October 10, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



,565 



he gave new methods and a new point of 

 view, and he succeeded in diverting to 

 ethnology men already trained in scientific 

 method by work in other fields of research. 

 He realized, as perhaps few had realized 

 before him, that the point of view of the 

 savage is essentially diflierent 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 

 formulfe of Aryan grammars, and his 

 philosophy and social organization follow 

 lines unknown to the European. He also 

 realized most fully that the savage is the 

 embryo of the man of highest culture, and 

 that the study of savagery is therefore a 

 fundamental contribution to the broadest 

 study of humanity. With these ideas he 

 informed his ethnologic corps, and in con- 

 sequence of them the organization of the 

 bureau marks the most important epoch in 

 American ethnology. 



The same personal influence extended to 

 the work of the Anthropological Society 

 of Washington. Over the proceedings of 

 this society Powell presided for many 

 years, taking part in all its discussions and 

 making it his special function to point out 

 the bearing and relation of each communi- 

 cation to the greater problems and broader 

 aspects of the science. As the bureau was 

 and is a laboratory of ethnology, devoted 

 to the study and record of the character 

 and culture of the fading tribes of North 

 America, so the society, including the same 

 group of students, was and is an arena for 

 the discussion of the broader science of 

 anthropology. I but echo the general sen- 

 timent of those students in saying that the 

 high intellectual and scientific plane on 

 which the work of this society is conducted 

 is a result, direct and cumulative, of Pow- 

 ell's influence and example. 



Before turning to Powell's direct con- 



tributions to science, mention should be 

 made of his studies in biology. In early 

 manhood he was an assiduous collector of 

 plants, fresh-water shells and reptiles, and 

 this work was accompanied by studies in 

 distribution. But the results of such 

 studies do not constitute a contribution to 

 botany and zoology. The work was prop- 

 erly a part of his education, a training in 

 the art of observation, which bore fruit only 

 when his attention was turned to other 

 branches. 



His contributions to geology include a 

 certain amount of descriptive work. He 

 published the stratigraphy, structure, and 

 part of the areal geology of the Colorado 

 Plateaus and the Uinta Mountains. In 

 connection with the field studies in these 

 districts he developed a new classification 

 of mountains, by structure and genesis, a 

 structural classification of dislocations, a 

 classification of valleys, and a genetic clas- 

 sification of drainage systems. His classi- 

 fication of drainage recognized three modes 

 of genesis, of which two were new. With 

 the novel ideas involved in the terms 

 'superimposed drainage' and 'antecedent 

 drainage' were associated the broader idea 

 that the physical history of a region might 

 be read in part from a study of its drain- 

 age system in relation to its rock structure. 

 Another broad idea, that since the degra- 

 dation of the land is limited downward by 

 the level of the standing water which re- 

 ceives its drainage, the types of land sculp- 

 ture throughout a drainage area are con- 

 ditioned by this limit, was formulated by 

 means of the word 'base-level.' These two 

 ideas, gradually developed by a younger 

 generation of students, are the funda- 

 mental principles of a new subscienee of 

 geology sometimes called geomorphology, 

 or physiographic geology. 



The scientific study of the arid lands of 

 our western domain in relation to human 

 industries practically began with PoweU. 



