Robert E. Horton

American Earth scientist

• Born: May 18, 1875; Parma, Michigan
• Died: April 22, 1945; Voorheesville, New York

Twentieth-century American Earth scientist Robert Elmer Horton made significant contributions to the development of the field of hydrology in the United States. During a fifty-year career as a civil engineer, working with various government agencies and as an independent consultant, he analyzed and helped define many concepts related to rainfall, runoff, and water flow.

Also known as: Robert Elmer Horton

Primary field: Earth sciences

Specialties: Ecology; hydrology; meteorology; climatology

Early Life

Robert Elmer Horton was the son of Van Rensselaer W. Horton and Rowena Spencer Rafter Horton. He was born and raised in the rural agricultural village of Parma, Michigan, and took an early interest in nature and natural phenomena. Robert was educated within the Parma Union School District, which served his hometown and students from surrounding areas.

In his youth, Robert fell under the influence of his uncle George W. Rafter. A prominent civil engineer—during the 1870s he had helped plan improvements and extensions to the Erie Canal—Rafter worked in western New York designing ship canals, moveable bridges, dams, and sewage disposal plants. With Rafter’s encouragement, Robert entered Albion College, just nine miles away from Parma, to begin a course of study leading to a degree in civil engineering. While still in college, Robert coauthored a paper with Rafter summarizing stream flow measurements and weir studies conducted in preparation for the construction of the New York State Barge Canal, which, begun in 1905, would supplement the Erie and its feeder canals.

In 1897, Robert graduated from Albion College with a bachelor of science degree. The following year, George Rafter helped his nephew launch his formal career by recommending Robert for a yearlong job as an assistant to the US Board of Engineers on deep waterways, a project also associated with the Barge Canal.

Life’s Work

In 1900, Horton began a six-year stint in Albany, New York, as district engineer for the United States Geological Survey (USGS). A scientific agency of the federal Department of the Interior, the USGS studies America’s biology, geography, geology, and hydrology in the course of analyzing the extent and status of the nation’s natural resources. With the USGS, Horton worked under Oscar Edward Meinzer, a leading hydrogeologist, and conducted experiments related to weirs and water wheels. In 1901, Horton married Ella H. Young; the couple would remain childless.

Between 1906 and 1911, Horton was engineer in charge with the New York State Barge Canal’s Bureau of Hydraulics. Construction on the canal had begun the previous year and would continue until completion in 1918. In 1911, Horton opened an engineering consulting practice in Albany. The same year, he was hired on a freelance basis as a hydraulic expert for the New York Department of Public Works, a relationship he maintained until 1925. In 1914 he was invited back to his alma mater to lecture on the basics of hydraulic engineering.

During the early 1920s, Horton and his wife moved to an eighty-acre parcel of land in Voorheesville—a rural village that is today part of New York’s Capital District, which includes the Albany, Schenectady, Troy, and Saratoga Springs metropolitan areas. The Voorheesville plot contained streams, waterfalls, and an old mill; it was ideal for the establishment of the Horton Hydrologic Laboratory, the facility that consumed the bulk of Horton’s attention for the remainder of his life. With a succession of assistants—many of whom, like Chester Owen Wisler, became hydrologists of note in their own right—Horton happily embarked on a variety of experimental projects. He measured and analyzed rainfall, runoff and snowmelt, evaporation, drainage, flooding, and other physical aspects of hydrology, the Earth science that studies water and water resources. His research was published in a multitude of papers and commissioned reports and added greatly to scientific understanding of the processes of erosion and deforestation. Horton’s work also contributed to national conservation efforts.

While working in his laboratory, Horton continued his lucrative work as a federal, state, and municipal government consultant in New York and elsewhere. From its establishment in 1918 until 1939, he was a member of the advisory council of the Federal Board of Surveys and Maps. Between 1922 and 1930 he served as paid expert engineer on call for the state of New Jersey in a case before the United States Supreme Court involving the Delaware River. From 1924 to 1932, he was a consulting engineer for the New York State Board of Water Supply. For three years (1925–27) Horton was also a member of the Engineering Board of Review for Chicago, during which time he produced studies about sewage disposal and the controversial issue of lowering Lake Michigan for sanitary purposes.

