566 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 406. 



Early in his governmental work he issued 

 a volume on the lands of the arid region, 

 and he continued their discussion in one 

 way or another for twenty years, setting 

 forth the physical conditions associated 

 with aridity, the paroxysmal character of 

 rainfall, the dependence of arable lowlands 

 on the rainfall and snowfall of uplands, 

 and the generous response of the vegetation 

 of arid regions to the artificial application 

 of water. Emphasizing the necessity of 

 irrigation to successful agriculture, he 

 pointed oiit the need of conserving storm 

 waters by artificial reservoirs, the need of 

 applying new principles in legislation for 

 the regulation of water rights, and the need 

 of a new system of laws for the control of 

 title in arid lands. These ideas when first 

 advanced were the subject of hostile criti- 

 cism because they antagonized current 

 opinions as to the availability of our west- 

 ern domain for settlement; but he after- 

 ward found himself part of a general move- 

 ment for the intelligent development of the 

 Westji a movement whose latest achievement 

 is the so-called reclamation law. 



He pointed out also that our land laws 

 did not permit the lean pasture lands of 

 the West to be acquired by private owners 

 in tracts large enough for economic man- 

 agement, and that overstocking and peri- 

 odic disasters were the logical results of 

 public ownership ; and his ideas as to 

 remedial legislation were embodied in' the 

 unheeded report to the Public Lands Com- 

 mission. 



In descriptive ethnology Powell's pub- 

 lished contributions are meager in com- 

 parison with his body of observations and 

 notes. They are comprised in a magazine 

 article on the Mokis, an essay on the Wyan- 

 dots, and a few myths, chiefly Shoshonian, 

 introduced in various writings for illustra- 

 tive purposes. In his 'Introduction to the 

 Study of Indian Languages' he gives in- 

 structions for American ethnologic obser- 



vation, covering not only the subject of 

 language, but arts, institutions and mythol- 

 ogy. Other writings belong more properly 

 to anthropology, and deal with its broader 

 principles. In a series of essays, designed 

 as chapters of a manual of anthropology 

 but actually published as occasional ad- 

 dresses and never assembled, he points out 

 the lines of evolution in the various fields 

 of human thought and activity, philo- 

 sophic, linguistic, esthetic, social and in- 

 dustrial. The ground covered by these 

 essays is so broad that a brief summary is 

 impossible. They include the ideas which 

 have directed the work of the Bureau of 

 Ethnology, and they include also much 

 which has found no immediate application, 

 belonging to fields of thought as yet un- 

 touched by others. As to their ultimate 

 value future generations must decide, but 

 they stand nearly or quite unique as a com- 

 prehensive body of philosophic thought 

 founded on the comparison of aboriginal 

 with advanced culture. 



In later years attention was gradually 

 turned from anthropology to psychology 

 and the fundamental concepts of natural 

 philosophy. His interest in these subjects 

 began in early manhood, and they are 

 briefiy touched in various writfngs; but he 

 gave the last eight years of his life almost 

 wholly to their study. Two books were 

 written and a third planned. 'Truth and 

 Error,' which appeared in 1899, treats of 

 matter, motion and consciousness as related 

 to the external universe or the field of fact. 

 ■Good and Evil,' printed as a series of es- 

 says in The Anthropologist with the inten- 

 tion of eventual assemblage in book form, 

 treats of the same factors as related to 

 humanity or to welfare. The field of the 

 emotions was assigned to the third volume. 

 His philosophy was also embodied in a 

 series of poems, of which only one has re- 

 ceived publication. 



In much of his scientific writing Pow- 



