Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries Explored in 1869, 1870, 1871, and 1872, Under the Direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

Page 110, Exploration of the Colorado River

110 EXPLORATION OF THE CANONS OF THE COLORADO. stream, and wade along the channel where the water is so swift as to almost carry us off our feet, and we are in danger every moment of being swept down, until night comes on. We estimate we have traveled eight miles to day. We find a little patch of flood-plain, on which there is a huge pile of driftwood and a clump of box-elders, and near by a great stream, which bursts <*?• from the rocks-a mammoth spring. We soon have a huge fire, our clothes are spread to dry, we make a cup of coffee, take out our bread and cheese and dried beef, and enjoy a hearty supper. The canon here is about twelve hundred feet deep. It has been very narrow and winding all the way down to this point. September 11.-Wading again this morning; sinking in the quicksand, swimming the deep waters, and making slow and painful progress where the waters are swift, and the bed of the stream rocky. The cation is steadily becoming deeper, and, in many places, very narrow-only twenty or thirty feet wide below, and in some places no wider, and even narrower, for hundreds of feet overhead. There are places where the river, in sweeping by curves, has cut far under the rocks, but still preserving its narrow channel, so that there is an overhanging wall on one side and an inclined wall on the other. In places a few hundred feet above, it becomes vertical again, and thus the view to the sky is entirely closed. Everywhere this deep passage is dark and gloomy, and resounds with the noise of rapid waters. At noon we are in a canon 2,500 feet deep, and we come to a fall where the walls are broken down, and huge rocks beset the channel, on which we obtain a foothold to reach a level two hundred feet below. Here the canon is again wider, and we find a flood-plain, along which we can walk, now on this, and now on that side of the stream. Gradually the canon widens; steep rapids, cascades, and cataracts are found along the river, but we wade only when it is necessary to cross. We make progress with very great labor, having to climb over piles of broken rocks. Late in the afternoon, we come to a little clearing in the valley, and see other signs of civilization, and by sundown arrive at the Mormon town of Schunesburg; and here we meet the train, and feast on melons and grapes.