PARRY — GREAT CANON OP THE COLORADO. 499 



Account of the passage through the Great Canon of the Colo- 

 rado of the West, from above the mouth of Green River 

 to the head of steamboat navigation at Callville, in the 

 months of August and September, 1867, by James 

 White, now living at Callville. Reported Jan. 6, 1868, 

 to J. D. Perry, Esq., PresH of the Union Pacific Rail- 

 ivay, Eastern Division, by C. C. Parry, AssH Geolo- 

 gist, U. P. R. Surv. 



Sir — The Railroad survey now in progress under your 

 direction has afforded many opportunities for acquiring 

 valuable additions to our geographical knowledge of" the 

 unexplored regions of the far West from original sources not 

 accessible to ordinary map compilers. Mining prospecters 

 within the last twenty years, more adventurous even than 

 the noted trappers of the Rocky Mountains, have scarcely 

 left a mountain slope unvisited, or a water-course un- 

 examined, over the wide expanse extending from the Missis- 

 sippi River to the Pacific Ocean. Could the varied and ad- 

 venturous experience of these mountain men be brought into 

 an accessible form, we should know nearly as much of these 

 western wilds, as we now do of the settled portions of our 

 country. 



Among the geographical problems remaining for the long- 

 est time unsolved, was the actual character of the stupen- 

 dous chasms, or canons, through which the Colorado of the 

 west cleaves its way from its snowy source to its exit into 

 the California Gulf. Within the last ten years public atten- 

 tion has been frequently directed to this subject, and various 

 Government expeditions have imparted reliable information 

 in reference to the upper and lower course of this remarkable 

 river. Lieut. Ives, in 1857-8, made a satisfactory exploration 

 of the navigable portion of the Colorado, extending from its 

 mouth to the Great Canon, and since then a regular line of 

 light draft boats have been successfully traversing these in- 

 land waters. Still the Great Canon remained a myth ; its 

 actual length, the character of the stream, the nature of its 

 banks, and the depth of its vertical walls, were subjects for 

 speculation, and afforded a fine field for exaggerated descrip- 

 tion, in which natural bridges, cavernous tunnels, and fearful 

 cataracts formed a prominent feature. Now, at last, we have 

 a perfectly authentic account from an individual who actually 

 traversed its formidable depths, and who, fortunately for 

 science, still lives to detail his trustworthy observations of 

 this most remarkable voyage. Happening to fall in with this 

 man during my recent stay of a few days at Hardyville, on 

 the Colorado, I drew from him the following connected 



