Xxiv GEOLOGY OF THE HIGH PLATEAUS. 



paradoxes. But with Powell it was not so. His industry and energy in 

 the collection of facts, his stubborn resolution and dauntless courage in over- 

 coming the physical obstacles which nature has there placed in the way of 

 investigation, would alone have secured his fame ; but even these are less 

 admirable than the analytic power with which he traced the facts back to 

 their causes, and the synthetic skill with which he grouped them together. 

 He has made the Plateau Country a most alluring field of geological study, 

 and evolved from it a new range of geological thought and philosophy. 

 The principles and fundamental generalizations with which he wrought are 

 indeed old and long established, but the facts being new and strange, it 

 required in order to comprehend them, a sagacity and penetration analogous 

 to that which is necessary for the citizen of one civilization to understand 

 the ethics of another. Not only has he grasped the details of his subject — 

 the salient features of the geological history, the stratigraphy, the erosion, 

 the displacements, the sculpture, the structure, the drainage, the origin of 

 the cliffs and cations of the Plateau Country — but he has woven all these 

 details and many others into a compact and consistent whole, in which each 

 part of the scheme gives support, and bond to all the others. The pressure 

 of administrative duties and the prosecution of other work which he could 

 not avoid, chiefly ethnographic, have retarded the appearance of the great 

 work he has contemplated upon the Plateau Country; but those whose 

 privilege it has been to continue the study of that region under his direc- 

 tion, to consult with him daily, to benefit by his advice and thorough knowl- 

 edge of the field are deeply sensible of the fact that their own work has 

 been merely tributary to the broader scheme which originated with him and 

 of which he is unquestionably the founder and master. 



I must also acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Edwin E. Howell 

 for some very important material which has been embodied in this work. 

 In the year 1873 Mr. Howell was attached to the survey of Lieut, (now 

 Capt.) George M. Wheeler, of the Corps of Engineers, and under the able 

 and energetic direction of that officer he rapidly traversed a large portion 

 of the Plateau Country. His brief but very instructive report is con- 

 tained in Vol. Ill, Geology, Surveys West of the One Hundredth Merid- 

 ian, Lieut. George M. Wheeler in charge. In the year 1874 Mr. Howell 



