San Francisco County
Professor George Davidson, Ph.D, Sc.D
Professor George Davidson, Ph.D., Sc. D. –Probably no name is better known in the scientific world of the Pacific coast than that of Professor George Davidson, the senior assistant of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. His active and untiring efforts, extending over a long period of time in advancing the interests of science on this coast, are well known; and the work he has accomplished in the services in which he holds high rank has earned for him a name and reputation which might be envied by any man. A brief sketch of his life and service will be of interest to very many, who have not the pleasure of his personal acquaintance, as well as to those who have been associated with him.
He was born in May, 1825, and has been on the coast survey more than forty-six years, on consecutive duty, serving from Newfoundland to Texas and from Panama to Alaska. He came to the Pacific coast early in 1850, when it was a new and difficult field, having been chosen for this special duty by Superintendent Bache. He served five consecutive years, winter and summer, on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts before that, and afterward during the Rebellion, and has been again on the Pacific coast since 1867. In 1848 he was a student in the Philadelphia Central High School under Professor Bache, afterward superintendent of the survey, who selected him for coast-survey work one year before graduation, from among hundreds of students who had been with Professor Bache. He entered the survey June 1, 1845, upon graduation. After one year’s service as secretary, computer, etc., to Superintendent Bache, he chose field duty as his future labor. Professor Bache offered him the position of assistant in charge of the office in 1850, which offer was declined, and he was selected for duty in California before he was twenty-five years of age. He was for several years specially engaged in the determination of the latitude and longitude of prominent capes, bays, etc.; of the magnetic elements of the Pacific coast; and also reporting upon the proper location for lighthouses. Professor Bache frequently declared that his energetic work in 1850 saved the Pacific coast items in the appropriations in the succeeding Congress.
Professor Davidson has made himself thoroughly familiar with the currents on the Pacific coast, and discovered the existence of the in-shore eddy current, which affects all bars and influences all improvements for harbors of refuge. He has given great attention to all hydraulic problems, to the water supply of large cities, the sewerage of the large cities of Europe and America, and the drainage of great districts (Egypt, Italy, Holland, etc.). Most of these studies were directly connected with the work of the Coast and Geodetic Survey.
Beyond these, he has been an active member of the California Academy of Sciences, and has published original investigations in geometry, in the devising of new instruments of precision, in the physical appearance of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars; on the constitution of the tails of comets; the plateau of the Pacific off the California coast etc. He has been engaged in every variety of fieldwork, and is familiar with the use and detailed construction of every instrument; he has devised new and economic forms. Outside of his regular official duties, Professor Davidson has written four editions of the “Coast Pilot of California, Oregon and Washington,” between 1857 and 1889.
After Professor Peirce’s appointment in 1867, Professor Davidson was placed in charge of the work on the Pacific coast, and laid out the schemes of work for all the land parties from 1868 to 1875, and inspected all the fields of work. An appeal to the records will show greater general progress and more system in that period than at any other. He made telegraphic connections for longitude with all the different centers of triangulation and topography, and in the telegraphic longitude work between San Francisco and Cambridge, determined directly the signal time over 7,200 miles of line. He determined the eastern boundary, 120th meridian, of California, in 1873.
After his return from Japan, India, Egypt and Italy, in 1876, he was placed in charge of the main triangulation and astronomical work of the Pacific coast; and the records of the computing division show that the results of his observations stand higher than any ever executed in America, Europe or India. The superintendent has approved special results and operations of this work “as unique in the history of geodesy,” and has praised the character of all; and whilst its magnitude and difficulties are greater than any aboard, it has been carried on more economically and more rapidly than any other.
In 1881 he twice measured one of the longest base lines (nearly eleven miles) yet attempted in trigonometrical operations, and with the greatest accuracy. In acknowledgment of the character of the system of triangulation developed from the Yolo base-line to the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Range and the high standard of the observations, the superintendent has designated it by the name of the “Davidson Quadrilaterals.”
For his services when in charge of the Pacific coast work, Superintendent Peirce had him promoted to the head of the list of field assistants for administrative capacity and special aptitude. In 1888-’89 he measured a base line of equal length in Los Angeles and Orange counties, California. The operation was repeated three times, with the greatest success and unprecedentedly short time.
