Sargent, Willis, and the USGS 

December 21, 1903, 10:00 p.m. "Our party is strongly and most happily reiriforced by the arrival of Harvey Sargent... In China, officials either ride or are carried in a sedan chair. We would lose face and be liable to insult or worse if we walked. (However) on counting up the cost of horses and grooms I found it equal to the salary and expenses of a topographer and, being convinced that good maps are well worth the expense and possible risk, I cabled for Sargent to come. I knew him as one of the most skillful topographers of the United States Geological Survey, but I knew him also as a tried explorer and a staunch reliance in emergency. He is a New England man, one of that fine stock that has manned our schooners and clipper ships for several generations. He adds good fellowship as well as strength to our little party." 

(from Friendly China/Two Thousand Miles Afoot Among the Chinese, by Bailey Willis, Stanford University Press, 1949.)

So wrote Bailey Willis in his journal about the addition of Sargent to the Carnegie expedition, which relieved Willis of all map-making duties and allowed him to concentrate on his geological search. 

R. Harvey Sargent joined the USGS in 1898 as a traverseman, working in the Black Hills and the Rockies before being appointed an assistant topographer in 1900. Willis and Sargent had family connections, but professionally they probably met during these years. Sargent's long career with the USGS after the expedition to China included many field seasons with the Alaskan Branch before 1937, when he became Chief of the Topographic Branchs (now the National Mapping Division) Section of Inspection and Editing. (Information courtesy of USGS) 

Sargents maps collectively received the recognition of the Societe de Géographie de France in 1910, when the gold medal prize of Conrad Malte-Brun was conferred upon the Carnegie Institution Expedition to China.

 

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