Background
Ernest Lester Jones was born on April 14, 1876 at East Orange, New Jersey, the son of Charles Hopkins Jones and his wife, Ada Lester.
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Excerpt from The Neglected Waters of the Pacific Coast: Washington, Oregon, and California Weather. - ~there are two seasons - the summer or dry season, which begins about May and continues until October, and the winter or rainy season, covering the remainder of the year. These seasons vary in length in different parts of the coast as well as in different years. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Ernest Lester Jones was born on April 14, 1876 at East Orange, New Jersey, the son of Charles Hopkins Jones and his wife, Ada Lester.
From the schools of Orange Ernest Jones went to the Newark Academy and prepared to enter Princeton University in the class of 1898, but, owing to ill health, soon sought the benefits of country life, congenial to his general physical frailness as well as to his tastes.
In 1919, he was granted the honorary degree of Master of Arts from Princeton University.
President Wilson, soon after his first successful campaign, drew Jones from the rural pursuits of a Virginia farm near Culpeper by appointing him deputy commissioner in the United States Bureau of Fisheries. In this capacity he visited Alaska and, being there impressed with the dangers besetting navigation in those waters, he composed in an official report an appeal of convincing clearness for the prosecution of coast surveys and the production of mariners' charts to promote the security of shipping and to safeguard the lives of seamen.
His striking words stamped him as one who could be used in creating sympathy for a branch of public work needed to serve the life of the nation, and in April 1915 he was appointed superintendent of the Coast and Geodetic Survey.
During the World War, on furlough from his office, 1918-19, he served as lieutenant-colonel in the Signal Corps and later as colonel in the Division of Military Aeronautics in France. When he died, at the early age of fifty-three years, he had held the directorship of the Coast and Geodetic Survey and membership in the International Boundary Commission for fourteen years without ever having claimed for himself any scientific distinction.
Ernest Lester Jones's major achievement was in his 14 years of service as the head of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey (USC&GS). In that capacity used his talent and energy to promote scientific work and investigation. Much of the increased activity and interest in hydrography, geodesy, seismology, and terrestrial magnetism may be traced directly to his influence. He was a most capable director is nevertheless evident from the history of the institution which he controlled. He took upon himself the cares of organization and supply, and left the chiefs of his scientific divisions unfettered freedom to pursue their technical work. Jones was the link between a service to science and the source of its support in the appropriations of the legislature, and he strengthened this relation by writing short and lucid primers, telling in simple terms the methods and purposes of various aspects of the surveying operations within his purview: Elements of Chart Making (1916); Hypsometry (1917); Neglected Waters of the Pacific (1918); Safeguard the Gateways of Alaska (1918); "The Evolution of the Nautical Chart" (Military Engineer, May-June 1924); Earthquake Investigations in the United States (1925); Science and the Earthquake Perils (1926); Tide and Current Investigations of the Coast and Geodetic Survey (1926).
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It was a part of his philosophy of administration that the best work can be done only when men have the proper appliances for doing it, and so it was among his basic endeavors to supply suitable ships and modern instruments and equipment. In these efforts he was successful, and he supplemented them by securing legislation giving his organization more stability and greater financial competence. It is not an easy task to obtain increasing appropriations to support hydrographic and geodetic surveying on the scale to which he expanded these operations. His truthfulness to the legislators was met by their confidence, and his loyalty to the Coast and Geodetic Survey was met by the loyalty to him of its membership. Being unpretending and deferential, yet ready to assume responsibility, his modest deportment was rendered all the more becoming by a full measure of that self-respect which springs from the aim to do the greatest good that is practicable.
Colonel Jones was a member of a large number of organizations and societies, which included scientific, engineering, social, patriotic, and outdoor recreations purposes, showing thereby a wide range of active human interest of usefulness. Among the organizations of which he was an active member may be mentioned in the Washington Academy of Sciences; the Philosophical Society of Washington; the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington Society of Engineers; the National Geographic Society; the Meteorological Society; the American Fisheries Society; the National Association of Audubon Societies; the Society of American Military Engineers; the Military Order of the World War; and the Society of Mayflower descendants. His membership in various clubs and civic organizations, also eloquent evidence of his wide interest in his fellow man, included the National Press Club, the Explorers Club (New York), the Aero Club of America, and Cosmos Club, and the Federal Club. Colonel Jones was elected an Associate Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers on April 3, 1922, and a member on October 12, 1925.
Quotes from others about the person
A citation from the Princeton University: "Ernest Lester Jones, Director, United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, the oldest scientific agency of our Government, writer on our coastal waterways bordering the Pacific Ocean, a resourceful administrator, increasing largely our supply of reliable maps and supervising the use of new devices for making our waters safer, notably by detecting the perilous submerged pinnacle rocks; a Colonel in the Army during the war, on active service in France and Italy, decorated by the King of Italy, awarded the Diploma of Merit by the Aerial League of America, recommended for the French Croix de Guerre; most recently instrumental in helping to form the American Legion to perpetuate American Liberty. "
In September 1897 Ernest Lester Jones married Virginia Brent Fox of Louisville, Kentucky, who with two daughters survived him.
