John Powell

“ On my return from the first exploration of the canyons of the Colorado, I found that our journey had been the theme of much newspaper writing. A story of disaster had been circulated, with many particulars of hardship and tragedy, so that it was currently believed throughout the United States that all the members of the party were lost save one. A good friend of mine had gathered a great number of obituary notices, and it was interesting and rather flattering to me to discover the high esteem in which I had been held by the people of the United States. ”

“ In the history of the United States the place of John Wesley Powell is clear. [1] A great explorer, he was also foremost among men of science and probably he did more than any other single individual to direct Governmental scientific research along proper lines. His was a character of strength and fortitude. A man of action, his fame will endure as much by his deeds as by his contributions to scientific literature. Never a seeker for pecuniary rewards his life was an offering to science, and when other paths more remunerative were open to him he turned his back upon them. ”

“ And Kwi'-na went off into the sky and brought back a storm, and caused the wind to blow, and the rain to beat upon the ground, so that his tracks were covered, and the tsó-a-vwĭts could not follow him; but she saw lying upon the ground near by some eagle feathers, and knew well who it was that had deprived her of her husband, and she said to [Pg 47] herself, “Well, I know Kwi'-na is the brother of I'-o-wi; he is a great warrior and a terrible man; I will go to To-go'-a (the rattlesnake) , my grandfather, who will protect me and kill my enemies.” ”

“ Don informed him.
“It was the Indian—John Ti!” contributed Chick, putting his weight behind the wing of the ship as he helped get it through the doors.
“Well—then he went into the swamps!” the man said. “That’s the only place he could get to from back of that house.”
“I know it!” puffed Garry.
“What do you want this crate for, then? You don’t expect to see a single, Indian kid, hiding in a pitch-dark swamp!”
“No!” gasped Don, “we don’t. But—Henry—we left the Dart tied there!”
“Get all the flares you can find!” Garry urged Chick, himself busy looking over the fuel gauges and oil supply. ”

“ Powell made their home at Ghent, New York, and here Elizabeth spent her youth. She commenced her work as a teacher when but fifteen years of age in a Friends' school in Dutchess County. She taught in the different schools of the neighborhood, and at one time had a school in the home of her parents. She was connected with the abolition movement and the work done by the anti-slavery leaders. She taught gymnastics in Boston, and was in 1865 appointed instructor of gymnastics in Vassar College. ”

“ POWELL, JOHN JOSEPH (1755?–1801) , legal writer, born about 1755, only son of James Powell of Queen Street, Westminster, was admitted a student at the Middle Temple on 25 April 1775. He practised as a conveyancer, and was probably a pupil of Charles Fearne [q. v.] , whose classical essay on ‘Contingent Remainders’ he edited in 1795. He died at his residence in Guilford Place, Russell Square, on 21 June 1801. Powell was author of: 1. ”

“ The student of Leech does not require to be told that the artist was as great in the tragedies of life as he was when he shot the follies as they flew about him, or when he touched so caressingly the beauty of childhood and of women. ”

“ In the intoxication of illusion facts seem cold and colorless, and the wrapt dreamer imagines that he dwells in a realm above science—in a world which as he thinks absorbs truth as the ocean the shower, and transforms it into a flood of philosophy. ”

“ This terrible death-scene has found a perfect illustrator in John Leech. How admirable is the fiendish expression of the poisoner as he gloats over the body of his victim, which is drawn with a power and truthfulness altogether perfect! ”

“ In a twinkling of an eye my mind travels a thousand miles, and I am climbing the gray sandstone cliff which rises in the midst of the valley of Illinois river and is known as “Starved Rock.” The miles my soul has traveled are only equaled by the time over which it has returned. ”

“ The clouds discharge their moisture in torrents, and we make for ourselves shelters of boughs, which are soon abandoned, and we stand shivering by a great fire of pine logs and boughs, which we have kindled, but which the pelting storm half extinguishes. ”

