afforded.  The father became one of the trustees and Powell entered the preparatory classes.  With intervals of teaching and business pursuits, he continued here till 1855, when, largely through the influence of the late Hon. John Davis, of Kansas, he entered the preparatory department of Illinois College at Jacksonville, Illinois.  Thus far he had shown no special aptitude for the natural sciences, though he was always a close observer of natural phenomena.  His ambition at this period, which was also in accord with the dearest wishes of his parents, was to complete his college course and enter the ministry.  Illinois College not possessing a theological atmosphere after a year spent there he departed, and in 1857 began a course of study at Oberlin College, Ohio.  Among his studies there was botany, and in this class Powell at last discovered himself and his true vocation—­the investigation of natural science.  He became an enthusiastic botanist and searched the woods and swamps around Oberlin with the same zeal and thoroughness which always characterised his work.  He made an almost complete herbarium of the flora of the county, organising the class into a club to assist in its collection.  In the summer of 1858, having returned to Wheaton, Illinois, where the family had settled in 1854, he joined the Illinois State Natural History Society, then engaged in conducting a natural history survey of the State through the voluntary labour of its members.  To Powell was assigned the department of conchology.  This work he entered upon with his usual application and made the most complete collection of the mollusca of Illinois ever brought together by one man.  Incidentally, botany, zoology, and mineralogy received attention, and in these lines he secured notable collections.  With the broad mental grasp which was a pronounced trait, he perceived that these studies were but parts of the greater science of geology, which he then announced, to at least one of his intimate friends, was to be the science to which he intended to devote his life.  The next year was given to study, teaching, and lecturing, usually on some topic connected with geology.

In the spring of 1860, on a lecturing tour, he visited some of the Southern States, and while there closely observed the sentiment of the people on the subject of slavery, with the result that he expressed the conviction that nothing short of war could settle the matter.  In the summer of 1860 he became principal of the public schools of Hennepin, Illinois.  These he organised, graded, and taught with a vigour which was characteristic, yet never forgetting his geological investigations in the neighbouring country, where, on Saturdays and at other times when the schools were not in session, he made botanical and zoological collections.