November 14, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



i89 



to him; and things great to him were past 

 the reach of most others. Three or four 

 years hiter when I came to Washington the 

 impression was strengthened, especially in 

 listening to an address which he delivered 

 in this building. In the course of it my 

 mind framed a characterization of the man : 

 Other scientific men were making bricks; 

 he too was making bricks; but, unlike the 

 rest, he was putting his own and those of 

 others together in great structures. Then, 

 as before and after, he was associated with 

 the ablest scientific men of the country, the 

 foremost knowledge-makers of the century ; 

 but, as it seemed to me then and as it has 

 always seemed since, their units were to 

 him but fractions. 



"Powell was a unique character in his 

 generation. I am one of those who re- 

 garded him as an intellectual giant among 

 his fellows, a Saul among his brethren. 

 Early in his career he touched natural his- 

 tory, and it was enriched. He touched 

 geography in a vigorous exploration the 

 like of which has never been in our coun- 

 try, and again in the world's most com- 

 prehensive plan for the survey of a great 

 country ; and geography was enriched. He 

 dwelt longer on geology, and the science 

 was reconstructed. He dwelt longest of 

 all on the great science of Man, and that 

 science was constructed; for the ethnology 

 and anthropology of to-day, not alone in 

 Washington, not alone in America, but 

 throughout the world, is in large measure 

 the product of the great brain of the 

 friend whom we mourn. 



"While Major Powell was an intellec- 

 tual giant, he was more. As I conceive 

 it, he was a moral giant. His strongest 

 character was integrity; next to this was 

 charity. These qualities have been re- 

 marked by Director Walcott and have been 

 brought out in the utterances of others. 

 His sympathy went out to all mankind; 

 especially to the struggling youth in the 



scientific world was he a constant friend. 

 He was ever actuated by the noblest mo- 

 tives; with charity toward all and malice 

 toward none he lived out his days. 



"Major Powell was a maker of science 

 through the creation of opportunities for 

 others as well as through his own efforts. 

 There is not a scientific man within the 

 sound of my voice, or indeed in all this 

 broad country of ours, who is not in some 

 measure the beneficiary of his efforts for 

 the development of science. I do not un- 

 derestimate that which .other scientific 

 leaders have accomplished ; no one appre- 

 ciates more highly than I the work of a 

 score of men whose names I should be 

 glad to meintion as a tribute to their lead- 

 ership in science ; yet the feeling has long 

 been strong in my mind that it was J. W. 

 Powell who made governmental science re- 

 spectable. He possessed in unique degree 

 the power of presenting the good of science 

 to statesmen, the faculty of appealing to 

 average citizens ; he was able to impress on 

 all the importance of knowledge, the utility 

 of knowledge, the goodness of knowledge. 

 It was in this that his great grasp was best 

 displayed ; he intuitively seized on the best 

 of things, and his very simplicity reached 

 out to every heart. It was his efforts more 

 than those of any other that helped our 

 people to make America what it is to-day, 

 a nation of science. 



"It is not my purpose to do more than 

 utter a few words as a tribute to the great 

 man who is gone. In some respects I en- 

 joyed an apparently intimate association 

 with him, yet I must say, even if it sur- 

 prise my friends who are also friends of 

 Major Powell, that in many ways the asso- 

 ciation was not intimate. There are a 

 score of men present at this moment, and 

 many scores elsewhere in the country, with 

 whom Powell discussed matters scientific 

 and philosophic much more fully than 

 with myself ; very seldom indeed was there 



