NATIONAL ACADEMY BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS VOL. VIII 



but whether this completes the list of his foreign membership 

 it as been impossible to determine. \ 



ETHNOLOGICAL WORK. 



Although Powell is probably known to a greater number of 

 persons as a geologist than as an ethnologist, his publications 

 on ethnology and anthropology and on the philosophical prob- 

 lems into which the study of these sciences led him are apart 

 from purely administrative reports twice as numerous as 

 those on geology ; and it appears that his contributions to the 

 content of the sciences of earth and of man stand in about 

 the same proportion. His active interest in ethnology began 

 when he came into contact with the Indian tribes of western 

 Colorado and eastern Utah in the summer of 1868^! it was 

 probably reinforced by Secretary Henry's advice that special 

 study of the Indians should be made during the canyon journey 

 of the next year. But more important than its origin is the 

 nature of the interest that Powell felt in ethnology; for it had 

 the merit of being characterized by a willingness to recognize 

 other standards than those of the civilized races of mankind, 

 by a ready capacity to appreciate the position of the "other 

 fellow," and by a sincere respect for humanity in all its stages 

 of development. These are largely matters of temperament, 

 not of learning; they are of prime importance to an ethnolo- 

 gist in the office as well as in the field. Gilbert gave emphasis 

 to this point when he wrote that Powell "realized, as perhaps 

 few had realized before him, that the point of view of the sav- 

 age is essentially different from that of the civilized man ; that 

 just as his music cannot be recorded in the notation of civilized 

 music, just as his words cannot be written with the English 

 alphabet, so the structure of his language transcends the for- 

 mulae of Aryan grammars, and his philosophy and social or- 

 gapization follow lines unknown to the European." 



The warm-hearted sympathy that was the basis of Powell's 

 success in the field study of Indian tribes is nowhere better 

 illustrated than in the comment he makes on the fate of the 

 three men who left his party and climbed out of the Colorado 

 canyon in August, 1869, as already briefly narrated. The story 



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