OCR Text |
Show Record from Nokai and about five miles down the river from Copper Canyon. 2076 The machinery came in later by wagon from Flagstaff. I never saw 2077 any settlers in the country west of Bluff except Indians. I was there during June, July and August of the year 1902. When I arrived the river was pretty high and gradually went down until the latter part of July, when it dried up completely and remained dry for about five weeks. We left the river the day it started to 2078 rain, but I saw the stream at another point, and it was pretty high and trees and logs were floating down it. I was next there in November, 1902, and remained until February, 1903. The river was very low when I arrived in November - forty of fifty feet wide and about two feet deep - and along in January all of the steam froze up except a small strip about a foot and half wide. Since 1903 I have only been back there once, towit, in 1915. Going in 2079 as well as out, I traveled overland. While I was on the river I saw sand waves during high water about four feet high on the first trip. There were sand waves during high several days; and on my next visit in November I saw low waves that would not be more than a foot or two high. On my 1915 trip the water was higher and the 1080 waves would probably be three or for feet high. None of our suplies were brought by boat and I never saw anyone else use a boat on the San Juan. I used to go wading, bathing and swimming in the river when it was low. The river changed almost constantly; 2081 that is, every two or three days. The sediment would fill up one side and divert the water over to the other side, thus swinging over about one hundred feet. Our company fixed up some old roads 2082 where they had been washed out here and there. The year the river went dry, we had to dig in the bed for water and were compelled to dig deeper every two or three days, extending our digging to a depth of about ten feet altogether. On one occasion while the river was dry our cook apparently lost his mind and wandered down the river at night, so we got two white men, accompanied by Indians, and found him down close to the Colorado River, On learning that |