FRANCOIS EMILE MATTHES 1874-1948

Mountain climbing was for François Matthes all in the day’s work. Yet he enjoyed this, as he did every process by which he enriched his knowledge of the earth’s surface and the physical causes of its conditioning. He was tireless in the pursuit of knowledge, especially in the field of geophysical science. He well knew that this field was so vast and so varied that no one man in a lifetime could master it; nevertheless, undaunted, he set out to master as much of it as he could and to record his knowledge for the benefit of future generations. The amazing extent of his accomplishment was just beginning to be recognized when his career came to a close a few months ago.

François Emile Matthes was born in Amsterdam, Holland, on 16 March 1874; he died in El Cerrito, Calif., on 21 June 1948. His early education was in Holland, Switzerland and Germany. At the age of 17 he came to this country and entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he received the degree of B.S. in 1895. The following year he became an American citizen and shortly afterwards began his work with the U. S. Geological Survey. In 1911 he married Edith Lovell Coyle, who survives him. Upon his retirement from the Geological Survey a year ago, Dr. and Mrs. Matthes came to California to live. In his home in the Berkeley hills, overlooking the Golden Gate, he hoped to continue his writing and editing and, especially, to complete a popular book on the geology of the Yosemite region. But arduous extra duties during the war years had sapped his strength, and the hope was to be unfulfilled. Shortly before he died, but in time for him to have a glow of satisfaction at receiving it, there came to him, accompanied by a gold medal, a citation from the Secretary of the Interior which reads as follows:

“Citation For Distinguished Service—Mr. François Emile Matthes, upon retirement after a career of 51 years in the service of the Government, characterized by outstanding professional and scientific contributions. From the outset of his career, Mr. Matthes was intensely interested in the problems of delineating the shape of surface features of the land by means of topographic contour lines and came to excel in this highly skilled and difficult art. Moreover, he became interested in the process by which these land forms were fashioned. While progressing in the service as a skilled topographer, during which he mapped Glacier National Park, the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, Yosemite Valley, and Mount Rainier National Park, his interest in the processes of land formations increased and he annually presented papers before scientific societies on the glacial and other geologic features of the areas he was mapping. In 1913, having finally become one of the foremost topographers in this country, he decided to devote the remainder of his career to glacial geology. Accordingly, he became associate geologist in the Geological Survey. During this second period of his professional career, Mr. Matthes made many valuable and exceptionally well- written contributions to glacial geology and geomorphology and became recognized internationally as an outstanding glacial geologist. A bibliography of his published works includes nearly 100 items. Many of his publications deal with the glacial history of the country that he loves best, the Yosemite and high Sierras, but his writings embrace a variety of other subjects and regions. He has, for example, made important contributions to the development of the present system of national parks. As chairman of the committee on glaciers of the American Geophysical Union since 1931, he has led in the organization of cooperative studies and measurements of the modern glaciers in this country and elsewhere. He is also a leading student of the elusive record of pre-historic, post-Pleistocene fluctuations of climate. Most glacial geologists will probably select his paper on the geologic history of the Yosemite Valley as his most outstanding single contribution to our knowledge of how mountain glaciers of the past have made some of the most spectacular landscapes of today. Mr. Matthes was decorated Chevalier, Order of Leopold II (Belgium) in 1920. He is past president of the Geological Society of Washington and of the Association of American Geographers. He received the degree of LL.D. from the University of California in 1947. This distinguished career, during which Mr. Matthes contributed so outstandingly to scientific knowledge and the public service, deserves the highest commendation of the Department.—J. L. Krug, Secretary of the Interior.”

In addition to the societies mentioned in the citation, Dr. Matthes was a member of a number of others, among them the American Geophysical Union, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the California Academy of Sciences, the British Glaciological Society and the American Geographical Society. He was an honorary member of the Club Alpin Français, a corresponding member of the Appalachian Mountain Club, an honorary member of the Mazamas and an honorary vice-president of the Sierra Club. In 1919 he was elected to membership in the American Alpine Club. His mountain ascents include a number of peaks in Glacier National Park, Mont., and two visits to the summit of Mount Rainier during the course of work in determining the altitude and in mapping the mountain.

So much for the bare record and the public acknowledgment of a distinguished career. For many men it would be sufficient. But for François Matthes it is entirely inadequate. For it leaves out the great enthusiasms of his life, the things that made it a rare privilege to be with him and listen to his discourse. He was always glowing with enthusiasm and always eager to impart it to others. The beauty of the earth, particularly of mountains, moved him deeply, for he saw all around him manifestations of the orderly processes of creation. No detail escaped him, whether of rock in place or of rock ground to glacial débris, whether of stupendous forms or of minute striae, whether of trees living or of their skeletal remains, whether of flowers or of birds or of conies and other lesser folk. He saw all things in order, and in order he saw beauty.

But François Matthes’ greatest enthusiasm was a living one. This was his work with boys. In Scouting he perceived a corollary of the orderly course of Nature and Science applied to life at a stage responsive to teaching and direction. Not on the peaks of the Rockies, not on the summit of Rainier, not even on the granite domes of Yosemite, did he experience the greatest satisfactions of his mountain- climbing days; but on some lesser eminence, some remnant of an ancient range almost obliterated or some glaciated cirque-wall, where, surrounded by a dozen boys, he could point out the age-long history so clearly apparent to his practiced eye. The Silver Beaver of the Boy Scouts of America, awarded in 1931, for his service to boyhood, was his most prized honor.*

F. P. F.

* The photograph opposite page 204 is by Bachrach, Washington, D. C.—Ed.