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Show Record were about 5 feet wide and 24 inches deep, and the compartments were filled. The only place to get rations at that time was at Salt Lake City or at Ft. Bridger, so that we had to take all we could. Ft. Bridger was and is west of Green River, Wyoming, at the head of Black's Fork. We started with eleven men, one of whom proved inefficient, and he was sent back after about two weeks. There were three men to a boat, besides Major Powell, who 1519 sat on the middle compartment of our boat. Capt. Bishop of Salt Lake City, 87 years old, was with us on the trip. The boats were very well constructed, of half- inch oak, double- ribbed fore and aft, and were very strong. We carried rubber life- preservers of 1520 the old sausage type, that weren't very good. We left Green River, Wyoming, on May22, 1871. Except for sand bars, the first eighty miles of Green River is easily negotiated. We went through Flaming Gorge, Red Canyon, Ladore Canyon, which is a very severe canyon where Powell lost a boat at Disaster Falls on his first expedition, and then came to Whirlpool Canyon, which is not so bad but has some lively rapids. You enter Ladore at the foot of Brown's Park, then come into Uintah Basin, where it is compara-tively easy going for about thirty miles or so; then you enter Desolation Canyon, where there is about ninety- seven to one hundred miles of very rapid descent, with rapids and shallow water at low water. After Desolation Canyon is Gray Canyon, which extends for about twenty or thirty miles and has a few rapids in it. Then you come to the town of Green River, Utah. In many places between Green River, Utah, and Green River, Wyoming, there are very severe 1522 rapids. Up to this point on the river we encountered no other other boats. After leaving Green River, Wyoming, we obtained rations sent overland from Salt Lake City to the mouth of the Duchesne, where they were delivered to us. We only remained at Green River, Utah, then known as Gunnison Crossing, sufficiently long to take in some rations that had been sent overland from Manti 200 |