Report on the exploration of the Colorado River of the West and its tributaries

John Wesley Powell (March 24, 1834 – September 23, 1902) was an American geologist, U.S. Army soldier, explorer of the American West, professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions. He is famous for his 1869 geographic expedition, a three-month river trip down the Green and Colorado rivers, including the first official U.S. government-sponsored passage through the Grand Canyon. Powell was appointed by US president James A. Garfield to serve as the second director of the U.S. Geological Survey (1881–1894) and proposed, for development of the arid West, policies that were prescient for his accurate evaluation of conditions. He also spent time among the Native Peoples of the Colorado Plateau and wrote an influential classification of North American Indian languages. Two years prior to his service as director of the U.S. Geological Survey, he had become the first director of the Bureau of Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution where he supported linguistic and sociological research and publications.