“ We are three-quarters of a mile in the depths of the earth, and the great river shrinks into insignificance, as it dashes its angry waves against the walls and cliffs, that rise to the world above; they are but puny ripples, and we but pigmies, running up and down the sands, or lost among the boulders. ”

“ There is an exquisite charm in our ride to-day down this beautiful canyon. It gradually grows deeper with every mile of travel; the walls are symmetrically curved and grandly arched, of a beautiful color, and reflected in the quiet waters in many places so as almost to deceive the eye and suggest to the beholder the thought that he is looking into profound depths. ”

“ Great hollow domes are seen in the eastern side of the rock, against which the Green sweeps; willows border the river; clumps of box-elder are seen; and a few cottonwoods stand at the lower end. Standing opposite the rock, our words are repeated with startling clearness, but in a soft, mellow tone, that transforms them into magical music. Scarcely can one believe it is the echo of his own voice. ”

“ One thing I cannot omit, that when this good Gentleman upon his fatall houre, was warned by his man, who perceiving some treachery intended by those hell-hounds, to looke to himselfe, and withall ran away for feare he should be apprehended, and so saved his owne life; yet his Master out of his good meaning was so void of suspition and full of confidence, they had slaine him, or he could or would beleeve they would hurt him. {MN-1} Captaine Nathaniel Powell one of the first Planters, a valiant Souldier, and not any in the Countrey better knowne amongst them ”

“ He sees the mountain sheep fleet among the crags, the eagle soaring in the heavens, the humming-bird poised over its blossom-cup of nectar, the serpents swift without legs, the salmon scaling the rapids, the spider weaving its gossamer web, the ant building a play-house mountain—in all animal nature he sees things too wonderful for him, and from admiration he grows to adoration, and the animals become his gods. ”

“ One of the most popular exhibitions was the puppet shows kept by Robert Powell, a dwarfish deformity. 'This is Mr. Powell—That's he—the little Crooked Gentleman, that holds a Staff in his Hand, without which he must fall.' [359] His 'Punch's Theatre' was in the little Piazza, Covent Garden—and Steele makes the under sexton of St. Paul's [360] Church grumble at his entertainment, because it took people away from him. Defoe says: 'Mr. Powell by Subscriptions and full Houses, has gathered such Wealth as is ten times sufficient to buy all the Poets in England ”

“ Ever before us has been an unknown danger, heavier than immediate peril. Every waking hour passed in the Grand Cañon has been one of toil. We have watched with deep solicitude the steady disappearance of our scant supply of rations, and from time to time have seen the river snatch a portion of the little left, while we were ahungered. And danger and toil were endured in those gloomy depths, where oft-times the clouds hid the sky by day, and but a narrow zone of stars could be seen at night. ”

“ As they flit about the cliffs, they look like swarms of bees, giving to the whole the appearance of a colossal beehive of the old-time form, and so we name it Beehive Point.
The opposite wall is a vast amphitheater, rising in a succession of terraces to a height of 1,200 or 1,500 feet. Each step is built of red sandstone, with a face of naked red rock and a glacis clothed with verdure. So the amphitheater seems banded red and green, and the evening sun is playing with roseate flashes on the rocks, with shimmering green on the cedars' spray, and with iridescent gleams on the dancing waves. ”

“ A great league of kindnesse is soone made betweene them, upon confidence whereof, Powell and some of the chiefe with him being invited aboord him, is easily entised, and in the midst of their cups both hee and his company treacherously made prisoners; and thus was forced to give him their prise, or hang at the yards arme with all his company. Having set them a shore, away goes the French man ”

“ The rainbow is not more replete with hues. But form and color do not exhaust all the divine qualities of the Grand Canyon. It is the land of music. The river thunders in perpetual roar, swelling in floods of music when the storm gods play upon the rocks and fading away in soft and low murmurs when the infinite blue of heaven is unveiled. With the melody of the great tide rising and falling, swelling and vanishing forever, other melodies are heard in the gorges of the lateral canyons, while the waters plunge in the rapids among the rocks or leap in great cataracts. ”

