Revisiting the life and scientific reputation of Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden

Profiles of Rocky Mountain Geologists – a continuing series Hayden annoyed almost everyone he knew at one time or another; he thrived on spiteful controversy. —Mike Foster, 1994, p. 351 At the period of his greatest success Hayden was always the same unpretentious and enthusiastic seeker for knowledge. —Edward Drinker Cope, 1888 Had Congress created the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in 1877, rather than a year later, Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden (Fig. 1) would likely have become the first director. He was the favorite. If this had happened, Hayden's reputation and prominence today would be completely different. Figure 1. F. V. Hayden, about the time of his directorship of the U.S. Geological Survey of the Territories, 1870. Courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey Photographic Library. By many accounts, Hayden was the most qualified of the principal candidates for the USGS directorship, a group that included Clarence King, John Wesley Powell, and George Montague Wheeler. Congressional support for Hayden's U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, and for Hayden as its leader, was greater than that for the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel (the King Survey), the Geographical Survey West of the 100th Meridian (under Wheeler, of the U.S. Army's Corps of Engineers), or the Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region (the Powell Survey). At the time, from his published studies and newspaper stories, Hayden was well known and respected both in the U.S. and in Europe. He managed many people and projects, and he raised the money to keep people in the field and in offices writing their reports, the publication for which he also arranged. During the 25 years or so of his exploration in the American West—up to about 1878—Hayden's publications exceeded in number and were frequently equal to or superior in quality to those …