Mount Saint Elias
In 1880, he became a member of the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Between 1881 and 1885 he worked at the Mono Lake in east-central California. Originally employed for work with regard to surveying and building the "Bodie Railway" connecting the Lake with Bodie, he stayed for four years and wrote the seminal work "Quaternary History of Mono Valley, California" (1884). He represented the USGS in 1889 in an expedition sent to Alaska by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey to establish a portion of Alaska's eastern boundary. During the next two years, he explored, under the joint auspices of the USGS and the National Geographic Society, the slopes of Mount Saint Elias and the Yakutat Bay area.