County, Illinois,
and at the same time he was offered the chair of geology in the Wesleyan
University, a struggling Methodist College at Bloomington, Illinois.
There was no hesitation on his part. He declined the political honour
and its emoluments and accepted the professorship, which he retained
two years. At the session of the Illinois Legislature in 1867 a bill was
passed, largely through his effort, creating a professorship of geology
and natural history in the State Normal University at Normal, Illinois,
with a salary of fifteen hundred dollars and an appropriation of one
thousand dollars annually to increase the geological and zoological
collections. He was elected to this chair and at about the same time was
also chosen curator of the Illinois State Natural History Society,
whose collections were domiciled in the museum of the Normal University.
Attracted by the Far West as a field for profitable scientific research,
the summer of 1867 found him using his salary and the other available
funds to defray the expense of an expedition to the then Territory
of Colorado for the purpose of securing collections. He organised and
outfitted at Plattsmouth, Nebraska. All his assistants were volunteers
except the cook. A. H. Thompson, afterwards so closely associated with
him in the detailed exploration of the Colorado and in subsequent survey
work, was the entomologist of the party. They crossed the plains with
mule teams to Denver, worked along the east slope of the Front Range,
climbed Pike's Peak, and went westerly as far as South Park. Without
realising it, apparently, Powell was all these years steadily
approaching the great exploit of his life, as if led on and prepared by
some unseen power. Now the project of exploring the mysterious gorges of
which he heard such wonderful tales dawned upon him. It was as near
an inspiration as can be imagined. Henceforth his mind and energy were
directed irresistibly toward the accomplishment of this conception.
Again in 1868 he was in the field with the same financial backing,
to which was added a small allotment from the Illinois Industrial
University at Champaign, Illinois, a State school. All but Mrs. Powell
and his brother Walter, of this 1868 party, returned East on the
approach of autumn, while with these and several trappers and hunters,
among whom were the two Rowlands, William Dunn, and William Rhodes
Hawkins, afterwards of his party to explore the canyons, he crossed the
r