THE 
AMERICAN GEOLOGIST. 
Vol. XXXI. JUNE, 1903. No. 6. 
JOHN WESLEY POWELL. 
By Geo. P. Merrill, Washington. 
PORTRAIT— PLATE XIX. 
Major J. W. Powell, director of the Bureau of American 
Ethnology and for thirteen years director of the U. S. Geo- 
logical Survey, died at his summer home at Haven, Alaine, 
September 23, 1902. 
Mr. Powell was Ijorn of English parentage in Mount Mor- 
ris, N. Y., March 24, 1834, his father being a Methodist 
clergyman. The requirements of his father's profession neces- 
sitated frequent changes of home, the family moving to Jack- 
son, Ohio, when the subject of this sketch was about seven 
years of age. When he was twelve years of age the family 
moved to Walworth county, Wisconsin, and again, when sev- 
enteen, to Illinois, in which state he remained until the break- 
ing out of the civil war. 
From early childhood Powell manifested deep interest in 
all natural phenomena. Original and self-reliant to a remark- 
alDle degree, he early undertook collecting and exploring trips 
quite unusual for a youth of his age, and studied botany, 
zoology, and geology wholly without the aid of a teacher. For 
a time in the winter of 1850 he attended school at Janesville, 
but much of his education seems to have been picked up at 
odd moments. During his residence in Wisconsin he taught 
school on Jefferson prairie for fourteen dollars a month, study- 
ing hard in the meantime and giving frequent lectures on ge- 
ography. After their removal to Illinois his father became 
one of the trustees of the college at Wheaton, and young 
Powell attended the institution at intervals, teaching in the 
