William Phipps Blake (June 1, 1826 – May 22, 1910) was an American mineralogist and geologist. He was born in New York City, graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale in 1852, one of seven to get the newly created Ph.B. degree.[1] He was mineralogist and geologist of the Pacific Railroad Exploring Expedition of 1853, and author of several of its reports. From 1856-1859, he investigated mineral resources in the area of North Carolina.[2] He edited the Mining Magazine (1859–1860). In 1861 traveled to Japan with another early Arizona geologist, Raphael Pumpelly, to introduce western technology to the shogunate. In 1863, Blake returned to California and was appointed professor of mineralogy in the College of California and geologist to the California State Board of Agriculture.[3]
In 1867 he was appointed as a commissioner representing California at the Exposition Universelle (Paris Exposition).[3] His report on the precious metals, forming one of the government volumes on the Paris exposition of 1867, is full of valuable information. He was the first to recognize the tellurides among the products of California, and was also the first to draw attention to the platinum metals associated with the gold-washings of that state.[1] In 1871, he was chief of the U.S. scientific corps that visited Santo Domingo. Selected by the Smithsonian, he collected and installed the government exhibit on the mineral resources of the United States for the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition.[2]
From 1896 to 1905 he was professor of geology and director of the School of Mines at the University of Arizona. He died of exposure in Berkeley, California, four days after, and as a consequence of, receiving an honorary LL.D. degree from the University of California.[2][4][5]