He also served as head of the U.S. Geological Survey.
After study at Oberlin and Wheaton colleges and service in the Union army during the Civil War, he became a geology professor at Illinois Wesleyan College in 1865. In 1869 he explored and made a geological survey of the Green and Colorado river canyons. During his travels he studied the Native Americans he encountered, and in 1879 he was appointed the first director of the U.S. Bureau of Ethnology. He also served as head of the U.S. Geological Survey. FTP, identify this American renaissance man, known as the first major classifier of Native American languages, and as a pioneering surveyor of the Rocky Mountains.
After study at Oberlin and Wheaton colleges and service in the Union army during the Civil War, he became a geology professor at Illinois Wesleyan College in 1865.
John Wesley Powell