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Show 138 EXPLOU.ATION OF TilE OARONS OF THE OOLORADO. sandstone rock, traversed in all directions by a petfect labyrinth of narrow gorges, sometimes seeming to cross each other, but finally uniting in a principal one, whose black line could be traced, cutting its way to the Colorado, a few miles above the mouth of the San Juan River. The perilous character of the journey of Mr. Hamblin and party was apparent. For eighty miles they traveled in a canon, finding, in all that distance, but two places where the walls could be scaled. They crossed, recrossed, waded, and sometimes swam a rapid stream, that often filled the gorge from wall to wall. A single shower, on tho rock land above, would nave changed the stream to a raging torrent, that would have swept them into the Colorado, 01· imprisoned them in some rock walled alcove, with no possible way of escape. Away to the cast, and fifty miles distaut, rose the Henry Mountains, their gray slopes streaked with long Jines of white by tho snow which yet remained in tho gulches near their summits. On our voyage down the Colorado River, in 1871, we had determined tho mouth of the Dirty Devil River to be about thirty miles northeast from these mountains, making it at least eighty miles from our present camp, and directly across tho not work of cauons before us. 'ro proceed farther in the direction we had been pursuing was impossible. No animal without wings could cross the deep gulches in the sandstone basin at our feet. Tho stream which we had followed, and whose course soon became lost in tho multitude of chasms before us, was not tho one we were in search of, but an unknown, unnamed river, draining tho eastern slope· of tho Aquarius Plateau, and flowing, through a deep, narrow canon, to tho Colorado River. Believing our party to be the discov.erers, we decided to call this stream, in honor of Father Escalante, the old Spanish expiorer, Escalante River, and the country which it drains, Escalante Basin. The western boundary of tho bash1 is tho vertical wall forming the eastern edge of the Kai-par'-o-wits Plateau. From tho very base of this cliff, tho drainage is to tho Escalante Ri vcr, by narrow, deep canons, presenting apparently impa sable barriers to travel toward the south. r.r\> the north, and tw nty miles away, rose tho astern :-;lopo of tltc Aquarius Plateau. ItH general trend is north and Houtlt, lmt. away to tho 11orthwcst, <md about forty AQUARIUS PLATEAU. 139 miles from our point of observation, a great, salient angle projects eastward toward the Henry Mountains, tho slopes at its base seeming to continue out a long distance, and form a low, broken 1idge between canons running southward, to the Escalante River, and others running northward. Here, if anywhere, this canon region could be crossed, and I decided to go eastward along the slope of the groat plateau, to the salient spoken of, and then attempt the passage along the ridge. To carry out this plan would require more supplies and time than were allotted, so I decided to divide my party, sending three men to bring rations from Kanab to tho foot of Potato Valley, while I prosecuted tho exploration with the remainder. Leaving the foot of Potato Valley, we traveled a little west of north, up a creek called, from tho many fino pine trees in its valley, Pine Creek. This stt·eam rises in a semicircular alcove in the eastern wall of tho Aquarius Plateau, and flows at the foot of the sand tone cliff which forms the western wall of the E calanto Basin, till near Potato Crook, when it turns abruptly to the eastward, cuts a deep, narrow canon in tho cliff, and unites with the main stream in tho heart of the basin. After pursuing this course for twelve miles, and rising about five hundred feet, we turned to tho right, climbed 900 foot of steep slope to tho crest of a long, narrow, ridge running out from the Aquarius Plateau. On tins we traveled toward tho north till night, when we camped on the bank of a beautiful birch fringed brook, 2,000 feet above the foot of Potato Valley. Tho table land, which we called Aquarius Plateau, is about forty miles long, by twenty broad. Its general smface is a level, rocky plain, <lotted by numerous lakes. Its eastern side, near the summit, is a steep, and often vertical wall, over which little streams plunge in most beautiful cascades and falls. From the foot of this wall, a long, gentle slope reaches to the love] of tho Escalante Basin. Lakes dot tho upper portion, and, at intervals, cascade brooks make the air musical with running waters. For two days we traveled along this slope, having, all the time, the snow covered crest of the Aquarius Plateau on our left, and the E calante Basin with its wildcrnos of dark canons, white capped butte , and orange cliffs, with intorvoniug miles of naked rock, and looso, driftiug sands on our right, • |