Summer Story

In 1879 he took a job as a field researcher with the newly formed United States Geological Survey and served with such distinction that within fifteen years he had risen to be its head. In 1907 he was appointed secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, where he remained until his death in 1927. Despite his administrative obligations, he continued to do fieldwork and to write prolifically. БЂњHis books fill a library shelf,БЂ«according to Fortey. Not incidentally, he was also a founding director of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which eventually became the National Aeronautics and Space Agency, or NASA, and thus can rightly be considered the grandfather of the space age. But what he is remembered for now is an astute but lucky find in British Columbia, high above the little town of Field, in the late summer of 1909. The customary version of the story is that Walcott, accompanied by his wife, was riding on horseback on a mountain trail beneath the spot called the Burgess Ridge when his wifeБЂ™s horse slipped on loose stones ...»