The man in the urn: the geological contributions of Joseph Stanley-Brown, geologist, financier, and presidential aide

Joseph Stanley-Brown (1858–1941) played a quiet but important role in the formation of the U. S. Geological Survey as a secretary of John Wesley Powell and James A. Garfield. He was also a long-time (40-year) editor of the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, and provided financial oversight of the Penrose Bequest for the Geological Society of America during the Great Depression. He made a number of other geological contributions as well. The remains of this geologist and financier are interred in the crypt of the Garfield Monument, near those of the President whom he once served as a secretary. That President was also knowledgeable about geology and was a champion of geological surveys on the state and national level.