MT BREWER (13,570 ft.) | Named by Whitney Survey in 1864 |
'From Sugar Loaf Rock (Sugarloaf), there is a magnificent view up the valley to the group of mountains forming the western crest of the Sierra, the culminating point of which was named Mount Brewer.' (Whitney, Geology, 377-78.)
The first ascent was made by Brewer and Charles F. Hoffmann on July 2, 1864. 'Temp 35. Up at dawn to climb a high cone about five miles East, towards which we have been working for some time. H. and I went and were 8 hours in reaching it, a very hard climb. The peak much higher than we anticipated, being some 13,600 ft. Grand view, but more desolate than I have seen before ... Slid down a great snow slope. We were less than two minutes in coming down what it had taken us over three hours to surmount.' (Brewer diary, July 2, 1864, in Bancroft Library.)
Brewer, Hoffmann, and Gardiner made the second ascent two
days later. The peak apparently was not climbed again until three Sierra Club
members did it in 1895. In 1896 a woman with another Sierra Club party found
on the summit the bottle containing Brewer's record of the second ascent. This
was later removed to the Sierra Club's rooms in San Francisco, where it was
destroyed by the earthquake and fire of 1906. (See SCB 1, no. 7, Jan.
1896: 288-89; SCB 2, no. 2, May 1897: 88; SCB 11, no. 3, 1922:
252.)"
- Peter Browning, Place Names in the Sierra Nevada
Camped at the head of Brewer Creek, 1864:
"Saturday, July 2, we were up at dawn, and Hoffmann and I climbed the cone,
which I had believed to be the highest of this part of the Sierra. We had a
rough time, made two unsuccessful attempts to reach the summit, climbing up
terribly steep rocks, and at last, after eight hours of very hard climbing,
reached the top [of Mt. Brewer]. The view was yet wilder than we have ever seen
before. We were not on the highest peak, although we were a thousand feet
higher than we anticipated any peaks were. We had not supposed there were any
over 12,000 or 12,500 feet, while we were actually up over 13,600, and there
were a dozen peaks in sight beyond as high or higher!
Such a landscape! A hundred peaks in sight over thirteen thousand feet -- many
very sharp -- deep canyons, cliffs in every direction almost rivaling Yosemite,
sharp ridges almost inaccessible to man, on which human foot has never trod --
all combined to produce a view the sublimity of which is rarely equaled, one
which few are privileged to behold.
There is not so much snow as in the mountains farther north, not so much falls
in winter, the whole region is drier, but all the higher points, above 12,000
feet are streaked with it, and patches occur as low as 10,500 feet. The last
trees disappear at 11,500 feet -- above this desolate bare rocks and snow.
Several small lakes were in sight, some of them frozen over.
The view extended north eighty to ninety miles, south nearly as far -- east we
caught glimpses of the desert mountains east of Owens Valley -- west to the
Coast Range, 130 or more miles distant.
On our return we slid down a slope of snow perhaps eight hundred feet. We came
down in two minutes the height that we had been over three hours in climbing.
We got back very tired, but a cup of good tea and a fine venison soup restored
us."
- William Brewer, Up and Down California
Francis P. Farquhar edited Brewer's letters into the book, Up and Down California, from which the above passage was taken. The introduction to the book is an excellent biography of Brewer's life, and provides much background into the Whitney Survey party that did much of the early mapping of the Sierras, and gave us a number of lasting place names for the peaks. Below is the introduction to the book:
"By the year 1860 California was showing signs of too much mining excitement.
The days of '49 were irrevocably gone. For a decade gold mining had passed from
one phase to another and disorganized individual enterprise had given way to
corporate organization, capital outlay, and engineering skill. Nevertheless,
the old gambling spirit pesisted, stimulated by occasional rich strikes and
partial successes. Moreover, the gold fever had aroused a general interest in
minerals, so that there were frequent "excitements" over discoveries of silver,
tin, quicksilver [mercury], and even coal. Immense resources seemed to lie all
about; yet, somehow, they did not materialize with the expected abundance.
