Most of our knowledge of the Basin and Range country of west-central Nevada, including the famed Carlin Trend, can be contributed to Henry (Fergie) Ferguson, a long time member of the U.S. Geological Survey and a fellow of the Geological Society of America for over 45 years.
Except for brief interludes in Mogollon, New Mexico, reviews of tin deposits at Irish Creek, Virginia, and of gold-bearing veins near Washington, D.C. in World War I, and in the military Geology Unit in World War II, his survey years were spent in Nevada. Initially, he started out in the numerous small mining districts there, and later on the stratigraphy and the structure of the complex, and when his work began, in the relatively geologically unknown country.
His study of the mining districts lead to the synthesis, “The Mining Districts of Nevada,” published initially in Economic Geology in 1929 and reprinted by the Nevada State Bureau of Mines in 1944. It remains the ‘bible’ of Nevada mining geologists, and its conclusions, with only minor modifications, remain sound today.
Ferguson’s fundamental studies on the structure and stratigraphy constitute a major contribution to geology; in retrospect, the significance and magnitude of this phase of his work have never been given the recognition they deserve.
He had begun the Nevada work prior to World War I, preliminary to a survey paper on the ore deposits of Nevada. But increased recognition of the complex led to a plan, generated chiefly by Ferguson, to prepare geologic maps of the two belts across the state, thus obtaining a more comprehensive picture of the Great Basin structure.
With relatively little assistance, Ferguson completed the mapping of nearly 12,000 square miles, much of it requiring, for adequate understanding, remapping of the topography on a 12 x 12 board with an open sight alidade and simultaneous plotting of the geology.
He continued to work in Nevada after his formal retirement at age 70, and it was on one of these later field trips that the shattering of the steel head of a geologic pick led to the eventual loss of one eye.
Born in San Rafael, California, Fergie went East with his family. He attended St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire and from there to Harvard, where he received his A.B. degree in 1904, his B.S. In 1905, and his A.M. in 1906. After two years with Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company in Michigan and three years in the Philippines as an economic geologist, he returned to the U.S. in 1912 for his Ph.D. at Yale, which was granted in 1924.
