John Wesley Powell
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"John Wesley Powell" was a U.S. soldier, geologist, explorer of the American West, professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions. He is famous for the 1869 Powell Geographic Expedition of 1869/Powell Geographic Expedition, a three-month river trip down the Green River (Utah)/Green and Colorado River (U.S.)/Colorado rivers, including the first known passage by Europeans through the Grand Canyon.

Powell served as second director of the US Geological Survey (1881–1894) and proposed, for development of the arid West, policies that were prescient for his accurate evaluation of conditions. He became the first director of the Bureau of American Ethnology/Bureau of Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution during his service as director of the U.S. Geological Survey, where he supported linguistics/linguistic and sociological research and publications.

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The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are taxed beyond their powers in attempting to portray its features. Language and illustration combined must fail.

The elements that unite to make the Grand Canyon the most sublime spectacle in nature are multifarious and exceedingly diverse.

The glories and the beauties of form, color, and sound unite in the Grand Canyon - forms unrivaled even by the mountains, colors that vie with sunsets, and sounds that span the diapason from tempest to tinkling raindrop, from cataract to bubbling fountain.

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.