Under these circumstances it became clear to certain of the more sober minds
in the state that definite scientific knowledge was needed to give better
direction to the development of resources.
Foremost among those who perceived this need was Steven J. Field, at that time
a justice of the Supreme Court of California, later of the Supreme Court of the
United States. He realized that a geological survey of the state, in order to
accomplish its purposes, must be not only competent in science, but strictly
impartial and unprejudiced. He was determined, therefore, that it should be kept
out of politics and that it should be free from local influences. Everything
would depend upon the character and qualifications of the man to be placed in
charge of the work. Accordingly, before urging the matter in public, Justice
Field quietly sought advice of the leading men of science in the East and asked
them to recommend a sutable director. The name that received the preponderance
of endorsements was that of Josiah Dwight Whitney, a graduate of Yale, who had
been engaged for a number of years in various state surveys and whose book,
The Metallic Wealth of the United States, had attracted wide attention.
Consequently, when the bill came up for consideration in the legislature,
Justice Field and his associates, in spite of strong opposition from several
locally supported rivals, were able to have Whitney designated in the act itself
as State Geologist.
The act of April 21, 1860, in appointing the State Geologist, directed him:
"With the aid of such assistants as he may appoint, to make an accurate and
complete Geological Survey of the State, and to furnish, in his Report of the
same, proper maps and diagrams thereof, with a full and scientific description
of its rocks, fossils, soils, and minerals, and of its botanical and zoological
productions, together with specimens of the same." Whitney accepted the
appointment and set about organizing the personnel and equipment for his work.
The first man selected by Whitney for his staff was William H. Brewer. The two
had never met, and did not do so until the very eve of departure for California;
but so convincing was the recommendation of Professor Brush, of Yale, to whom
Whitney had addressed an inquiry, and so entirely suitable were Brewer's
qualifications, that the matter was arranged by correspondence. The next four
years were to show how extremely fortunate Whitney was in this selection. It
was of vast importance that his right-hand man should be of the strongest fiber,
of unflagging energy, the soundest judgment, the utmost tact, and of unequivocal
honesty and loyalty. Happily, these were the very qualifications that
distinguished the character of Brewer.
Brewer's professional attainments were not those of a geologist. He was educated
primarily in the sciences centering about agriculture. But in grounding himself
in these he had learned methods applicable to the study of all natural sciences.
He was a very keen and careful observer, ever mindful of the importance of
accuracy and of order. Moreover, he had a native shrewdness that enabled him to
recognize the relative significance of things and draw sound conclusions from
his data. In these qualities he was, in fact, superior to his chief; for
Whitney, in spite of his compendious knowledge and high intellectual
attainments, was inclined to be dogmatic. There were other respects in which
there was a contrast between the two. Whitney was forever quarreling with those
with whom he disagreed; Brewer, no matter how pronounced might be his views,
was always ready to let good fellowship and good humor prevail. There was a
genial quality about him that proved a saving grace for the Survey on more than
one occasion. Let it be said of Whitney, however, that with those whom he
considered his peers and with the members of his own staff he was on the best
of terms.
Notwithstanding the high rank to which he rose in the academic world, Brewer
was first and last a farmer, and his life story constantly reflects his
closeness to the soil. This is exemplified in his sound common sense, his
farmer's handiness with everyday contrivances, his ability to keep the wheels of
work going through all kinds of adversities of weather, the zest with which he
engaged in hard labor, the sincerity and generosity of his relations with men,
the heartiness of his humor, the wholesomeness with which he relished a salty
episode, and, finally, in the sound fruition that followed his labors.
William Henry Brewer was born at Poughkeepsie, New York, September 14, 1828.
The family soon afterward removed to Ithica, where he grew up accustomed to the
duties of a boy on a small farm. A Dutch ancestor, Adam Brouwer Berkhoven, had
come to New Amsterdam in 1642, but as generations passed in the New World the
name Berkhoven was dropped and Brouwer became Brower. Not until
the American Revolution did the further transition to Brewer occur.
