Alfred Hulse Brooks: Encyclopedia Arctica 15: Biographies

Through his personal investigations and his administration of Alaskan affairs, Alfred H. Brooks (1871-1924) contributed greatly to the knowledge of and appreciation of Alaska as an integral and important part in the dom– estic economy of the United States. Born at Ann Arbor, Michigan, July 18, 1871, he died in Washington, November 21, 1924. Of sound American stock, he early learned much of pioneering through his father, Major Thomas Benton Brooks, who had made an enviable reputation for himself as a mining engineer, through his explorations of the iron deposits of the upper peninsula of Michigan. Young Brooks' formal education was much interrupted by the fact that he was a member of a family that did not settle long in one place but moved from Michigan to Germany, then back to New York, then to Georgia, and back again to Germany. He did, however receive an education in a wide diversity of subjects and a much broader contact with practical matters than youngsters of more routine training usually get. In the course of his European travels he availed himself of the opportunity to take courses of instruction at the Polytechnik at Stuttgart and at Munich. He was graduated from Harvard University in the class of 1894, in spite of the fact that his course there had been interrupted by having lost nearly half a year through illness brought about by his having tried his none too robust physique too strenuously.

This is not the place to trace in detail the many ramifications of the

EA-Biography. Smith: Alfred Hulse Brooks

career of Brooks. Instead, it is proposed here to restrict discussion to those phases of his life which contributed most directly to his role in mak– ing Alaska known. We may therefore pass over with bare mention the fact that he was married, in 1903, to Mabel Baker and that he was the father of a daughter and a son, and that more or less intermittently he had served in various cap– acities on the United States Geological Survey since 1888 — in Vermont, in Michigan, and in the southern Appalachians, becoming a fullfledged member of that organization in 1894.

In 1897 the perennial scourge of government-operated scientific institu– tions — curtailment of funds — had served as a cause of Brooks' undertaking extensive travels in connection with the 7th International Geological Congress, to which he had been appointed a delegate, in the course of which he visited notable geologic sites in the Urals, Donets, Baku, and the Crimea, as well as parts of Turkey and Greece. At the close of these travels he matriculated at the Sorbonne, in Paris, and devoted his attention to the newly developed methods that had been devised by LaCroix, Fouque Bertrand, and DeLauney for solving some of the problems posed by an intensive petrographic examination of the rocks of the earth's crust.

These scholastic pursuits were suddenly brought to a close, in the spring of 1898, by the arrival of a cable from the Geological Survey, inquiring whether Brooks would be interested to return to the Survey and join one of the newly organized parties that were to undertake work in Alaska. This offer met a ready response from Brooks, who started immediately to close up his academic work and return to Washington to prepare for his new duties. By early April he had completed all these preliminaries and was sailing northward from Seattle to carry out his first assignment in the exploration of Alaska. On this job

EA-Biography. Smith: Alfred Hulse Brooks

Brooks was to serve as geologist in the expedition in charge of W. A. Peters, a skilled topographer. According to the plans, this party was to travel main– ly by its own canoes from the head of ocean navigation on Lynn Canal, in east– ern Alaska, cross the mountain barrier hat formed the divide at the head of that portion of the Yukon River drainage, descend a northward-flowing tributary of that great system, and then swing westward, exploring as much of the inter– vening country as time and conditions of travel permitted, ultimately coming out of the wilderness on the Tanana River drainage.

These plans were successfully carried out and several thousand square miles of parts of the unmapped White River basin and of the Tanana were ad– equately reconnoitered. It was a gruelling trip, involving as it did tracking the laden canoes up madly roaring glacially fed streams or through devious channels in swampy lowlands, interspersed with wearisome spells of back-pack– ing the supplies and equipment across intervening tracts that before the advent of the party were not known to afford such portages, eagerly questing each moment that the work was in progress to note and record all observations that might be useful to later comers in understanding the physical features of the country they were the first to view with the discriminating trained eye of the scientist. In the face of the almost insuperable problems of even maintaining themselves, Peters and Brooks toiled unremittingly to add each day notes to their records or a few more lines to their maps to indicate the courses of the drainage they traversed or the prominent landmarks and their elevations, or to collect samples of the rocks and minerals that would give new insight as to the geological con– ditions that prevailed.