“ I approach the end of my endeavour to show my illustrious friend in his true colours, with sad feelings, grievously increased by the conviction that under happier circumstances he might have been the delight of all who did—and did not—know him for many years beyond the time so cruelly shortened. ”

“ Side by side with this tenderness of heart, we have a robust manliness which shows itself constantly.
As a matter of course Leech's love of Nature was not confined to humanity, but was extended to the animal creation, to the trees and the fields, the sea-shore and the sea—in short, to every form of animate and inanimate nature. Think what a delight such a constituted heart and mind must be to the possessor of them! ”

“ Leech draws the backgrounds of his little pictures. The homely landscape, the sea, the winter road by which the huntsmen ride, the light and clouds, the birds floating overhead, are indicated by a few strokes which show the artist's untiring watchfulness and love of Nature. He is a natural truth-teller, as Hogarth was before him, and indulges in no flights of fancy. He speaks his mind out quite honestly like a thorough Briton. He loves horses, dogs, river and field sports. He loves home and children—that you can see. He holds Frenchmen in light esteem. ”

“ Wherever we look there is but a wilderness of rocks,--deep gorges where the rivers are lost below cliffs and towers and pinnacles, and ten thousand strangely carved forms in every direction, and beyond them mountains blending with the clouds. ”

“ The boat glides rapidly where the water is smooth, then, striking a wave, she leaps and bounds like a thing of life, and we have a wild, exhilarating ride for ten miles, which we make in less than an hour. ”

“ It has infinite variety, and no part is ever duplicated. Its colors, though many and complex at any instant, change with the ascending and declining sun; lights and shadows appear and vanish with the passing clouds, and the changing seasons mark their passage in changing colors. You cannot see the Grand Canyon in one view, as if it were a changeless spectacle from which a curtain might be lifted, but to see it you have to toil from month to month through its labyrinths. ”

“ So you see one sister [Pg 272] sold it to the other and it took a trip across Washington (30th) Street to reside on Congress (31st) Street. I wonder how they moved it in those days, for it was a long, long time ago.
Mr. and Mrs. Charles Dodge lived there after they left Evermay.
In the 1880's this house, 1633 31st Street, was the home of a very interesting and eminent person, John Wesley Powell, American geologist and ethnologist. I now quote from the Encyclopædia Britannica: "He was born at Mount Morris, N. Y., March 24, 1834. ”

“ Clouds are playing in the canyon to-day. Sometimes they roll down in great masses, filling the gorge with gloom; sometimes they hang aloft from wall to wall and cover the canyon with a roof of impending storm, and we can peer long distances up and down this canyon corridor, with its cloud-roof overhead, its walls of black granite, and its river bright with the sheen of broken waters. Then a gust of wind sweeps down a side gulch and, making a rift in the clouds, reveals the blue heavens, and a stream of sunlight pours in. ”

“ In the lower stages of savagery the cosmos is bounded by the great plain of land and sea on which we tread, and the firmament, the azure surface above, set with brilliants; and beyond is an abyss of—nothing. Within these bounds all things are known, all things are explained; there are no mysteries but the whims of the gods. But when the plain on which we tread becomes a portion of the surface of a great globe, and the domed firmament becomes the heavens, stretching beyond Alcyone and Sirius, with this enlargement of the realm of philosophy the verity of philosophy is questioned. ”

“ The illimitable past and the illimitable future are all painted on the canvas of now by the artist of reflection. Things that have been and things to be are emblazoned on the panorama of reflectional concept. ”

“ Hence consciousness is serial, and inferences are serial, and judgments are necessarily serial; but thought must go on. Gaze into the eye of my lady and think of its sapphirine hue; in a moment you think of something else—the sable curtain, the coy glance, perchance the cerulean heaven, or the deep blue sea. It is impossible to hold your mind for more than a moment on the blueness of the eye ”

“ If the red lightning and the crimson cloud could change relations to men’s ideas of good and evil, the one as the harbinger of summer rain and the other as a visit of death, the lightning would be a thing of beauty and the cloud a terror. ”