NATIONAL ACADEMY BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS VOL. VIII 



cumstances Powell found himself in charge of both 'classes of 

 work topographic and geologic that had been assigned to 

 separate bureaus in the recommendation of the National Acad- 

 emy, and of the work in the Bureau of Ethnology as well. 

 About six years later, 1888, the conduct of an Irrigation Sur- 

 vey was also placed under his charge ; never before or since 

 has, so large and so varied a scientific responsibility been con- 

 centrated in the hands of a single governmental official at 

 Washington. ; 



TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP. 



The sheets of the topographical map surveyed, drawn, and 

 printed by the Survey have been immensely serviceable ; in- 

 deed, no publications of the Survey have had up to the present 

 date a greater general usefulness than this map, which, under 

 Powell's strong initiative, was undertaken for the whole coun- 

 try. Scientists of the younger generation, who are now profit- 

 ing from the large supply of good maps available for their 

 uses, can hardly appreciate the rarity of cartographic material 

 regarding nearly every part of our country the coasts and the 

 lake shores excepted thirty years ago. The change from 

 geographic barbarism of that earlier day to the relative civili- 

 zation of the present time is due more to Powell than to any 

 other one man, and in accomplishing this change Gannett was 

 for many years his right hand. 



The plan for the topographic survey of the United States is 

 set forth in the Sixth and Seventh Annual Reports. "The 

 map should be so simple that it can be used by all people of 

 intelligence. . . . The uses for topographic maps . 

 are very many ; but there is no demand more exacting than 

 that made by the geologist, and if properly made to meet his 

 wants they will subserve the purposes of the civil engineer and 

 the agriculturist, the military engineer and the naturalist." 

 Map-making in Europe had been largely in the hands of mili- 

 tary-engineers, as has been intimated above, and maps had 

 been there prepared chiefly for military or cadastral purposes. 

 Our needs are neither military nor cadastral, but civil and 

 general, and our methods must meet our needs. "No nation 

 had yet undertaken to execute a work of this character over a 

 region of such magnitude. It has therefore been deemed of 



So 