As one reviews the records of this expedition in the light of the fifty years of later work that has been done in the same and nearby areas, one cannot

EA-Biography. Smith: Alfred Hulse Brooks

but be struck with the reliable quality of the early work. True, the 1898 expedition carved out but a small swathe from the terra incognita, but when account is taken of the conditions under which the work was done the results s ^ t ^ and out as notable contributions to pioneering. Maps of the area covered and descriptions of the features observed were published in full in the 20th Annual Report of the Director of the U. S. Geological Survey, Part 7, pages 425-494, 1900.

The field work and preparation of a report thereon of his first Alaska work having been completed, Brooks was again busily engaged in the preparations for a new assignment to Alaska in the spring of 1899. On this trip, the party was again to be in charge of W. J. Peters with Brooks as geologist, and there were to be four additional members to serve as technical assistants and camp hands. The project contemplated the party traveling by pack train, consist– ing of 15 animals, starting from Pyramid Harbor, a now long deserted town, near Skagway. Proceeding from that point, the party moved northward up the Klehini River, across to the headwaters of the Alsek River to Lake Kluane, and across the southern part of the basin of the White River and thence down to the Tan– ana River. The party then built their own means of crossing the wide Tanana, and traversed the then unknown triangle between that point and Eagle, on the Yukon River. It was a soul-trying trip, so rigorous that more than half of the animals constituting the original pack train succumbed before completing the route. The work gave an insight into many of the complex problems of geology that were found on every hand and afforded a reconnaissance map of the country that was of great value to all later comers. The results of the expedition were promptly published as one of the papers constituting Part 2 of the 21st Annual Report of the Director of the U. S. Geological Survey, pages 331-391, 1900.

On arriving at the Yukon River, the Peters-Brooks party found that the best way of returning home was by one of the regular river boats that des– cended the Yukon to St. Michael, where connection could be made with one of the ocean steamers that plied between that port and Seattle. On arriving at St. Michael, however, the contagious excitement that was in the air regarding the new placer gold finds at Nome, barely 100 miles distant, led Brooks to join Schrader, another of the Survey geologists, who had just completed offi– cial explorations in the Koyukuk district, Alaska, and make a hasty examina– tion of the area adjacent to Nome. It was late in the season before these geologists reached Nome, but they put in their time effectively in scouting widely throughout the district and gathered a wealth of information that was of inestimable value in guiding prospectors, and making plans for more inten– sive examinations during the next field season. It maybe of interest to point out that, as a result of these hasty studies, Brooks wrote, "We believe that the Nome region has a great future," a prediction that has been amply borne out by the fact that it has been the second most productive placer camp of the entire Territory. The results of this work were published with remarkable speed by the Geological Survey as a special paper of 56 pages, early in 1900.

The wild stampede that followed the announcement of the discoveries of gold near Nome and at other parts of Seward Peninsula induced the Geological Survey, in 1900, to send out a number of well organized parties to scout out the entire area more thoroughly than had been possible for Brooks and Schrader in their first hurried trip of 1899. These parties were strung out all along the southern coast of Seward Peninsula, from that in charge of Mendenhall, in the eastern part, to Collier, in the western part. Brooks and his associates examined mainly the central section, including Nome and Council. The results

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obtained by all of these parties were combined and published as a special volume, so that, except for the part contributed by Mendenhall, it is not now possible to attribute the sections contributed by each individual. How– ever, from indirect lines of evidence, it is apparent that most of the report as printed bears the stamp of having been prepared largely by Brooks. Perhaps the most noteworthy item in this report was that which called attention to the geologic conditions that had prevailed in the coastal plain area several miles inland from the present beach, which indicated to the geologist that compar– able beach placers might be expected to occur there also. This prediction has been amply justified by the discovery of the old beaches which have yield– ed far more gold than has been taken from the present beach which was the scene of the old stampede to Nome. The report covering the results of these examin– ations was published as a special publication by the Geological Survey in 1901, under the title "A Reconnaissance of the Cape Nome and Norton Bay Regions, Alaska, 1900."

