Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 20.djvu/405

Rh and spent the fall in Missouri, studying the geology and mineralogy of the Iron Mountain region. In 1858 he made a trip from Ottawa, Illinois, down the Illinois River to its mouth, and later ascended the Des-moines River, returning laden with specimens.

The various institutions of the State of Illinois, and some of other States, soon came to depend upon his collections for illustrating their courses of scientific lectures, and the Illinois State Natural History Society elected him its secretary, and extended to him facilities for prosecuting his researches, now recognized as of high value. The funds necessary for conducting these operations he was obliged to obtain by teaching a portion of each year.

The breaking out of the rebellion put a temporary check upon Professor Powell's scientific adventures. He enlisted as a private in the Twentieth Illinois Infantry. Having been made a lieutenant, he was transferred to Battery F, Second Illinois Artillery, and was afterward promoted to be captain of the battery, then major of the regiment, and finally lieutenant-colonel. In the last days of the war he received a commission as colonel, but, having no desire to follow war as a profession, declined it.

At the battle of Shiloh he lost his right arm. As soon as he had sufficiently recovered from his wound he returned to his post, and continued to serve to the end of the war.

His passion for collecting did not forsake him even while in the army, and wherever he was stationed for a sufficient length of time he found means of studying the geological formations, and of shipping from time to time to the State Museum large invoices of valuable material.

On his return from the army he was offered a lucrative civil position in his own town of Wheaton, but he preferred to accept the comparatively unremunerative one of Professor of Geology and Curator of the Museum of the Illinois Wesleyan University at Bloomington. This he afterward exchanged for a similar post in the Illinois Normal University.

In the summer of 1867 Professor Powell, taking with him his class in geology, visited the mountains of Colorado for the purpose of study. This excursion was the first attempt of its kind in this country, and to Professor Powell is therefore due the credit of having inaugurated a practice of the highest value to science and to education, which has been continued by many eminent teachers at leading institutions, until a certain amount of field-study has become recognized as a necessary part of a course of instruction in all branches of natural science.

Professor Powell saw more in the parks and canons of Colorado than a mere training-school for students. He saw, stretching far westward and southward, a vast unexplored region, hitherto represented on all maps by an utter blank, and through which at some point must flow an immense river, the Colorado of the West, whose