BOOKS
Author: Aileen Kilgore Henderson
Publisher: NewSouth Books
Page: 256
Price: $34.95 (Cloth)
01/02/2012
Students and faculty at the U of A all know Smith Hall. Now Aileen Henderson's commendable study, based mainly on Dr. Eugene Allen Smith's field notebooks and letters, as well as newspapers of the era, will tell readers the full story of Alabama's first state geologist.
This volume is richly illustrated with many period photographs of Smith at work in the field, often with one of his sons. Many of these photographs were taken by Smith himself of different sites around the state: waterfalls, mine entrances, river banks, cuts and bluffs, deeply eroded ravines, all to document his studies.
There are several photos of Smith, his wife and children in and around his house and garden which were right on campus. The housed was razed in 1949 to make way for Gallalee Hall, the physics building.
Dr. Smith died in 1927, just short of his 87th birthday. He had served in the 33rd Alabama Volunteers in the Civil War and was actually a captain on campus with his troops on April third and fourth, 1865, when Federal troops burned the university.
After the war Smith took his B.S. degree from Alabama and then sailed to Europe, returning in 1868 with an M.A. and a Ph.D. with highest honors from the University of Heidelburg.
Smith joined the faculty at Alabama in 1871 and served as professor of geology and as state geologist for 54 years, publishing some 120 titles on Alabama and Southeastern geology.
During that time he put together the enormous collection of rocks and fossils that make the Alabama Museum of Natural History so remarkable and in fact worked for years to have the building itself funded and erected.
All of Smith's enormous body of work was managed at almost no pay and very little financial support.
But "Little Doc" Smith, famous for his stature, only 5 feet 4 inches, was a man of boundless energy and determination. Every summer and fall for decades he set out in a mule-drawn wagon, now on display at Smith Hall, to do field work. Many mules gave out; Dr. Smith did not.
He traveled, observed, collected, wrote and consulted, through mud, rain, tropical heat, swarms of insects, fevers, and accidents, camping most nights in his wagon or next to it.
His notebooks suggest, and it is tempting and nearly true to say, he covered every inch of the state.
In his geology wagon Smith moved slowly, for weeks at a time, over the worst roads in America. No one suffered more. In his notebooks he complained bitterly about the state of the roads, and was acknowledged as such an expert that he was appointed to the state highway commission. Smith knew Montgomery and lobbied tirelessly for the University and the state geologist's office.
Each expedition was in a sense specialized. One summer he might be looking especially at actual coal mines, deposits of limestone, iron ore, etc. Or he might be looking at sources of building materials such as granite quarries, or for the different clays which might be useful for pottery or to be mixed in paint.
Another time he might be examining fresh water resources in Alabama—rivers, streams, springs, wells—for navigation, potential drinking water, and even spas.
On several occasions Smith explored possible garnet, turquoise, silver, lead, gold or even diamond deposits in Alabama, usually having been led to the spot by letters and reports.
In his notebooks he records the disappointment, even anger, of those he had to tell they had not found the Alabama Sutter's Creek. There was some gold to be panned, but no El Dorado. Many just refused to believe him, thinking he was wrong or lying.
Any time Smith was in the field, whatever he was focusing on that summer, he was always the paleontologist. On the many cliffs, shoals, and riverbanks of Alabama he and his crews found thousands of specimens of shells, plants, sharks' teeth, even the zeuglodon, a prehistoric whale.
Aileen Henderson is the author of several books for children and two volumes of memoir: "Stateside Soldier: Life in the Women's Army Corps, 1944-1945" and "Tenderfoot Teacher: Letter from the Big Bend, 1953-1954."
© Copyright 2012, APR - ALABAMA PUBLIC RADIO
