Geodesy: Investigations Of Gravity And Isostasy...
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
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Geodesy: Investigations Of Gravity And Isostasy; Issue 40 Of Special Publication
U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, William Bowie
Govt. Print. Off., 1917
Science; Gravity; Gravity; Isostasy; Science / Gravity
Investigations of Gravity and Isostasy (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Investigations of Gravity and Isostasy
It i...)
Excerpt from Investigations of Gravity and Isostasy
It is hoped that many of those who are interested in the subject of isostasy will use the data contained in this and similar publications of the Survey for detailed study and investigation. It is only in this way that the data collected and published can be fully utilized. The time which can be placed on this work by members of the Survey is necessarily limited, because of many other lines of duty calling for prompt attention.
It is believed that it is desirable to publish promptly the observed values of the intensity of gravity and the reductions for topography and isostatic compensation rather than to delay for exhaustive detailed studies.
The author desires to express his appreciation of the important part taken by a number of the members of the Survey in the investigations covered by this report and in the preparation of the report itself. Especial credit is due Computers W. D. Lambert, Sarah Beall, H. G. Avers, C. H. Swick, E. F. Church, and G. E. Selby.
Assistants C. L. Garner and J. D. Powell deserve much credit for the efficient way in which they carried on the field work while establishing the 94 new stations. They did this work with great accuracy and economy. They also assisted in the office reductions.
As far as possible this report follows the general plan of the two previous gravity reports of the Survey. As the writer is the author of the second of those reports and a joint author of the first, some of the statements and definitions contained in the text of this volume may be similar to those in the former reports. Under the circumstances it is not necessary to set them off from the other text.
In Part I of this volume are given the results of the investigations, and in Part II the abstracts or summaries of observations in the field and the descriptions of the stations.
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William Bowie was an American geodesist. He is acknowledged for his scientific contribution into the field of geodesy and also for his service as a president of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) from 1933 to 1936.
Background
William Bowie was born on May 6, 1872, at Grassland, an estate near Annapolis Junction, Anne Arundel County, Maryland. He was the second son and second of four children of Thomas John and Susanna Hall (Anderson) Bowie.
Both parents came from old Maryland families of English ancestry. Bowie's father, a descendant of John Bowie, who emigrated to America about 1705, was prominent locally in the affairs of the Republican party and served a term in the Maryland legislature.
Education
Young Bowie was educated in local public schools and at St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland. He then attended Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, graduating with the B. S. degree in 1893, and Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, from which he received the degree of C. E. in 1895.
Career
Bowie entered the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, with which he was to be associated throughout his active career, on July 1, 1895. He served first as a junior officer and later as chief of field parties engaged in triangulation in the continental United States, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.
In 1909, he was appointed an inspector of geodetic work and chief of the Computing Division, succeeding John F. Hayford, and held this position until his retirement on reaching the statutory age of sixty-four in May 1936. He was recalled almost immediately, however, to active duty, serving until the end of the year, in order that he might preside while still in service over the general assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, held at Edinburgh in the late summer of 1936.
Besides his writings on maps, Bowie brought about two important innovations: the agreement by Canada and Mexico to a single geodetic datum (the North American Datum) for the whole continent (1913), and the creation of a federal Board of Surveys and Maps to coordinate the work of government agencies in this field (1919).
Geodesy is, in theory at least, an international science, knowing no national frontiers. This was recognized as early as 1862 when the Central European Geodetic Association (Mitteleuropäische Gradmessung) was organized. This association progressively changed its name and scope and became first the European and finally the International Geodetic Association. The United States had sent delegates to the meetings of the International Association almost from the beginning, and in 1912, Bowie attended the regular triennial conference held at Hamburg, Germany.
The Association did not survive World War I in its original form. Bowie was active in the organization of its successor, the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, a somewhat broader organization in that it included other departments of geophysics besides geodesy, organized as quasi-independent sections (afterwards renamed associations) under the Union as a sort of federal head.
Bowie was president of the section (association) on geodesy, 1919-33, and of the entire Union, 1933-36. An international organization, even though professedly scientific, sometimes gets embroiled in questions of international politics; these two presidencies gave him ample opportunity to display his qualities of tact and leadership.
In August 1940, after suffering a stroke, Bowie was taken to Mt. Alto Hospital in Washington, where he died. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Achievements
Bowie's merits and accomplishments were recognized by many awards, prizes, and memberships in learned societies, domestic and foreign. These included honorary degrees from Trinity College, Lehigh University, George Washington University, and Edinburgh University and election to the National Academy of Sciences (United States) and the Paris Academy of Sciences.
Perhaps the foreign honor that he valued most was the medal and diploma as an officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau, awarded in 1937 by the Queen of the Netherlands. The William Bowie Medal of the American Geophysical Union was established in his honor, and he was its first recipient (1939). In 1932, Bowie received the Prix Charles Lagrange from the Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique.
Bowie will be remembered not so much for his direct contributions to geodesy, although these were not lacking, as for his administrative ability, capacity for leadership, and geniality. Bowie was president of the section (association) on geodesy, 1919-33, and of the entire Union, 1933-36. An international organization, even though professedly scientific, sometimes gets embroiled in questions of international politics; these two presidencies gave him ample opportunity to display his qualities of tact and leadership.
Two undersea features, the Bowie Seamount and the Bowie Canyon, are named after William Bowie. The William Bowie Medal, the highest honor of the American Geophysical Union, is named in his honor.
His book Isostasy (1927) is his best-known work.
The U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey coastal survey ship USC&GS Bowie (CSS 27), in commission from 1946 to 1967, was named for him.
In his religious affiliation William Bowie was an Episcopalian.
Views
Bowie's main interests may be grouped under four heads: (1) extension of geodetic surveys of all sorts and improvement of their instruments and methods; (2) persistent advocacy of more and better maps, of the more intelligent use of them, and of the better coordination of the map-making agencies of the federal government; (3) studies in isostasy and the advocacy of that concept; and (4) activities in national and international scientific organizations.
Nearly a fifth of Bowie's published papers are devoted to the importance of maps and their use and about the same proportion to one or another aspect of isostasy.
The mathematical formulation of isostasy, though not the name, dates from 1855, and there were premonitions of the concept long before that; but even so, it seemed a new idea to many geologists, and Bowie spent much time and energy in explaining it to them.
Membership
Bowie was a member of the International Geodetic Association.
Connections
On June 28, 1899, William Bowie married Elizabeth Taylor Wattles of Alexandria, Virginia. Three of their four children died in infancy; Clagett, their second son, became a mathematician in aeronautical work.
