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Show the river, but in the eastern section we surveyed back from the river several miles. Our survey extended to a point approxi- 2754 mately two miles below the mouth of Piute Canyon. There is a canyon for approximately four or five miles between Piute Farms and the point where Piute Canyon comes to the San Juan River. 2755 Neither I nor my men went through that canyon, but we did some work from the rim above. We determined the high water mark there by taking the shore line as near as we could determine it 2756 from the top of the rim. We could approximately determine the high water mark by the vegetation all along there. You can tell by the slope of the rocks; it seems like the water leaves a line along the edge all through these canyons. When I answered that I was never in the river when it was waist deep, I meant that I had never attempted to ford it when it was at that depth. I can't give the exact date when I found the water six to eighteen inches deep at Nokai, but it was in the spring of the year before 2757 the flood waters and before high water commenced. It is my recollection when I forded at that place that the depth varied from six inches in the shallower parts to eighteen inches in the main channel, but I made no soundings and measured no depths. When the water was at the lowest depth I ever saw it, I have waded it several times from one side to the other; this occurred 2758 when we were working on the river at Nokai in May. In giving the depths I have given they are intended to be merely approximate. It was still lower in the year when I crossed the river at Piute and the water was then at about the same stage as when I crossed the river at Nokai; and in crossing at Piute on horseback, I had to hold my feet up in order to keep them from getting wet 2759 and the water was up to the belly of my horse or deeper. When I crossed at Nokai I endeavored to select places where I could avoid the quicksand or boggy spots and pick a way that appeared to be the easiest way of getting over. I recall no other places where I either forded the river on horseback or on foot except at Piute and Nokai. |