On the conclusion of the Nome work and the completion of the report of his work there, Brooks, in 1901, was shifted from interior Alaska to make geo– logical investigations in the Ketchikan district of southeastern Alaska. This was known mineral-bearing area, as some copper deposits had been worked there for a number of years and some small showings of gold had also been reported. Brooks, associated with C. C. Brayton, reconnoitered more than 2,000 square miles of this area, during which the party traveled more than 1,200 miles, mostly in a small launch or by rowing, and visited the mining operations at more than 150 small mines and prospects. The physical configuration of the country is such that travel on land entails fighting one's way through almost impenetreable underbrush, or climbing precipitous slopes under weather condi-

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tions that are extremely trying. Brooks and Brayton surmounted these obstacles as part of the day's work, and came back with a wealth of new material about the country and its resources. The results of this work were published as Professional Paper No. 1 of the Geological Survey, 120 pages, 1902.

One of the most noteworthy of Brooks' Alaskan explorations was made in 1902, with L. M. Prindle as geologic assistant and D. I. Raeburn as topographer. These men, with four camp helpers and a pack train of twenty horses, started near Tyonek at the head of Cook Inlet, traveled along the southern face of the Alaska Range in the vicinity of the Skwentna River, found a pass across the range at the head of the river, overshadowed much of the way by the overpower– ing massif of Mount McKinley, struck northward on reaching the watershed of the Nenana River, and crossed the great lowland between the Alaska Range and the Tanana River to the north. Then, as though undaunted by the feats they had already accomplished, they pushed on northward across the intervening country and reached Rampart, on the Yukon River, where they brought their season's operations to a close. Some idea of the strenuous character of this trip may be gained from the fact that of the twenty horses that started only eleven completed the trip. As a result of this expedition maps and information as to 10,000 square miles of hitherto unsurveyed country were obtained, which still afford practically the only first-hand information about considerable tracts of central Alaska. The official report of this report was published as Pro– fessional Paper No. 70 of the U. S. Geooigical Survey, 234 pages, 1911.

In the early years of the Survey's explorations in Alaska the over-all planning and responsibility for concerted action had been handled in more or less of a catch-as-catch-can manner and the remarkable success that had been obtained was due more to the fine performance of the individual party leaders

EA-Biography. Smith: Alfred Hulse Brooks

than to skilled overhead direction. This weakness had long been realized and various palliative measures had from time to time been tried. Finally, Dr. C. W. Hayes, the Chief Geologist of the Survey, recommended to the Director that a separate unit be set up as a Division of the Geologic Branch to handle Alaskan affairs. This proposal was adopted and Brooks was placed in charge. For a time there was heartburning among some of the others who had done yeo– man service in the Alaska work, and most of the older geologists were trans– ferred to other fields of activity.

This then marked the close of Brooks' personal participation in the ex– tended explorations in Alaska and enabled him to devote himself to the broader phases of the problems the development of the country presented. This does not at all mean that he ceased his activities in the field, because throughout his remaining service he made a point each year of visiting as many parties in the field as was possible so that he might acquaint himself at first hand with the critical matters to which attention should be directed, and aid the field workers by his personal attention to their problems and bring the wealth of his vast accumulation of Alaska lore to their assistance. By giving up his long arduous field trips he was enabled to spend more time serving as consultant on Alaska subjects to other officers of the Government, from the President down, and his counsel was widely sought. It also enabled him to prepare for publica– tion a host of articles regarding Alaska development. Perhaps the most out– standing of these ^Al^aska compendia was his classic volume on the Geology and Geography of Alaska , a book of over 300 pages, that though published more than thirty years ago, in 1906, still is the most comprehensive general statement on these subjects, though it has been considerably modified in detail as a re– sult of later intensive and extensive studies.

Another of the widely consulted yearly publications prepared by Brooks personally was his annual review of the Mining Industry of Alaska , in which he set down not only the current statistics regarding the mineral production of the Territory, but gave extensive notes as to each of the new developments that had taken place or were in prospect. Nearly twenty such volumes have been issued under his authorship, and they form a most valuable source by which one can follow the successive stages in the early development of the Territory's mineral resources.

Brooks' wide personal knowledge of Alaska and the fact that he had a staff at his disposal who perhaps had more extensive personal familiarity with the Territory than any other group of skilled scientists led to his being selected to advise on many Alaskan matters somewhat outside the natural limits of his restricted field as a geologist. Thus, he was eaely active in trying to formu– late a wise policy for the utilization of Alaska coal, a subject that took him into a study of the markets for coal in the entire littoral of the Pacific and brought him, to his great regret, into the controversy that developed between Pinchot and Secretary Ballinger.