In 1932, Albion College awarded Horton an honorary doctorate of science degree (after which he was typically referred to as “Dr. Horton”). That year he also began a one-year appointment as consulting engineer for the New York Power Authority. During the 1930s he also conducted research and lectured on the hydraulics of weirs for Cornell University in Ithaca.

Between 1939 and 1941, Horton was head consultant in New York for the United States Soil Conservation Service (SCS). An agency of the Department of Agriculture (after 1994 known as the Natural Resources Conservation Service), SCS and its later incarnation formed partnerships with local and state entities to conduct soil and water surveys aimed at improving, protecting, and conserving natural resources on private lands. During his tenure with SCS, Horton worked with many prominent engineers and hydrologists, including L. K. Sherman and Luna B. Leopold.

Horton’s final consultancy was for the city of Rochester, New York. The last several years of his life were spent exclusively at the Horton Hydrological Laboratory. Horton died in Voorheesville in 1945.

Impact

During his long career, Horton helped shape the fundamentals of hydrology. Though the science of hydrology has greatly advanced since his death, many of his analyses are still valid, and his name is still highly respected in the field.

A problem-solver, Horton addressed in writing a multitude of issues on a quantitative basis, developing ideas that evolved over time. Many subjects engaged his questing mind: evaporation, snowfall and rainfall, transpiration, drainage basin characteristics, infiltration, overland flow, groundwater, flood waves, capillary action, erosion, and the physics of rain and thunderstorms. He invented, but never patented, water level gauges to aid his studies.

In addition to his regular duties as an agency employee or consultant, Horton was active in numerous professional societies, participating in spirited discussions and publishing papers in the transactions of a wide range of organizations. A fellow (and president, 1939) of the American Meteorological Society and founder of the Hydrology Society within the American Geophysical Union, Horton also maintained memberships in such groups as the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Water Works Association, the Royal Meteorological Society, and the American Geographical Society.

In honor of his achievements, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) created the Robert E. Horton Medal to recognize those who further the geophysical branch of hydrology. The AGU (which inherited the bulk of Horton’s estate after the death of his wife) also offers research grants for doctoral candidates specializing in hydrology or water resource studies. In memory of his accomplishments related to climatology, the American Meteorological Society also instituted the Horton Lectureship in the 1970s.

Bibliography

Bejan, Adrian, and J. Peder Zane. Design in Nature: How the Constructal Law Governs Evolution in Biology, Physics, Technology, and Social Organization. New York: Doubleday, 2012. Print. Discusses the work and research of Robert E. Horton within a discussion of a fundamental physical principle that governs the flow of various animate and inanimate systems, bringing order and unity to the natural world.

Burt, T. P., Richard J. Chorley, Denys Brunsden, Nicholas J. Cox, and Andrew S. Goudy, eds. The History of the Study of Landforms, or the Development of Geomorphology: Volume 4, Quaternary and Recent Processes and Forms (1890–1965). London: Geological Soc. of London, 2008. Print. Part of a massive landmark study, incorporates some of the work of Horton in geomorphology related to hydrology.

Helms, Douglas, Anne B. W. Effland, and Patricia J. Durana, eds. Profiles in the History of US Soil Survey. Hoboken: Wiley, 2002. Print. An anthology of essays providing an overview of the development, purpose, and personalities involved in the evolution of the United States Soil Conservation Service into the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Hendricks, Martin R. Introduction to Physical Hydrology. New York: Oxford UP, 2010. Print. A textbook that thoroughly explains the principles and processes of hydrology on a global scale, including case studies, student exercises, and a link to a related website.

McFee, Michele A. A Long Haul: The Story of the New York State Barge Canal. Fleischmanns: Purple Mountain, 1999. Print. An illustrated history of the waterway that enlarged and expanded the Erie Canal, a project for which Robert Horton served as primary hydraulics engineer.