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Show DISCOVERY OF THE GRAND CANON NOTED. 349 great the difficulty of reaching thereunto, I considered this to be impossible in consequence of the difficult Red Butte, some 7,750 feet high, standing on the plateau 10 miles ( air line) from the nearest point on the brink of the canon. Its former and probably earliest name was Mt. Thor-burn, given by Beale for Lt. C E. Thorbum, U. S. N., Sept. * 5 » 1857 ( Report, p. 54). The trail to Moqui passes a little north of this butte, keeping eastward to Red Horse spring, which is on the tourist's wagon road above said, some 12 or 15 miles south of the canon. Garces is the first white man known to have reached the Grand canon from the west; perhaps he is also the first to view it at this particular point and give it a specific name, as distinguished from that of the river flowing through the chasm. In Escalante's writings of about this year it is given the name of Rio Grande de los Cosninos. But in 1776 this one of the wonders of the world had been known to the Spanish for 236 years- since 1540, in which year it was discovered by a detachment of Coronado's men. The main facts in outline are these: Coronado being at Cibola ( Zuni) sent Pedro de Tobar, Juan de Padilla, and about 20 men, to discover Tusayan ( Moqui); they heard there of a great river beyond, and so reported on their return to Cibola. Thereupon Coronado sent Garcia Lopez de Cardenas with about 12 men to find this river. This party started on or about August 25, went to Tusayan, continued in what direction is not said, and came to the river, after 20 days. Then, says Castafieda, in his Relacion of this expedition, " Uegaron a las barrancas del rio que puestos a el bade de eUas parecia al otro bordo que auia mas de tres 0 quatro leguas por el ayre." This statement has been variously translated. Ternaux- Compans has: " les bords sont tellement 61ev6s qu'ils croyaient etre a trois . ou quatre lieues en Fair." Winship translates: " they came to the banks of the river which seemed to be more than 3 or 4 leagues above the stream which flowed be- |