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Bailey Willis (March 31, 1857 in Idle Wild-on-Hudson, New York, United States – February 19, 1949 in Palo Alto, California) was a geological engineer who worked for the United States Geological Survey (USGS), and lectured at two prominent American universities. He also played a key role in getting Mount Rainier designated as a national park in 1899. After later focusing more on seismology, he became one of the world's leading earthquake experts of his time. Some Biogeographers, Evolutionists and Ecologists: Chrono-Biographical Sketches. Accessed March 13, 2008. He was also a prominent opposer of the continental drift theory.
Willis married his cousin, Altona Grinnell, in 1882, but she died in 1896. The couple had two children, Marion, who died in infancy, and Hope, later Mrs. Seward H. Rathbun. In 1898 he married Margaret Baker, daughter of Dr. Frank Baker of Georgetown University, who was also superintendent of the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. The children of his second marriage are Cornelius G. Willis, Robin Willis and Margaret (Mrs. Donald F.) Smith. The family lived for many years on the Stanford University campus. Margaret Willis died in 1941.
From 1910 until 1914 he consulted for the government of Argentina Geografía de Panamá: Character and Resources on Internet Archive an experience later recorded in his book A Yanqui in Patagonia. Willis also called for comprehensive state intervention in the enforcement of the national park at Lake Nahuel Huapí. He was commissioned by the Director General de Agricultura, Dr. Julio López Mañán, to prepare a study on the Nahuel Huapi National Park. This study first appeared in 1913 in a brochure published by the Dirección de Agricultura y Defensa Agrícola and was later reprinted in his book El Norte de la Patagonia under the title "Parque Nacional del Sud". Willis had probably discussed these ideas intensively with Francisco Moreno and also with Emilio Frey.
When he returned to the United States in 1915 he was named Head of the Stanford University Geology Department.San Francisco Chronicle, "Dr.Bailey Willis is Department Head" June 29, 1915 p.7 He led a vigorous public campaign in the 1920s to raise awareness of earthquake hazards and safe building practices. It is claimed that many of California's early building codes were inspired by experiments performed by Willis on an "earthquake table" at Stanford University. Willis, concerned about the dangers of earthquakes convinced engineers to dig the foundation of the southern tower of the Golden Gate Bridge deeper.February 21, 1949 San Francisco Examiner "Dr. Bailey Willis Famed Earthquake Expert, Dies"
After finishing his work with the USGS, he was appointed as a professor and chairman of the geology department at Stanford University, where he served until 1922. In 1920, he was elected to the National Academy of the Sciences. He was president of the Seismological Society of America from 1921 to 1926, during which time he published his Geologic Structures. He was president of the Geological Society of America in 1928.Fairchild, Herman LeRoy, 1932, The Geological Society of America 1888–1930, a Chapter in Earth Science History: New York, The Geological Society of America, 232 p.Eckel, Edwin, 1982, GSA Memoir 155, The Geological Society of America – Life History of a Learned Society: Boulder, Colorado, 168 p. . On July 11, 1927, while in Cairo, Egypt, he heard that a destructive earthquake struck the Holy Land. The day after, he took a private flight from Cairo to Palestine, made observations of the impacted sites, and stayed there for several days to further investigate. A year later, he published his findings in the Bulitin of Seismological Society of America.Willis, B., 1928. Earthquakes in the Holy land. B.S.S.A., 18: pp. 72–03.
In 1928, he published "Continental Drift" in the SP 2: Theory of Continental Drift, by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, where he rejects the theory. Stating "After considering the theory of continental drift with avowed impartiality, the author concludes by means of geophysical, geological and paleontologic reasoning that it should be rejected, because the original suggestion of the idea sprang from a similarity of form (coast lines of Africa and South America) which in itself constitutes no demonstration, because such a drift would have destroyed the similarity by faulting, and because other contradictions destroy the necessary consequences of the hypothesis." In 1932, he published "Isthmian Links"
(last accessed January 5, 2017). in the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America.
The Willis Wall on the north face of Mount Rainier is named for him, and Choconsaurus is also named for him.
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