MEAD E.

MEAD E. 16.01. 1858 Patriot IN/USA 26.01. 1936 Washington DC/USA Elwood Mead graduated from Purdue University, Lafayette IN, in 1882 and received from Iowa State College the degree of civil engineer in 1883. He was appointed instructor of mathematics at Colorado State University, Fort Collins CO, becoming there in 1885 professor of physics and engineering. When the college’s Agricultural Experiment Station was established in 1887, Mead served as meteorologist and irrigation engineer. He went to Wyoming in 1888 as territorial engineer becoming widely known as authority on irrigation. He joined in 1899 the US Department of Agriculture as head of its Office of Irrigation Investigations. Mead organized the Department of Irrigation at University of California in 1901. In 1907, he was called to Australia as chairman of the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission of Victoria. Over the following six years he proposed a comprehensive plan of water conservation and reclamation. On his return to the USA in 1915 he rejoined the faculty of University of California as professor of rural institutions and in 1917 became in addition head of California’s Land Settlement Board. The irrigation development in the West raised legal problems, for which the old doctrine of riparian rights was inapplicable. Most western States had developed therefore the doctrine of prior appropriation, by which landowners could divert water for irrigation. But with increasing settlement a novel regulation system became necessary. Mead was instrumental in the State of Wyoming for the new water law, which became a model for the West. In 1924 he was appointed head of the US Bureau of Reclamation, where the design and construction of dams from then became a major activity. He there initiated the design of Boulder Dam on Colorado River. In his honour, the huge storage reservoir was named Lake Mead. Anonymous (1936). Elwood Mead dies at 78. Engineering News-Record 116(Jan.30): 173. P Anonymous (1937). Elwood Mead. Trans. ASCE 102: 1611-1618. Anonymous (1958). Mead. Dictionary of American biography 22: 443-444. Scribner’s: New York Mead, E. (1900). The use of water in irrigation. Bulletin 86. US Dept. Agriculture: Washington. Mead, E. (1900). Irrigation studies. Trans. ASCE 44: 149-180. Mead, E. (1903). Irrigation institutions: A discussion of the economic and legal questions created by the growth of irrigated agriculture in the West. Macmillan: New York. Mead, E. (1908). An Australian irrigation-ditch water meter. Engineering News 59(Mar.26): 346. Mead, E. (1930). The Colorado River. Engineering News-Record 104(6): 240-246. P

MEINZER 28.11. 1876 Davis IL/USA 14.06. 1948 Washington DC/USA Oscar Edward Meinzer received the BA degree from Beloit College in 1901. He became a teacher of physical science at Lenox College, Hopkinton IA, in 1903. There he began the study of geology at the University of Chicago. He joined the US Geological Survey in 1907 to investigate groundwater locating water resources in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico to irrigate previously arid valleys. He became chief of the Division of Ground Water in 1913, a position he held until retirement in 1946. Meinzer transformed the previously neglected study of groundwater into a science. He realized that, as water became an important natural resource, it was necessary not only to discover underground reservoirs but also to measure their storage capacities and discharges, to arrive at a safe annual yield. He had an orderly mind and a capacity for hard work. He developed methods to estimate the groundwater basin yield, resulting in a standard reference published in 1923, for which he was awarded the PhD title in 1922. He also established a hydrologic laboratory to prove that as long as water flow through granular material is laminar, the velocity is proportional to the hydraulic gradient, conforming with the law of Henry Darcy (18031858). He developed geophysical methods for field investigations, including an automatic water-stage recorder on wells. He introduced the Ghijben-Herzberg formula to the USA to estimate the extent of saltwater encroachment in aquifers, in which fresh water is in dynamic equilibrium with seawater, as proposed by Willem Ghijben Badon (18451907). The 1930 droughts increased the demand for groundwater. Meinzer supervised geologists and engineers to develop sophisticated tools, methodology and techniques of modern groundwater hydrology, of which science he is the recognized father. Anonymous (1974). Meinzer, Oscar Edward. Dictionary of American biography Suppl. 4: 567-568. Scribner’s: New York. Meinzer, O.E. (1923). The occurrence of groundwater in the United States. Water Supply Paper 489. US Geological Survey: Washington DC. Meinzer, O.E. (1928). Compressibility and elasticity of artesian aquifers. Journal of Economic Geology 23(3): 263-291. Meinzer, O.E., ed. (1942). Hydrology. McGraw-Hill: New York. Meinzer, O.E. (1944). US ground water geologist warns against water diviners. Water Works Engineering 97(May31): 571. P Sayre, N. (1948). Meinzer. Proc. Geological Society of America 3: 197-206. P