JOHN WESLEY POWELL. 65 



In 1879 a few citizens of Washington proposed to organise an 

 archseologic society, and to this end called a meeting of scientific 

 men of the city. Members of the Bureau of Ethnology, foreseeing 

 the growth of Washington as a scientific center and the eventual 

 need of a society whose scope should include not only prehistoric 

 but living man, thought it unfortunate that the ground should be 

 partially occupied by an association restricted to the narrower 

 view, and invoked the aid of their friends to effect a change in the 

 character of the new project. Their endeavor was successful, and 

 the meeting called to organise a society of archeology created 

 instead a society of anthropology. Powell was chosen president, 

 and held the office until 1882, when he retired temporarily, on ac- 

 count of ill health. He was re-elected in 1884, and in succeeding 

 years until 1887, making a total incumbency of seven years. 



From 1881 to 1894 he was also Director of the United States 

 Geological Survey. 



Before the direction of ethnologic work fell into Powell's hands 

 the subject already engaged the attention, partial or entire, of a 

 large number of persons throughout the United States. Mission- 

 aries among the Indians studied their languages for purposes of 

 communication, and prepared vocabularies. They sometimes made 

 manuscript record also of Indian traditions and mythic stories. 

 Army officers on frontier posts and other persons whose occupa- 

 tions brought them in contact with Indians, were led by curiosity 

 or by scientific tastes to collect the various articles employed and 

 produced in their arts and to make note of their ceremonies and 

 other customs. The stone implements and shards of pottery so 

 widely scattered over the surface of the land, the mounds of the 

 East and the Pueblo ruins of the West, attracted much attention 

 and were the theme of a fragmentary literature. Here and there a 

 philologist or an ethnologist gave to the subject systematic study, 

 but most of the observation was desultory and of a dillettante rather 

 than scientific character. Since the days of the ethnologist Gal- 

 latin the Smithsonian Institution had been a depository for recorded 

 vocabularies of Indian languages and various descriptive manu- 

 scripts, and some of these it had published. It was Powell's work 

 to organise this scattered and desultory observation, to give it a 

 systematic plan with definite ends in view, to inform it with scien- 

 tific method, and to give it a needed stimulus by making provision 

 for the publication of results. The funds granted him by Congress 

 from time to time were not as a rule expended on salaries, although 

 the Bureau has slowly acquired a permanent corps, but were given 



