I was just thinking about some of the things that I’d come across and wondered about some personalities, such as Ira Allison, is he still alive?
No. I think he died just very recently.
Because I saw his Fort Rock paper yesterday in the DOGAMI (1)library.
Yes. I’ve been keeping in touch with Allison. We wrote some joint papers, and even ten, twelve years ago he was really an active person in the field; I went out on some field trips with him. He wrote one of his papers on the gravels in the Portland area. He was the one that did the work on the erratics in the Willamette Valley that furnished one of the major proofs for the Bretz floods, you see. I call them “Bretz floods,” they call them Spokane Floods, you know, those Missoula floods. And he found 350 (I think it was) localities of where melting icebergs had dropped piles of rocks from British Columbia in the Willamette Valley as far south as Eugene.
It was more than just the one state park, it was many more?
Oh yes! In my book (2) I have a map showing the location of the erratics, taken mostly from Allison. And then I added to it a number that I’ve located and other people have located.
I know in his paper he mentioned about Fort Rock and his cooperative work with John C. Merriam and Cressman….
In those days we all worked together. Several of the geology students worked with Cressman. Have you seen Cressman’s biography?
Yes. I just read part of it this weekend.
Very interesting. And have you seen Thomas Condon’s biography?