Again, in 1913, when the subject of the Government constructing a rail– road from the coast to [: ] interior Alaska came into the national limelight, Brooks was chosen by President Taft as one of the commissioners to study the question and make recommendations as to what should be done. With Major J. J. Morrow of the Corps of Engineers, L. M. Cox, civil engineer, U. S. Navy, and C. M. Ingersoll, a consulting engineer of New York City, Brooks, as vice-chair– man of the committee, joined in making intensive studies of the situation in the field and prepared a carefully analyzed report that received the approval of the President. Although subsequently modified by Congress, this report

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served as the basis on which the present government-operated railroad from Seward to Fairbanks was constructed.

Time and again Brooks was assigned to accompany various prominent govern– ment officials in their visits to the Territory. Thus, in 1911, he was a mem– ber of the party of Secretary of Interior Walter L. Fisher with the breadth and accuracy of his information. Again, in 1919, he accompanied the assistant to the Secretary of the Interior, John Hallowell, to study some of the broad prob– lems that required full examination and thoughtful consideration, if blunders in their handling were to be avoided. Among the last of the trips of this sort on which Brooks was engaged was that of Assistant Secretary of Commerce C. A. Houston, who with several specialists both from his own and other departments made an extensive trip through Alaska and Japan, during the summer of 1922. Al– though part of the time that Brooks was on this trip he was seriously incapaci– tated by illness, he proved to be a constant treasure-house of information that was avidly tapped by his confreres whenever an Alaskan subject was under dis– cussion.

Inasmuch as the present article is concerned primarily with subjects dealing with the northern regions, the other aspects of Brooks' career have been passed over with bare mention. It does seem desirable, however, to depart from that restriction in reviewing the period of his life between 1917 and 1919, when he served as Chief Geologist of the American Expeditionary Forces in France, dur– ing the First World War. This exception seems justified because during that period he put into practice many new concepts that he was able to adopt in his future administration of the Alaskan work. He served with distinction in various grades up to Lieutenant Colonel on General Pershing's staff, and earned the fol– lowing commendation from the general: "Your work was of a constructive character

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in a new field to military service and the results of your efforts were be– coming manifest to all."

After the close of hostilities and following several months' service as consultant to the American delegation to negotiate peace, Brooks returned to his former post with the Geological Survey and resumed his interrupted duties in directing the efforts of that organization in its Alaskan work. In these duties he wielded an ever-increasing influence on those who had the development of Alaska at heart, and was called on increasingly to make available from his vast store of knowledge of the Territory the advice that would help in formu– lating wise plans for the welfare of the country he loved so dearly. During the period while he directed the Survey's activities in Alaska, he was the motivating force that was largely responsible for the mapping, both geologic and topographic, of more than 200,000 square miles of that country, and his hand can be detected in the nearly 400 reports and maps that were issued by the Survey regarding our nort ^ h ^ ern possession.

The foregoing recital of the principal incidents in Brooks' contributions to the exploration of Alaska necessarily has failed to disclose many of the personal qualities of the man. It may be of interest, therefore, to point out that, in spite of his accomplishments in the rugged field of pioneering, he was almost the antithesis of what one ordinarily pictures as a frontiersman. He was not a robust, hearty Goliath, clever in the use of his hands and of great physi– cal stamina. Instead, he was somewhat less than average size, unskilled in athletic stunts and inept in the doing of even the simpler mechanical jobs a– round camp, and with a heart that was sufficiently weakened so that his admis– sion to the Army was held up several times before he was admitted for even limited service. He was, however, a veritable dynamo of energy, driving himself far

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beyond the limits most other men impose upon themselves. He was an omnivorous reader, and where others dissipated some of their energy in less profitable pursuits, he took keenest pleasure in conversation and discussion, by which he was constantly adding to his store of knowledge. He had the ability to meet all comers on a common ground and, whether hobnobbing with the least literate prospector or with highest authorities, he retained his simple, friendly bear– ing that gave and took the best that could be offered. He had a direct and kindly humor that allowed him to avoid self-glorification or enabled him to see through sophistry of others without unduly causing irritation. He had to work hard for what he got, so that he had little patience with those who attempt– ed to gain their ends solely by "inspirational" means without getting down to rock-bottom facts. That his methods were successful is amply demonstrated by the enduring niche that has been carved by him in the development of our great northern empire.

A complete list of Brooks' published reports is included as part of the memorial to him which forms pages 15-48, Vol. 37 of the Bulletin of the Geo– logical Society of America, 1926.

Philip S. Smith