VIII. THE CHIEF. 



MAJOR John Wesley Powell received honoris causa the doctor's 

 degree of the University of Heidelberg, which is a rare dis- 

 tinction ranging high above the title of doctor that is conferred to 

 applicants on the ground of a thesis and a due examination called 

 the rigororum. The doctor's degree honoris causa is given only to 

 men of extraordinary merit when they have acquired sufficient fame 

 no longer to be in need of titles. The philosophical faculty of Hei- 

 delberg so correctly and pointedly stated the reason for conferring 

 the honorary degree of doctor upon Major Powell, that we here 

 reproduce an English translation of that portion of his diploma. It 

 reads as follows : 



"We, the Senior Dean and other professors of the Faculty of 

 Philosophy in the Karl Rupert University, duly certify by this 

 diploma bearing our seal that we have conferred the rights and 

 privileges of a doctor of philosophy, honoris causa, upon that most 

 learned and distinguished man, John W. Powell, of Illinois, here- 

 tofore chief of the public institution of ethnography, now of geol- 

 ogy, in the United States of America, who laboriously and wisely 

 studying and measuring the vast and spacious regions of his own 

 country with others, has scientifically observed and expounded the 

 structure, form, and origin of the earth; and who has so associated 

 with himself and brought together into one institution a great num- 

 ber of the most distinguished geologists of his country that they 

 have materially advanced or solved, not less wonderfully than 

 speedily, very difficult and profound questions in mineralogy, 

 petrography, geology, and paleontology; they have studied under 

 his auspices as chief, thereby causing these things not only to be 

 most skilfully brought together in various works, but also to be 

 communicated with the greatest liberality, to all students of these 

 subjects in Europe." 



Major Powell was not only a scientist but also a chief; he was 



