JOHN WESLEY POWELL. 43 



ually expanding scope and organisation, until the reconstitution of 

 western surveys in 1879. 



Powell's personal work was in geology and ethnology. In 

 1873 he accepted a temporary commission from the Indian Bureau, 

 because his duties as commissioner would require him to visit 

 many tribes in Utah, Nevada, California, and Idaho, and thus 

 enable him to extend his acquaintance with Indian languages, 

 mythologies, and social institutions. In 1874 and 1875 he made a 

 special study of the eastern Uinta Mountains and adjacent por- 

 tions of the Green River basin. In later years the field work of the 

 Survey was largely delegated to his colleagues, and his own atten- 

 tion was given to the publication of results and to new undertak- 

 ings. 



The most important new undertaking referred to the public 

 lands. His many journeys in the states and territories of the Great 

 Plains and beyond, gave him exceptional opportunity to observe 

 the manner of development of the new country, and he was pro- 

 foundly impressed with the vicious results of ill-adjusted land laws. 

 Our laws, framed for the well-watered East, are not adapted to the 

 needs of the arid West. In a dry country the soil yields crops 

 only when artificially watered, and the ownership of the scant water 

 of the streams should go with the ownership of the best farming 

 land to which it can be conveyed by canals ; but the common law 

 gives the use of the stream to the adjacent land, whether it is suit- 

 able for farming or not. The arid land that cannot be watered is 

 useful chiefly for grazing, but its herbage is so scant that a single 

 stock raiser requires a large tract much larger than our laws 

 allow an individual to homestead or purchase. So there is no pri- 

 vate title to the grazing lands, and there is no incentive to the im- 

 provement of their natural resources. The laws under which title 

 is given to mineral lands assume that ores lie in regular sheets, 

 dipping down into the earth, and as few ores are so disposed titles 

 are uncertain and the mining industry is burdened with excessive 

 litigation. Powell's attempt to procure the enactment of better 

 laws has proved, up to the present time, the least successful of all 

 his undertakings, but it is still possible that through the slow ac- 

 tion of public opinion-his endeavors may bear fruit. 



In 1877 his corps prepared an economic map of Utah, showing 

 the distribution of irrigable timber and grazing lands, and this 

 was published in conjunction with a volume by Powell in which he 

 discussed the Western land problem so far as irrigation and pas- 

 turage are concerned. The book is entitled The Lands of the Arid 



