the work of the famous New England geologist Edward Hitchcock, he went to Amherst College, from which he graduated with distinction. After a period of teaching sciences at the old Groton Academy, he studied geology at Berlin and Gottingen, receiving the Ph.D. at the latter in 1870. Emerson returned to Amherst as instructor in geology and zoology, became professor of geology in 1872, and of geology and theology in 1881. That he was an inspiring teacher is shown by the number of renowned geologists who had been his students.

Emerson was also distinguished as a field geologist. For thirty years he was on the staff of the U.S. Geological Survey. He was a member of the Harriman expedition to Alaska in 1899 and wrote the geologic section of its report. His outstanding contributions were on the geology of the Connecticut Valley and bordering plateaus of central and southern New England; his Geology of Old Hampshire County is a classic and, like his Geology of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, still is an important source for field geologists. Many of his interpretations of stratigraphic, petrologic, and metamorphic geology are a marked advance over earlier works and have served as a progressive link between nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century geology. Besides the newer terminology, he brought in modern concepts of petrogenesis and stratigraphy, drastically modifying and adding to the earlier interpretations of Edward and Charles H. Hitchcock and others. He recognized transitional metamorphic facies and the metasomatic effects of granitic solutions, giving some emphasis to their role in promoting regional metamorphism. In Geology of Old Hampshire County there is a detailed description of the Bernardston formation (Devonian), basically important in regional correlations; this monograph also provides the first detailed treatment of the igneous and sedimentary rocks of the Triassic basin and of the Pleistocene—chiefly glacial—deposits of the Connecticut Valley. His Mineralogical Lexicon... provides a remarkable catalog of mineral occurrences in south-central New England.

Emerson was a founder and original fellow of the Geological Society of America and one of its early presidents (1899). He was also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Washington Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Geographical Society. He was also a member of the Deutsche Geologische Gesellschaft and several other learned societies.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Fifty-one titles are recorded in Bibliography of Geologic Literature on North America 1785–1918, U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin no. 746 (Washington, D.C., 1923), pp. 343–344. The following may be considered Emerson’s principal contributions; “A Description of the ‘Bernardston Series’ of Metamorphic Upper Devonian Rocks,” in American Journal of Science, 3rd ser., 40 (1890), 263–275, 362–374; Mineralogical Lexicon of Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden Counties, Massachusetts, U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin no. 126 (Washington, D.C., 1895); Geological of Old Hampshire County, Massachusetts, Comprising Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden Counties, U.S. Geological Survey Monograph no. 29 (Washington, D.C., 1898); Outlines of the Geology of Western Massachusetts: Description of the Holyoke Quadrangle, U.S. Geologic Survey Geologic Atlas, Holyoke Folio, no. 50 (Washington, D.C., 1898); The Geology of Eastern Berkshire County, Massachusetts, U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin no. 159 (Washington, D.C., 1899); Geological Survey Bulletin no. 597 (Washington, D.C., 1917).

Of the remaining forty-five titles in the cited bibliography two major publications were written with J. H. Perry: The Geology of Worcester, Massachusetts (Worcester, 1903); and The Green Schists and Associated Granites and Porphyries of Rhode Island, U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin no. 311 (Washington, D.C., 1907).

Other titles, short papers, relate mostly to the tetrahedral theory of the earth (discussional); forms, distribution, and mineralogy of Triassic traprocks of Masschusetts; and glacial and postglacial features of the Connecticut Valley. Several short notes on mineralogic and petrologic subjects appeared in various scientific journals.

II. Secondary Literature. The principal biographical sketch is by one of Emerson’s former students, F. B. Loomis, “Memorial of Benjamin Kendall Emerson,” in Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, 44 pt. 2 (1933), 317–325. Briefer sketches are Charles R. Keyes, in Pan-American Geologist, 58 , no. 1 (1932), 1–6; and A. C. Lane, in Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 68 no. 13 (1933), 625–627.

L. W. Currier