Ancestry on the mother's side also extended to Colonial times; the DuBois
family, Huguenots, came to New York in 1662. William Henry Brewer had one
brother, Edgar, three and a half years younger, who lived for most of his life
on the family farm at Enfield. William Henry attended district school and then
spent four winters at Ithica Academy.
Such was the simple background when, in 1848, he secured his father's
permission to study agricultural chemistry for a year at Yale under Professor
Benjamin Silliman, Jr., and Professor Jon Pitkin
Norton. When Brewer set out for New Haven in October, 1848, he traveled for the
first time on a public conveyance. This journey was the beginning of an
unfoldment that soon led to farther horizons that he had visioned on the farm.
His year at Yale was extended to two. He applied himslef eagerly to his studies
and formed lasting friendships. He was one of the first members taken into
Berzelius Society after its formation.
At the end of two years Brewer returned to Enfield and began his career as a
teacher, first at Ithica Academy, then at an agricultural school. In the summer
of 1852 he was summoned to New Haven to be examined for the degree of Bachelor
of Philosophy, which was to be conferred upon those who had studied in the
"School of Applied Chemistry." On July 29, 1852, with George J. Brush, William
P. Blake, and three others, he received the degree. This was the first class
to be graduated from what is now the Sheffield Scientific School.
For the next three years he taught at Ovid Academy, Ovid, New York, constanty
strengthening his conviction that the future development of agriculture lay in
the study and application of the natural sciences. With this conviction, he
resolved to go to the fountainhead of scientific teaching, and in September,
1855, he sailed for Hamburg on the bark Ericsson. Going directly to
Heidelberg, he entered the analytical laboratory of Professor Bunsen, and a
year later moved on to Munich, where he studied under Liebig. In the summer of
1856 Brewer took to the open, walking six hundred miles through Switzerland.
While the study of botany was his primary motive, he did not fail to be
impressed with the splendors of the mountain scenery. This journey, and a
shorter one in the Tyrol the following spring, afforded experience in mountain
travel that was to assist him immeasurably in California a few years later.
Before returning to Ovid in the fall of 1857, he attended lectures on chemistry
by Chevreul in Paris, went on a brief botanical expedition to the south of
France, and saw a little of England. It is typical of his weighing of values
that in order to enjoy these added travels he chose to come home "steerage" on
the steamer from Liverpool.
A year after his return from Europe, Brewer was called to a professorship of
chemistry at Washington College (now Washington and Jefferson College),
Pennsyulvania. Meanwhile, in August, 1858, he had married Angelina Jameson.
His new position and his family life were, however, of brief duration, for in
the summer of 1860, shortly after the birth of a son, his wife died, and a few
weeks later the child followed. It was at this sad moment that the offer came
from Whitney to go to California, and Brewer welcomed the opportunity of
leaving the melancholy associations that a continuance at Washington College
would have entailed.
The journey to California, the commencement of the field work, the day-by-day
progress, the growth of a comprehensive view of the physical structure of the
state of California, are described so thoroughly and so clearly in Brewer's
letters that there is no need for amplification or for summary. The four years
of service with the Survey cover a distinct period, in which a very large part
of its important results was accomplished. In the following years the life of
the Survey became extremely precarious. At one time there was a complete
shutdown because of lack of funds, and finally, in 1873, after a brief
revival, it was discontinued entirely.
It can hardly be said that the original purposes of the California State
Geological Survey were fulfilled. Much was indeed learned about the mining
regions and the nature of the auriferous gravels; here and there a slight
curb was put upon speculation; the topography of the state was fairly well
mapped; and great progress was made toward an understanding of the geological
history of the country. Save for the maps, however, it is doubtful whether
any immediate economic advantages can be traced to Whitney's work. Certainly no
new mineral fields were discovered and no direction was given to the mining
industry. Whitney's excuse was that he could not produce economic results
except upon a basis of scientific knowledge, and that the field was so large
and so difficult that a much larger sum of money was needed than had been
placed at his disposal. There is a great deal of truth in Whitney's contention;
but, on the other hand, it is equally true that Whitney's own character had
much to do with the diversion of the Survey from its original purposes and its
consequent incompleteness. Whitney was bent upon conduction a perfect survey.
