THE HISTORY OF GEOPHYSICAL PROSPECTING
PART ELEVEN - DE GOLYER

Chapter 30  -  Awards, Libraries and the Last Twenty Years

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....   team in the industry. As early as 1922, De Golyer had published "On the Estimating of Petroleum Reserves." 

De Golyer and MacNaughton soon hired a young, voluble, enthusiastic assistant named John Murrell. Everette De Golyer and Lewis MacNaughton were flying together on the same airplane when a terrible storm arose. lce was forrning on the wings and the plane was bouncing around like a yo-yo. Slow to alarm, as the storm grew worse, it finally dawned on the famed geologists that their chances of survival were getting smaller by the minute. Thinking about the future, MacNaughton turned to the senior member of the firm with a question,

"If we don't make it, what do you suppose John will call the new company?"

With the greyest of grins De Golyer shot back, "Murrell, Murrell and Murrell.“

Everette Lee De Golyer for the forty years that he was associated with the Arnerican Association of Petroleum Geologists was its most illustrious member. His influence along with that of Wallace Pratt and A. I. Levorsen was the dominant guide in the society's affairs. Not that "De" wanted it that way. He steadfastly refused to allow his name to be placed in nomination for the Presiden'cy until 1925. Only after Wallace Pratt had become the first recipient of the Sidney Powers Memorial Medal in 1945 and A. I. Levorsen the third recipient in 1948, could De Golyer be induced to accept the honor as the fourth medalist in 1950.

In 1927 Everette De Golyer served as President of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers. He was elected to honorary membership in the Society of Exploration Geophysicists in 1930 and to honorary membership in the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in 1944. He received the Anthony F. Lucas medal from the AlME in 1940 and honorary membership in 1951. He became the John Fritz medalist in 1942 by joint award of the AlME, the ASCE, the ASME and the AlEE.

His honorary degrees include Doctor of Laws from Trinity College; Doctor of Engineering from Princeton 'University and Doctor, Honoris Causa, from the University of Mexico. Four universities made him an honorary Doctor of Science; the Colorado School of Mines, Southern Methodist, Tulane and Washington. He was Cyrus Fogg Brackett lecturer at Princeton in 1939, Distinguished Professor of Geology at the University of Texas in 1940 and Louis Clark Vanaxem lecturer at Princeton in 1941. De Golyer's own school, the University of Oklahoma, is forbidden by charter to award honorary degrees. To honor the most distinquished graduate of their institution, the University of Oklahoma inaugurated its highest honor in 1948 as the Distinguished Service Citation; of course De Golyer was the first recipient.

Everette De Golyer served in the Petroleum Administration for War in Washington during World War Two, first as Director of Conservation and later as Assistant Deputy Administrator. For the Petroleum Reserves Corporation, he was Chief of the Mission to Mexico in 1942 and Chief of the Mission to the Middle East in 1943-1944. James V. Forrestal, Secretary of Defense, said of De Golyer in 1948, "I am fortunate in that here in my official capacity I continue to enjoy the same advice on oil problems that I learned to rely on a long time aga in the business world. I mean De Golyer. In my judgment his counsel in this field is the best the government can obtain. I have long been convinced that he is the most competent authority in the petroleum industry.“

Owning a vast and imposing library is one thing; reading all the volumes therein, quite another. De Golyer bought his books in order to read them. When in conversation with De Golyer, one could not fail to recognize the amazing quality of his mind; his animated, almost luminous mentality. No man in his times had so profound an influence on his fellow geologists. De Golyer guided their thinking in terms of structural theories and in terms of their subsurface techniques. Above all he provided leadership in the manner and means in which to approach the problems of geophysical prospecting in a pragmatic program of all-round exploration. With all his erudition, De Golyer was basically a simple man who believed in fundamentals.

The characteristic which distinguished De Golyer was intelligence; practical, vivid, inquisitive intelligence. No man in his times had so profound an influence on his fellow geophysicists. "De" stressed the necessity for a partnership of geology and geophysics, in which the geophysicists would approach geological problems with a better knowledge and a clearer viewpoint, and in which the geologist would learn to be properly sympathetic to and in harmony with the problems and exploration techniques of the geophysicist. What a void there would be in earth-science if there had been no De Golyer. How much more slowly exploration by geophysics would have advanced is hard to imagine. That the geological and geophysical world was in dire need of a person of such imagination, love of books, know how and all-round abilities is all too evident.

The De Golyer Library of the History of Science at the University of Oklahoma had its beginning in 1952, when the first books were given to President George L. Cross, himself a botanist. The next year, Duane Roller, Jr., was put in charge. Roller had his undergraduate training in physics at the University of Oklahoma before departing for Harvard to successfully complete his doctorate in lhe History of Science. The De Golyer Memorial Library occupies a goodly protion of the third floor of the library building in Norman. Dr. Roller made numerous trips to Dallas in his station wagon between 1953 and 1956 to pick up precious books and to enjoy inspirational talks with De Golyer. The Harvard collection and the Oklahoma collection on the History of Science are the most comprehensive to be found within American universities.

The De Golyer books on geology, one of the best professional collections in existence, went to the University of Texas as did the fine De Golyer collection of poetry. Southern Methodist University in Dallas has the extensive De Golyer library on the History of the Southwest and his Americana library. Dr. James Phillips, with advanced degrees from Yale and from Trinity College in Dublin, is in charge, of the Southern Methodist collections and also of the Horne Library on White Castle Lake in Dallas. One would imagine that the Home Library shelves would be deleted of volumes, since there are so many books that have found their way to Austin, Norman and elsewhere in Dallas. Strangely enough the Home Library is at present full to overflowing.