John Wesley Powell was the first to classify American Indian languages. Financed by the Smithsonian Institution, he led a party that explored the Green and Colorado River canyons in 1869. The federal government financed further explorations in the 1870s, which added to the information on public lands in the Rocky Mountain area and laid the groundwork for irrigation and conservation projects. Powell was named as the first director of the U.S. Bureau of Ethnology in 1879 and served as director of the U.S. Geological Survey from 1881-1892.