He was uncompromising and unyielding in the face of practical situations that
required diplomatic handling. Before trying to convince a state legislature
that the study of fossils -- "shells and old bones" -- had direct bearing upon
the discovery of gold mines, he should have offered simpler and more
comprehensive examples of the value of geological science. This he might
readily have done from the multifarious material developed during the first
few years of the work. He scorned such expedients, however, and refused to
deviate from his nobly conceived, but extremely ambitious, plans.
Although the Whitney Survey was a disappointment to the people of California,
it was, nevertheless, extremely valuable in many respects. It produced a wealth
of information which was utilized by other agencies and which ultimately found
its reflection in the welfare of the state. Perhaps its greatest value was in
the far-reaching influence it had on the conduct of subsequent surveys
throughout the United States. Out of its ranks came
Clarence King, Charles F. Hoffmann, and James T.
Gardiner. King proceeded to form his own Survey of the
Fortieth Parallel and later developed the idea of a consolidation of all
government surveys. Others were working for the same end, and presently there
was a bitter struggle for control. That the United States Geological Survey,
as eventually established in 1879 with Clarence King as its first Director,
was a civilian rather than a military agency is directly traceable to ideas
formulated in the Whitney Survey of California. Many of the methods employed
by the United States Geological Survey may be traced to the same source.
Hoffmann, for instance, may well be called the progenitor of modern American
topography. Guided by Whitney, he taught the art to King and Gardiner, who in
turn, developed it in the Survey of the Fortieth Parallel. He also taught
Henry Gannett, who, with Gardiner, introduced the art to the Hayden Survey.
When the consolidation took place, the topographic work was, therefore, almost
entirely in the hands of men trained in this school. In 1900, Brewer, in a
letter to Hoffmann, reviewed this course of events and made this statement:
'All these years I have taken pains, whenever opportunity occurred, to keep it in mind that you introduced America this system of field topographical survey, which now, improved greatly, but fundamentally the same, and tho' modified and much more widely extended, is the method employed by the general Government, and which, as I understand, has since been introduced into other countries where similar conditions occur. For this, Whitney and you should have credit, and the fact should have a more prominent record than the mere recollections of men.'
Professor Brewer's title in the Geological Survey of California was "Principal Assistant, in charge of Botanical Department." It will be observed from the contents of his journal that the botanical duties were subordinated to, and at times practically extinguished by, the responsibilities placed upon him as leader of the field parties. Nevertheless, he was able to do a considerable amount of collecting without much extra effort. With his customary precision he numbered his specimens in serial order, an aid to identification frequently neglected by collectors of his time. Classification and description was perforce left to a future occasion, so Brewer came to the close of his work in California with very little beyond his collections to show for his labors in the province of botany. For a time, after leaving the Survey, he worked on his botanical report at the Herbarium of Harvard University, where he had the benefit of the counsel of Professor Asa Gray. In a memorandum written many years later he states:
I received no pay whatever after the closing of my connection with the Survey of California -- neither for the time nor expense in working up the results. I spent an aggregate of about two years time -- a little more rather than less -- and over two thousand dollars in cash, besides deducting another one thousand dollars from my salary from college because of time taken out for my work -- that is, absence during term time at work on my plants at the Cambridge Herbarium. After Gilman went to California as president of the State University he induced a few wealthy citizens there to subscribe money for the finishing of the botanical work and getting it printed. I got the printing started, and then employed Watson, handed over all my notes to him and the rest of my manuscript, and he finished it.
The first volume of the botanical report did not appear until 1876; the second,
in which Brewer had practically no part, not until 1880.