He has, moreover, kept abreast of all scientific progress correlated with the work of the survey, and in 1874 was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He was annually elected President of the California Academy of Sciences from 1871 to 1885; elected President of the Geographical Society of the Pacific at its inception in 1881, and still retains the positions; made life member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia for special services (1855); elected a member of the American Philosophical Society, 1865; Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1880; received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from Santa Clara “for advancing the cause of true learning,” in 1876; the degree of Doctor of Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1889, and in 1889 was made the first honorary member of the Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco for “eminent public services.”
Professor Davidson holds the position of Honorary Professor of Geodesy and Astronomy in the University of California (1873), made at the suggestion of Professor Peirce; and was a Regent of the same institution from 1877 to 1884. At his own expense he has maintained the first astronomical observatory on the Pacific coast of North America; and has given the use of his equatorial to the coast survey when special observations on the Pacific coast of North America; and has given the use of his equatorial to the coast survey when special observations demanded it. In November, 1881, he observed the transit of Mercury over the sun’s disc, and again in May, 1891.
In 1865, at the appeal of Mrs. Bache, he went to Europe (at his own expense), by authority of Captain Patterson, to conduct Superintendant Bache home again. In 1867 he was appointed to make a special examination and report upon the geography and resources of Alaska, pending its purchase, and his published report and conferences with the department, and before Congressional committee, influenced the passage of the bill which appropriated the purchase money. In 1871 and in 1885 he was appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury to examine and report upon the weights and balances of the United States Mint at San Francisco (published). In 1873 he was appointed by the President of the United States Commissioners of Irrigation of California, with General B. S. Alexander and Colonel G. H. Mendell, United States Engineers. The report made by these commissioners was published by the Government. Professor Davidson afterward went, officially, through India, Egypt, Italy, etc., to study the same subject (report published), and to examine and report upon harbors of refuge, etc. (published).
He was also appointed by the President one of the three United States Advisory Commissioners for the harbor of San Francisco, with Admiral John Rogers, United States Navy, and Colonel G. H. Mendell, United States Engineers; was sent in charge of the United States Transit of Venus Expedition to Japan, in 1874; determined (at his own expense) the telegraphic longitude between Nagasaki and Tokio, Japan, and presented the observations to the Coast and Geodetic Survey; was sent to the Paris Exposition in 1878, to examine the instruments of precision applicable to astronomy and geodesy, and was there elected by the French and foreign jurors the president of the important Jury on Machinery, when that jury examined 3,800 pieces of machinery and awarded 850 prizes.
In 1882 he had charge of the Transit of Venus party to Cerro Roblero in New Mexico, and was very successful in his telescopic and photographic determinations. In his services in geography he was made an honorary member of the Appalachian mountain Club of Boston, in 1880; honorary corresponding member of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, Edinburgh, in 1888; honorary corresponding member of the Royal Geographical Society, London, in 1890.
In 1888 he was appointed by the President a member of the United States Mississippi River Commission, which position he resigned in 1890. In 1889 he was appointed by the President of the United States the delegate to the International Geodetic Association, and that body elected him one of the twelve members of the permanent Commission.
At the present writing, 1891, he has charge of the main triangulation of California, and other duties, and is especially engaged in observing the latitude every clear night through one year, in concert with the operations of the International Geodetic Association and the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, for the discussion of the minute change of the direction of the earth’s axis hitherto unexplained.
The latest published works of Doctor Davidson are “An Examination of Some of the Early Voyages of Discovery and Exploration of the Northwest Coast of America, from 1539 to 1603: 1886.” This work contains ninety-five large quarto pages and a chart. Another: “The Coast Pilot of California, Oregon and Washington.” This is the fourth edition, entirely rewritten in 1889, containing 721 large quarto pages and chart, and 464 views of landfalls, headlands, etc.; “Identification of Francis Drake’s Anchorage on the Coast of California in the year 1579;” 1890: fifty-eight octavo pages and fifteen charts: and “The Discovery of Humboldt Bay, California;” 1891: sixteen octavo pages and five charts.
Transcribed
by Joyce and David Rugeroni.
Source: “The Bay of
San Francisco,” Vol. 2, Pages 380-383, Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.
© 2006 Joyce & David
Rugeroni.