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Show xxiy 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 overcoming 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 canons 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 direction, to consult with him daily, to benefit by his advice and thorough knowledge 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 contained in Vol. Ill, Geology,. Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian, Lieut. George M. Wheeler in charge. In the year 1874 Mr. Howell |