Bailey Willis: Un geólogo yanqui y el desarrollo del norte de la Patagonia

Abstract

Bailey Willis was born in 1857 in New York City and died in Palo Alto, California in 1949. He earned degrees as Mining Engineer and Civil Engineer from Columbia University. He worked as a geologist and taught geology at Johns Hopkins, Chicago and Stanford Universities. He specialized in structural geology and seismology. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and President of the Geological and Seismological Societies of his country. Between 1910 and 1914 he was in Argentina where he headed a Commission for Hydrological Studies that carried out the first detailed mapping of the south of the Province of Rio Negro, aimed at providing drinking water to San Antonio Oeste and to build a railroad line to Lake Nahuel Huapi and Chile. In 1913 Bailey Willy drafted a proposal setting out a series of conditions to colonize the "Province of Cordillerana", between the 38° and 44°S, which he considered suitable to sustain 3,000,000 inhabitants. The studies also included an assessment of the possible links of the San Antonio railroad. The results of these studies were included in a book, entitled "El Norte de la Patagonia", of which the first of the two intended volumes was published in 1914, where it was proposed, the creation of a city and industrial pole immediately east of Lake Nahuel Huapi, as well as a National Park between Junín de los Andes and Esquel. The detailed originals of both projects were published a century later. His experiences in the four years he spent in Argentina were recounted in his book "A Yanquee in Patagonia", published in 1947. The work developed in northern Patagonia by Bailey Willis and his 10 collaborators over a span of less than three years can be considered exceptional. From a geological point of view it was mainly applied, from hydrogeology and hydrology, to the construction of dams and bridges, the layout of roads and railways, soil studies and urban planning.