Toward the close of his fourth year with the Survey, Brewer received word of his
appointment to the Chair of Agriculture in the Sheffield Scientific School at
Yale. His acceptance marked the end of his roving and brought him into the full
tide of his career. From the spring of 1865, when he entered upon his duties
at New Haven, until his retirement in 1903 as professor emeritus, he took a
prominent part in the development of the school. His influence extended far
beyond its walls, however, for he was not content with academic teaching, but
must needs bring the virtues of science to the farms, the villages, and the
cities of his state. He promoted the establishment of agricultural experiment
stations; he helped to organize the Connecticut State Board of Health and
served on it for thirty-one years; he also served for a long time on the Board
of Health of the city of New Haven. His services were also in demand in wider
fields. As a special agent for the census of 1880 he reported on the production
of cereals in the United States; he was a member of the United States Forestry
Commission appointed in 1896 to investigate the forest resources of the country;
he was chairman of the committee appointed by the National Academy of Sciences
in 1903 to make recommendations for a scientific survey of the Philippine
Islands; he was offered the position of Assistant Secretary of Agriculture in
the Cleveland administration, but declined.
Although after leaving California Brewer never again found time for extended
exploration, he by no means lost interest in such things. On three occasions
he took part in shorter trips of an unusual character. The first of these was
a summer trip to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado in 1969. During an interim
in the California Survey Whitney was teaching at Harvard and desired to bring
some of his students into contact with actual field conditions. He persuaded
Brewer and Hoffmann to assist him in conducting the expedition and teaching
the science of geology and the art of topography. It is noteworthy that of the
four students two subsequently achieved great distinction in these fields:
William Morris Davis becoming Professor of Geology at Harvard, and Henry Gannett
becoming Chief Geographer of the United States Geological Survey. It was many
years before Brewer made another expedition, this time to Greenland, in 1894.
As a result of this trip he joined with others in forming the Arctic Club, of
which he was for many years the president. In 1899 he was a member of the
Harriman Alaska Expedition.
In 1868 he married Georgiana Robinson at Exeter, New Hampshire. To their home
in New Haven four children were born: Nora (1870); Henry (1872); Arthur (1875);
and Carl (1882).
As time went on, Professor Brewer received his share of academic distinctions.
He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and served a term as its
president. In 1903 he was twice awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws --
by Wesleyan University and by Yale. A highly appropriate recognition came to
him in 1910, when the same honorary degree was conferred upon him by the
University of California. Thus, in the final year of
his life, he again became associated with the state in which he had spent four
of his most active years, years in which were laid down strong foundations for
his vigourous and useful career.
Throughout his life Brewer was a voluminous letter writer and diarist. He
recorded in his notebooks with minute punctiliousness everything he saw. His
pages are filled with weather statistics, with estimates of distances, with
measurements. These notebooks were for his own use, and well did he use them,
again and again. But when he came to write out his impressions for the benefit
of others, he clothed the bare bones of his statistics and created something
pulsing with life. Yet he never altered his facts to make an impression. The
statistics in his letters agree with those in his notebooks; and, if one were
to go back to the scene today and remeasure with the same instruments and the
same resources, one would in all probability find the facts to be much the same
as Brewer said they were. If the altitudes that he gives for mountains are not
quite the same as those shown on our latest maps, it is only because his means
were inadequate, not because he failed to observe accurately. It is this
accuracy of observation, coupled with his devotion to truth, that gives to his
letters unusual historical value. Moreover, in all his writings he rarely goes
beyond the limits of his own experience -- there is very little "hearsay" in
Brewer's journals.
During his four years in California he exercised his recording faculties to the
fullest extent. In the midst of a most prodigious activity he found time to
keep several distinct sets of notebooks, to prepare elaborate scientific
reports, to engage in a miscellaneous correspondence, and to write the vigorous
and comprehensive letters that constitue his personal journal. These letters
are the more remarkable in that they were sometimes written late at night by
firelight or candlelight, sometimes in the blistering heat of a summer noon,
sometimes in a leaky tent with cold rain and wind outside. Numbered serially,
they were sent to his brother, Edgar, with urgent instructions that after they
had been passed around among family and friends they should be held for him
until his return. Happily, only two of three numbers, all of lesser importance,
failed of delivery.
