JOHN WESLEY POWELL 127 



patient and thorough in his own personal work, and selected 

 his assistants and collaborators with care. To them he left 

 details and particulars of ways and means : he asked only 

 for results in due time. But he was ever ready and glad 

 to consult with and advise them in regard to their work — 

 to sympathize with and help them in their discouragements and 

 to rejoice with them in their successes, and when he severed 

 his official connection with the Geological Survey tears were 

 shed by more than one. His farewell to his collaborators, 

 which may be found in the Fifteenth Annual Report of the 

 Geological Survey, is rare reading. It is a page of pathos. 

 Major Powell's personality was known only to those near and 

 dear to him. None can speak of it more fittingly than his 

 friend, Dr. S. P. Langley. 



POWELL AS A MAN. 



Mr. Langley said : 



We have heard tonight about the different aspects of the life 

 of our friend. Major Powell, as a soldier and as a man of sci- 

 ence ; and, I am told, that as his friend, something is desired 

 from me about the man himself. 



He has just been described by eminently competent judges in 

 nearh' all the varied elements of his character and career. His 

 personality inspired the interest of men so distinguished as those 

 who have just addressed you, and if the parts of that personality 

 of which they have spoken, make the man, what remains to be 

 said which can add to what you have already heard? 



If there be anything outside the soldier, the explorer, or the 

 man of science, it lay in a singularly simple and strong hu- 

 manity ; a something which took hold of you and made you his 

 friend. While he was here he filled an almost unique place in 

 one's life, and now that he has gone, there remains a gap which 

 no other can fill. Will you indulge me, then, if I speak a few 

 words of Major Powell, exclusively as I knew him in the guise 

 of a friend? 



I have been with him in the life of the city and in the life of 

 the wilderness ; I have sat with him at distinguished boards, and 

 I have ridden alone with him through the wilds that are still 



