J.W. Spencer : his life in Missouri and Georgia, and work on proglacial lakes

Geoscience Canada, Dec, 2004 by Gerard V. Middleton

SUMMARY

In 1882, Spencer left Canada to become Professor of Geology and Mineralogy, and Director of the Natural History Museum at the State University of Missouri. His first task was to design and equip the new museum, part of a planned extension of the main university building. The museum was completed in 1884, but funding for specimens and furnishing was withheld as feuding between the administration and the State increased. In 1886, Spencer visited Europe, making observations in Norway which strengthened his belief that glaciers were ineffective agents of erosion. Spencer was forced to resign in 1887: he devoted that summer to intensive fieldwork in the Great Lakes region, tracing proglacial lake beaches.

He was appointed Professor of Geology at the State University of Georgia in Athens in 1888 and devoted that summer to further fieldwork on the proglacial beaches. The summer of 1889 was spent in geological surveys for a new railroad in Georgia and Alabama, and in 1890 Spencer gave up his position as Professor to become State Geologist of Georgia. This position ended in 1893, because Spencer had mapped mainly Paleozoic rocks in the northwest part of the State, and was intolerant of demands that he yield to political pressures and spend more time on practical matters, including gold deposits. His two seasons of fieldwork (in 1887 and 1888) were the main basis for the numerous papers that he subsequently published that named proglacial lakes (e.g., Iroquois, Algonquin), described their post-glacial deformation, and discussed their origin. Spencer did not accept that the Great Lakes region was ever covered by thick ice sheets: he believed the proglacial lakes formed at sea level, and were not the result of ice-dams.

SOMMAIRE

En 1882, Spencer a quitte le Canada pour devenir professeur de geologie et de mineralogie, et directeur du Musee d'histoire naturelle de l'Universite d'lEtat du Missouri. Son premier mandat a ete de concevoir et equiper le nouveau musee, lequel devait etre un prolongement de l'edifice principal. La construction du musee a ete completee en 1884, mais les fonds pour l'achat de l'ameublement et de specimens front pas ete debloques pour cause de mesentente croissante entre l'Etat et la direction. En 1886 Spencer a voyage en Europe et les observations qu'il a faites en Norvege ont renforce sa conviction que les glaciers n'etaient pas des agents d'erosion efficaces. En 1887, Spencer a ete force de demissionner : il a consacre cet ete la a d'intensifs travaux de terrain dans la region des Grands Lacs, relevant le trace des plages proglaciaires. En 1888, il a ete embauche comme professeur de geologie a l'Universite d'Etat de Georgie a Athens, et il a consacre son ete a la poursuite de ses travaux sur les plages proglaciaires. Durant Fete de 1889, il a realise des leves geologiques en rapport avec la construction d'une nouvelle voie ferree en Georgie et en Alabama. En 1990, il a quitte son poste de professeur pour devenir geologue au service de l'Etat de Georgie. A ce poste, Spencer s'est surtout consacre a la cartographie des roches paleozoiques du nord-ouest de l'Etat, mais il a de quitter ce poste parce qu'il refusait de ceder aux pressions politiques voulant qu'il consacre plus de temps a des considerations plus pratiques, tel les gisements auriferes. Les informations recueillies lors de ses deux saisons de travaux de terrain (1887 et 1888) ont constitue la reference principale de nombreuses publications qui sont a l'origine des noms donnes aux lacs proglaciaires (Iroquois, Algonquin par ex.), de descriptions de leurs deformations post-glaciaires, et de discussions sur leur origine. Spencer n'acceptait pas l'idee que la region des Grands Lacs ait deja ete recouverte d'epaisses lentilles de glace : il croyait que les lacs proglaciaires avaient ete formes au niveau de lamer et qu'ils n'etaient pas le resultat d'un effet de barrage cree par les glaciers.

SPENCER'S LIFE IN CANADA

J.W. Spencer, born and buried in Dundas, Ontario, was a pioneer Canadian geomorphologist. After attending school in Dundas, he moved to Hamilton where he worked in a pharmacy, and was encouraged by local amateur geologists. He attended McGill University from 1871 to 1874, studied under William Dawson and Bernard Harrington, and graduated in the newly reorganized Applied Sciences program. He spent the summer of 1874 working as Robert Bell's assistant in Manitoba, and the following summer working in the Michigan copper mines, as an assistant to a mine engineer, Luther Emerson. He obtained a position as science teacher at Hamilton Collegiate Institute in 1876. In 1877 he submitted his thesis on Michigan copper deposits to the university at G6ttingen, Germany and that summer he visited the university, passed his oral examinations and was awarded his Ph.D., thus becoming the second Canadian to earn a doctorate in geology. In 1880 he became Professor at King's College, Windsor, Nova Scotia. His geological studies concentrated on the region around his birthplace at the head of Lake Ontario: at first they were mainly of Paleozoic geology and paleontology, but by 1880 they had switched decisively to surficial geology, particularly the preglacial drainage of Lakes Erie and Ontario. In 1880 he travelled extensively in the United States and attended the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston, where he met J.P. Lesley, who encouraged him to continue his studies of preglacial rivers.