128 LANGLEY 



half unexplored in the domain of our Great West : but wherever 

 I have been with him, in whatever surroundings, I think I have 

 been more impressed with the simplicity and self comprised 

 nature of his character than even with the complexity of his 

 knowledge and achievement. He was to me not so much one 

 of the common figures of daily life, as one of Plutarch's men ; 

 and while it has been my pleasure to know such a nature as his 

 under its more unfamiliar aspects, I could wish that I were 

 better able to describe clearly what I so clearly feel. 



My acquaintance with Major Powell began soon after his re- 

 turn from his wonderful exploration of the Grand Canyon of the 

 Colorado ; but my first intimate knowledge of him dates from 

 the time when, on the platform on which I now stand, he deliv- 

 ered an eulogy on his own familiar friend Professor Baird, my 

 honored predecessor in the Smithsonian. It had been my lot to 

 convey to him the first news of this friend's death, and it was in 

 that hour, when I saw him touched to tears, that I first discov- 

 ered that phase of his character which has ever since been evi- 

 dent to me, that side which was open to the approach of affec- 

 tion, and which could express itself in language w^hich came 

 from the heart to the heart. 



There is always in speaking of a very near friend a sense of 

 perhaps lifting a veil that should be allowed to cover the inner 

 life from the intrusive gaze of the world ; but what I may say is 

 already known to those near to him. 



Besides his splendid capacity for leadership in battle, and his 

 readiness for the strenuous life of adventure in which he was 

 almost the last great explorer in the field of which we have 

 been told ; besides his varied knowledge as a scientific man ; 

 there was something which colored and leavened the whole : 

 and that was an imagination akin to that of the poet. This 

 never expressed itself publicly, but always formed a large part 

 of his inner being. The mj'^stery of this world, which pure 

 science so little recognizes, was always present to one side of 

 Major Powell's mind, if indeed, it was not present to all. A 

 part of his writings known only to his friends, contained visions 

 of the poetical aspects of Science, and especially of the poetry 

 of geology and paleontology. The long lapse of ages, the 



