nce of at least half an inch in the
distance between the eyes. He looked very much mortified, but said that
it was done to 'give the effect.' I have had no misgivings since about
the economy and wisdom of using the calipers freely. To be useful, they
must be applied with the greatest precision--so small are the
differences upon which all the infinite variety in human countenances
depends. With the aid of my careful measurements, I do in one day what
it would cost me a week or two's work to accomplish without, and I am
then able to give my exclusive attention to the modeling."

He did not regularly devote himself to his art, however, but remained in
the employment of the organ and clock maker for some time longer, giving
his leisure hours to constant practice. When he was about twenty-three
years old, a Frenchman named Herview opened in Cincinnati a museum of
natural history and wax figures. The latter had been very much broken
and disfigured in transportation, and their owner, in despair, begged
Powers to undertake the task of restoring them. The figures were
representations of distinguished men and women, and as Powers readily
saw that it would be impossible to repair them without having proper
likenesses as his guides, he proposed to the Frenchman to make an
entirely new composition of the old materials, and one which should
attract attention by its oddity. This was agreed to, and the result was
a hideous and ungainly figure, which Powers proposed should be called
the "King of the Cannibal Islands," but to his amazement the Frenchman
advertised it as the embalmed body of a South Sea man-eater, "secured at
immense expense." Powers declared to his employer that the audience
would discover the cheat and tear down the museum; but the "man-eater"
drew immense crowds, and was regarded as the most wonderful natural
curiosity ever seen in the West. The Frenchman was so well pleased with
it that he employed the artist permanently as inventor, wax-figure
maker, and general mechanical contriver in the museum.

Powers remained in the Frenchman's employ for seven years, hoping all
the while to earn money enough to devote himself entirely to art, which
had now become his great ambition. His experience was not a pleasant
one. Some of it was so singular, not to say ludicrous, that he shall
relate one portion of it in his own language:

"One of the first things I undertook, in company with Herview, was a
representation of the infern