JOHN WESLEY POWELL. 
303 
mated to his majority, made chief of artillery, first of the 
17th Army Corps and later of the Army of the Tennessee. 
He fought with Sherman against Hood and with Thomas at 
the Battle of Nashville. 
With the crumbling of the rebellion and the expiration 
of his term of service he returned to civil life in the spring 
of 1865, and rejoined his family. 
After a period of rest he accepted an appointment (which 
he preferred to a more lucrative political office which lay 
within his reach) as Professor of Geology at Illinois Wesleyan 
University at Bloomington, to which was added, in 1867, a 
lectureship and curatorship in the adjacent State Normal 
University. 
It was planned that Major Powell should devote part of 
his time to field geology and natural history, with a view to 
the formation of a museum and laboratories for the study of 
comparative anatomy, mineralogy, and geology. To avoid 
the imperfections of text-book instruction he made use of 
field excursions and the study of actual specimens wherever 
practicable. By public lectures and addresses throughout 
the state he stimulated public interest in the new methods 
of teaching science, and attracted large numbers of enthusi¬ 
astic students to his classes. Obtaining from the state legis¬ 
lature an appropriation for the museum of the Normal 
University, he organized in the spring of 1867 an expedi¬ 
tion to the mountain region of Colorado. The party com¬ 
prised students from both the institutions with which he 
was connected, and had as its object their instruction in 
geology as well as the collection of material. This was one 
of the earliest expeditions of its kind (now so generally 
adopted in university instruction), and in the unexplored 
regions, destitute of means of transportation, among tribes 
of Indians not always friendly, involved an element of 
danger and the necessity of strict discipline. 
There were then no railways across the plains, and the 
party made the journey from Council Bluffs, Iowa, in wagons. 
Their goal was attained in the Bergens Park and Pikes Peak 