Brewer probably never intended these letters for publication. At least, he
never edited them or took any steps in that direction. Nor would they, perhaps,
have attracted much attention if they had been published in the years
immediately succeeding the events described. They were not "literature"; they
were not written in the style of certain superficial travelers of the day whose
animated accounts of what they saw and what they didn't see in California still
cumber our shelves. Clarence King, Brewer's young protege, could write
"literature", however, and did, with a brilliancy that marked his course in
many fields. His Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada, published in 1872,
after appearing in part in the Atlantic Monthly, was the only
publication resulting from the California Geological Survey outside of the
official reports and Whitney's scientific by-products. In King's delightful
book there is glamor and entertainment; in Whitney's reports, voluminous
information ably presented. But in the ripeness of time Brewer's letters will
come to fill a place quite as important as either Whitney's reports or King's
essays. They are an unabridged, undecorated record of the times, as replete
with significant facts as the reports, often as vivid in description as the
essays, yet devoid of the obsolete deductions of the former and the occasional
exaggerations of the later.
In preparing these letters for the press, the editor has taken certain liberties
with the text which he believes Professor Brewer would have cordially sanctioned
were he alive. It would be unfair to a scholar of high standing to perpetuate
errors of spelling, hastily contrived sentence structure, unwitting repetition,
and other trivialities, resulting from the trying conditions under which the
writing was done. Moreover, there are portions of the letters in which
considerably condensation has been possible without the sacrifice of anything
of permanent value. Better balance and facility in reading has been brought
about by abandoning the original letter lengths and substituting chapters.
There seems to be not the slightest advantage in reproducing here a precise
facsimile. Should any question arise upon which the exact text is desired for
comparison, reference can be readily made to the original manuscript which has
been deposited in the Yale University Library. There is also a carefully
compared typed copy in the files of the California Historical Society in San
Francisco. The editor confidently believes, however, that in no instance has he
altered Brewer's meaning or impaired his accuracy and that no matter of
importance has been omitted.
For readers who may desire to pursue farther the subject matter of these
letters, references to other publications will be found here and there in the
footnotes. Formost among these is the Geology volume of the Whitney
Survey. A reading of Brewer's letters makes it clear that a considerable portion
of this work was written by him, or at least composed substantially from his
reports. Part of the material contained in the Geology is also to be
found in the several editions of The Yosemite Guide-Book. These are by
no means all of the publications of the Survey, but they are the ones most
likely to interest the non-scientific reader. Of Brewer's associates on the
Survey, Whitney and King have been the subjects of biographical volumes.
In the many years since the field party of the California State Geological
Survey set out with its mules and wagons over dusty roads and incredibly steep
grades, enormous changes have come upon some portions of the scene. Where
these changes have obliterated all traces of earlier conditions, Brewer's vivid
descriptions will serve to summon a vision of the past with all its
picturesqueness and romance. But there are some spots, a little off the main
highways, where, even today, the reader of these letters will have little
difficulty in identifying the landmarks and where he may, if he chooses, tread
in the very footsteps of Brewer, Whitney, Hoffmann, Gardiner, King, Averill,
and the other bearded and sunburned men whose story is told in these pages.
Historian, traveler, and general reader alike, will, I am sure, thank Professor
Brewer for his pains in writing so faithfully of what he saw as he traveled
up and down California during those four years, 1860 to 1864."
- Francis P. Farquhar, Up and Down Claifornia
It should be added that there were those in the California political scene who had hoped to capitalize on the findings of the Whitney Survey, before the results were made available to the general public. That the Survey failed to find any important new mineral deposits anywhere in the state may help explain, in part, the lack of interest the legislature showed towards continual funding, and the eventual dissolution of the Survey in 1873.
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