UTAH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 19 
twenty batteries of artillery and served on Gen. Thomas’ 
staff at the battle of Nashville, and to the end of the war 
in 1865. His career as a soldier was marked by that same 
thoroughness in the study and mastery, not only of details 
of military life, but also of military science. Especially 
was he apt in the use of material at hand for the accom- 
plishing of his ends, building bridges out of cotton gins, 
and protection for his guns from gunny sacks and old rope 
and shields for his sharpshooters from the mouldboards of 
old ploughs found upon abandoned plantations. During 
the time he was in the service he never overlooked an 
opportunity to continue his studies in natural science, 
making collections of fossils in the trenches of Vicksburg, 
and land and river shells from the Mississippi swamps 
adjacent. 
Upon his return to civil life, Major Powell accepted 
the offer of the chair of geology in the Illinois Wesleyan 
University, although offered a very lucrative political 
appointment. After my regiment was mustered out, I 
met the Major here in January, 1866, and became one of 
his pupils in the domain of the natural sciences, under his 
care. In 1867 he was elected to the chair of geology in 
the State Normal University at Normal, Illinois. At 
about the same time, he was elected curator of the IIli- 
nois State Natural History Society, whose collections of 
specimens were in the museum of the Normal University. 
He thus became attracted to the great West then just 
opening up for general research, as a new field for prof- 
itable scientific research, and his determination to be first 
in the field led him to organize a party, composed largely 
of his students in the Wesleyan University and friends in 
the western part of the state, including his brother-in-law, 
Prof. A. H. Thompson, afterwards intimately associated 
with Major Powell in his various surveys. 
At this time I was working in the Museum and was 
fortunate enough to be selected as one of this party and 
starting from Council Bluffs, via Plattsmouth, we crossed 
the plains going up the Platte River to Denver and south 
along the Front Range, scaling Pikes Peak, July 27, 1867, 
westerly through South Park and northerly to a point 
almost due west from Denver, thence out of the mountains 
