David Talbot Day

Background

Day was born on September 10, 1859, in East Rockport (now Lakewood), Ohio. He was the son of Willard Gibson, a not very prosperous Swedenborgian minister, and Caroline Cathcart, a remarkably gentle and understanding woman.

Education

In 1881 Day received the degree of Bachelor of Arts from Johns Hopkins University, and in 1884 that of Doctor of Philosophy.

Career

Day served for a year as demonstrator in chemistry at the University of Maryland, and made a connection with the United States Geological Survey.

In 1886 became chief of the Mineral Resources Division of the Geological Survey, a position which he held until 1907 when he undertook petroleum investigations for the Survey.

As chief of the Division of Mineral Resources he instituted the direct collection of data from the producers of minerals and advocated personal contact between them and members of the Survey. Previously such statistics had been obtained from secondary sources and were of doubtful value.

From September 1901 to October 1902 he edited the Engineering & Mining Journal, a task for which he was not particularly well-fitted.

While making petroleum investigations for the Survey from 1907 to 1914, he joined with others in recommending the creation of reserves of western lands containing petroleum and oil shales, and out of these reserves the present Naval Reserves eventually grew.

The problem of the oil shales interested him in particular and it was largely through his interest and enthusiasm that the modern researches that have led to such wide-spread recognition of the potential value of this resource were inaugurated.

For several years he continued his oil-shale studies and investigated cracking processes for increasing the yield of light distillates from petroleum.

Several patents for such processes were granted to him and to him and his nephew, Roland B. Day, in conjunction.

In 1914 he became consulting chemist for the Bureau of Mines, continuing in that capacity until 1920 and at the same time carrying on private practise as a petroleum chemist.

Upon his retirement to private work he moved to Santa Maria, California, in order to be near the oil fields and the shale lands, and there he made extensive experiments on the treatment of oil shale in a special plant.

He gave much time to the Geological Society of America, but he was really a chemist rather than a geologist, although he figured in the public eye as a geological authority.

Day was essentially one of the types of scientist that have built up the government’s technical bureaus at Washington, and the period when he was there was a formative one in the history of those bureaus.

Achievements

• Day's his most widely known work was the voluminous Handbook of the Petroleum Industry, compiled by himself as editor and published in 1922, a book of timely interest at that period. During his long official career in government work in Washington, he served in many temporary and honorary capacities, such as director of mining and oil exhibits at national and international expositions, commissioner on petroleum tests, and member of committees of adjudication.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Handbook of the Petroleum Industry, Volume 2;

Connections

In 1886, when Day was twenty-seven, he married Elizabeth Eliot Keeler of Mayport, Florida.

Father:

Willard Gibson Day

Mother:

Caroline (Cathcart) Day

Wife:

Elizabeth Eliot Keeler

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography Volume 3
  1971