Herbert E. Gregory

Herbert Ernest Gregory (October 15, 1869 – January 23, 1952) was an American geologist, geographer, professor of geology at Yale University, and director from 1919 to 1936 of the Bishop Museum. He was elected in 1917 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1923 to the American Philosophical Society.

Quotes

During the formation of the conglomerates, sandstones, and shales a time proved by dinosaur and fish remains to be Triassic lava was poured out over central Connecticut and possibly over the entire State. Remains of these flows of basalt now stand as a ridge separating the valleys of Farmington and Connecticut rivers. During Cretaceous time the highlands were lowered and the entire surface was reduced practically to a plain sloping from northwest to southeast, and the Cretaceous sediments now exhibited on Long Island probably also covered southern Connecticut. This plain (peneplain) formed during Cretaceous time was uplifted during early Tertiary time, and the streams were thereby given greater eroding power and began at once to deepen and widen their valleys. Continued erosion during the millions of years comprehended in Tertiary time resulted in giving to Connecticut the larger features of valley and hill, highland, and lowland, which exist at the present time.
- "Chapter. Salient Features of Connecticut Geology. Origin, Nature, and Classification of the Rocks. by Herbert Ernest Gregory". The Granites of Connecticut. Bulletin 484, by Thomas Nelson Dale & Herbert Ernest Gregory, U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1911. pp. 9–13. (quote from p. 13; 137 pages; prepared in cooperation with the Geological and Natural History Survey of Connecticut)

In addition to those maintained by the Federal and Territorial governments, the active scientific organizations of Hawaii include the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History, the College of Hawaii, the Sugar Planter's Experiment Station, The Marine Aquarium and the Volcano Observatory.
- (April 30, 1920) "The Pan-Pacific Scientific Congress". Science 51 (1322): 431. DOI:10.1126/science.51.1322.431.a.

The work of the archeologists of the Bayard Dominick Expeditions revealed no very ancient habitation in the central and south Pacific. For the Polynesian settlement the evidence serves to substantiate the conclusions of William Churchill, based on linguistic and cultural study. The following dates are considered reasonable estimates: A.D. 0, the first Polynesian migratory movement; A.D.600, a second migration; and A.D. 1000, a period of great Polynesian expansion.
- (10 November 1922) "Progress in Polynesian Research". Science 56 (1454): 527–529. DOI:10.1126/science.56.1454.527. quote from p. 529

Poetry and musings about the nature of things require no special technique, no collections of materials for comparison. A gifted mind is the essential equipment; and such minds may appear anywhere and at any time. But the development of natural science involves critical observation of a variety of things from many places, the interchange of ideas among many workers, the making of hypotheses, the formulation and selection of method, and the invention of apparatus.
- "Chapter V. Geology". "'The Development of the Sciences''. 6 chapters from 6 different lectures delivered in 1920 at Yale University by Ernest William Brown, Henry Andrews Bumstead, John Johnston, Frank Schlesinger, Herbert Ernest Gregory, & Lorande Loss Woodruff. Yale University Press. 1923. pp. 169–213. (327 pages; edited by Lorande Loss Woodruff; quote from p. 169)

... the compound polarizing microscope ... brings to view and differentiates minerals even in apparently homogeneous rocks. The development of this instrument and of the means of preparing rocks for study marked the beginning of the golden age of descriptive petrography, the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The way had been blazed by Professor Nicol, the Scottish geologist, who invented the Nicol prism for polarizing light, attached it to a microscope, and devised a method for preparing thin sections of fossil wood (1828). The success of this method led Ehrenberg to the epoch-making discovery that chalk and marls and some limestones were composed of skeletons of organisms.
- p. 179

Progress has been attained by the development of chemical methods of research in rock origins and rock relationship. The pioneer work of Bischof (1846), the founder of chemical geology, Bunsen (1851), and Senft (1857) led the way to the researches of Roth, Clarke, and Hillebrand, and culminated in Washington's awe-inspiring volume, ‘’Chemical Analyses of Igneous Rocks’’ (1903), Cross, Iddings, Pirsson, and Washington's ‘’Quantitative Classification of Igneous Rocks’’ (1903), and Clarke's ‘’Data of Geochemistry’’ (4th ed., 1920)—three American works which are essential handbooks for geologists and chemists of all countries.
- p. 180