Canyons of the Colorado | Page 2

natural history of the country. And here
again I supposed all account of the exploration ended. But from that
time until the present I have received many letters urging that a popular
account of the exploration and a description of that wonderful land
should be published by me. This call has been voiced occasionally in
the daily press and sometimes in the magazines, until at last I have
concluded to publish a fuller account in popular form. In doing this I
have revised and enlarged the original journal of exploration, and have

added several new chapters descriptive of the region and of the people
who inhabit it. Realizing the difficulty of painting in word colors a land
so strange, so wonderful, and so vast in its features, in the weakness of
my descriptive powers I have sought refuge in graphic illustration, and
for this purpose have gathered from the magazines and from various
scientific reports an abundance of material. All of this illustrative
material originated in my work, but it has already been used elsewhere.
Many years have passed since the exploration, and those who were
boys with me in the enterprise are--ah, most of them are dead, and the
living are gray with age. Their bronzed, hardy, brave faces come before
me as they appeared in the vigor of life; their lithe but powerful forms
seem to move around me; and the memory of the men and their heroic
deeds, the men and their generous acts, overwhelms me with a joy that
seems almost a grief, for it starts a fountain of tears. I was a maimed
man; my right arm was gone; and these brave men, these good men,
never forgot it. In every danger my safety was their first care, and in
every waking hour some kind service was rendered me, and they
transfigured my misfortune into a boon.
To you--J. C. Sumner, William H. Dunn, W. H. Powell, G. Y. Bradley,
O. G. Howland, Seneca Howland, Prank Goodman, W. E. Hawkins,
and Andrew Hall--my noble and generous companions, dead and alive,
I dedicate this book.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Valley of the Colorado
II. Mesas and, Buttes
III. Mountains and Plateaus
IV. Cliffs and Terraces
V. From Green River City to Flaming Gorge
VI. From Flaming Gorge to the Gate of Lodore

VII. The Canyon of Lodore
VIII. From Echo Park to the Mouth of the Uinta River
IX. From the Mouth of the Uinta River to the Junction of the Grand and
Green
X. From the Junction of the Grand and Green to the Mouth of the Little
Colorado
XI. From the Little Colorado to the Foot of the Grand Canyon
XII. The Rio Virgen and the Uinkaret Mountains
XIII. Over the River
XIV. To Zuni
XV. The Grand Canyon
Index

CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.

CHAPTER I
.
THE VALLEY OF THE COLORADO.
The Colorado River is formed by the junction of the Grand and Green.
The Grand River has its source in the Rocky Mountains, five or six
miles west of Long's Peak. A group of little alpine lakes, that receive
their waters directly from perpetual snowbanks, discharge into a
common reservoir known as Grand Lake, a beautiful sheet of water. Its
quiet surface reflects towering cliffs and crags of granite on its eastern
shore, and stately pines and firs stand on its western margin.
The Green River heads near Fremont's Peak, in the Wind River
Mountains. This river, like the Grand, has its sources in alpine lakes fed
by everlasting snows. Thousands of these little lakes, with deep, cold,
emerald waters, are embosomed among the crags of the Rocky

Mountains. These streams, born in the cold, gloomy solitudes of the
upper mountain region, have a strange, eventful history as they pass
down through gorges, tumbling in cascades and cataracts, until they
reach the hot, arid plains of the Lower Colorado, where the waters that
were so clear above empty as turbid floods into the Gulf of California.
The mouth of the Colorado is in latitude 31 degrees 53 minutes and
longitude 115 degrees. The source of the Grand River is in latitude 40
degrees 17' and longitude 105 degrees 43' approximately. The source of
the Green River is in latitude 43 degrees 15' and longitude 109 degrees
54' approximately.
The Green River is larger than the Grand and is the upper continuation
of the Colorado. Including this river, the whole length of the stream is
about 2,000 miles. The region of country drained by the Colorado and
its tributaries is about 800 miles in length and varies from 300 to 500
miles in width, containing about 300,000 square miles, an area larger
than all the New England and Middle States with Maryland, Virginia
and West Virginia added, or nearly as large as Minnesota,