“I hear the musketry of the Falls”: Systematic Geology, the Civil War, and Nation Building (2004)
this article explores the description of the Shoshone Falls in "Systematic Geology," a survey published by geologist Clarence King in the post-Civil War era. Four years after the Civil War in the U.S., King and other members of the Fortieth Parallel Survey deviated from the prescribed path in order to investigate the geology of Shoshone Falls on the Snake River. King led a group of handpicked scientists and artists along a strip of land which extended from Wyoming to California. The primary goal of the survey was to create a study and description of all the natural resources of the mountain country near the Union and Central Pacific Railroad. By uncovering the natural resources, the Survey discovers materials needed to rebuild a nation devastated by the Civil War. The newly discovered resources would serve to redirect the nation's attention away from the war's losses and focus it on possibilities of growth. The second goal of the survey was the completion of a continuous geological section across the widest expansion of the great Cordilleran Mountain System. King's "Systematic Geology" connects the reports of the California Geological surveys with reports from the Eastern United States. King's description of Shoshone Falls represents an America laid waste by civil war. The incorporation of the Civil War into the geological record contexualizes the war in terms of destructive geological uphevals as well as placing it within the concept of an optimistic vision.
...MoreDescription On a work by geologist Clarence King.
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