Gordon took his first course in mineralogy with Edgar H. Wherry at the Wagner Institute in Philadelphia in 1911-12. He went on to train himself by private study, taking special courses at the University of Pennsylvania and elsewhere. This training culminated in a six months sojourn in Heidelberg, Germany, where he studied with Victor Goldschmidt, 1926-27. His specialized interest in crystallography resulted in the publication, with Victor Goldschmidt as senior author, of the Crystallographic Tables, as the Academy's Special Publication, no. 2. The tables from which this publication takes its being, are here preserved. Combined in the same collection are notations of various original descriptions of minerals. Some 32 are thus treated. He was an officer-elect of the Crystallographical Society of America and of the American Crystallographical Association.