The result of such movement, coupled with the geological investigations going steadily on meanwhile, made Birmingham secure. The voice of the northern press resounded throughout all the states, and went beyond the Atlantic. Honorable Abram S. Hewitt, of New York, sounded the prophetic expression: "The fact is plain--Alabama is to become the iron manufacturing center of the habitable globe." A wave of awakening light spread throughout the financial world, and Birmingham was secure. But a new disaster arose. A scourge of Asiatic cholera smote the young city now struggling to the birth. The dead were numerous, and a funeral pall hung over the town. Colonel Powell remained with Roman courage on the ground, caring for the suffering, burying the dead, and preserving order. Pestilence stalked along the rugged streets and wasted at noonday, but the faith of this man of iron nerve was unshaken. His courage stiffened that of others--his faith was contagious. No wonder that he came to be called "The Duke of Birmingham." No special shaft marks the recognition of this mighty builder of a great city, but the city attests his power. In the dim light in St. Paul's, in London, the tourist reads a tablet, "Christopher Wren, builder. Would you seek his monument? Look around." Not otherwise is the relation of Greater Birmingham to James R. Powell. Its towering turrets and lofty buildings, its residence palaces and shaded streets, its smoking stacks and hives of mineral mines, and its numerous railway lines with their cargoes of daily traffic--these are his monument. That one so great and noble should come to a death so novel and untimely is a mystery. He fell a victim to a pistol fired by a beardless youth in a Mississippi tavern, in 1883. For all the future his monument will stand, Alabama's greatest city. H. F. DeBARDELEBEN In the year 1851 there might have been seen working in a grocery store, in Montgomery, a sprightly lad of ten, whose father had just died, and whose mother had removed to the Capital City. This boy was Henry DeBardeleben, destined to become prominent not alone in the development of the resources of the state of Alabama, but a picturesque figure in the coal and iron industry of the South. Friendships of other days had united the Pratts and the DeBardelebens, which led to the guardianship of the lad by Alabama's pioneer manufacturer, Daniel Pratt, under whom Mr. DeBardeleben was directly and fortunately fitted for life. His academic course over, the young man was placed as superintendent over the famous gin factory at Prattville. Mr. DeBardeleben found in business a more congenial air than he found in books. The harness of work in the supervision of a manufactory was more easily adjusted to the young man than was that of the schoolroom, and the young man shed the one and gladly donned the other, for, from the outset, he cared but little for books, only as they could be used as tools to bring something to pass.