An 1862 graduate of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, Clarence King served as a volunteer member of the California Geological Survey from 1863-1867 before receiving an appointment to head the U.S. Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel. With a rising reputation in the discipline, King helped organize the U.S. Geological Survey in 1879, becoming its first director, however he resigned in 1881 to enter into private work as a mining engineer and economic geologist. The King Papers consists of a dozen letters written by King to his colleague and friend Samuel Franklin Emmons, 1873-1894, that are revealing of their personal friendship as well as of the politics of the early organization and management of the U.S. Geological Survey.