324 



GEOGEAPHICAL EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES IN 1870. 



pansion of the river, and is about twenty-five 

 miles long by fifteen wide. It abounds in 

 speckled trout of the finest quality, and vast 

 flocks of geese, ducks, swans, and pelicans, 

 resort to it. It is surrounded by stupendous 

 mountain-ranges, which are approached on all 

 sides by undulating plains and grassy foot- 

 hills. Forests of pine touch its banks, at in- 

 tervals, and its beautiful margin presents 

 every variety of sand and pebbly beach, glit- 

 tering with crystals, cornelian, and chalcedony. 

 Indians rarely approach it, on account of the 

 superstition inspired by the volcanic forces of 

 the vicinity. The journey around it was at- 

 tended with difficulty and distress. One of 

 the party, Truman 0. Everts, was lost, and left 

 to his fate, after a long search, by his com- 

 rades. After thirty-seven days, during which 

 he nearly perished, he was rescued by two 

 trappers, who found him one hundred and ten 

 miles from the place where he had been missed. 

 Snow had fallen to the depth of twenty-six 

 inches, when the explorers turned homeward. 

 They aimed to strike the head-waters of the 

 Madison, and succeeded in doing so, after 

 struggling slowly through the snow for several 

 days, and suffering very much. The desire for 

 home had taken the place of all their interest 

 in the explorations. They had, as they sup- 

 posed, seen, in the amphitheatre already de- 

 scribed, the greatest natural wonders of the 

 continent. They were convinced that there 

 was not on the globe another region where, 

 within the same limits, Nature had coupled so 

 much of grandeur and majesty with so much 

 of novelty and beauty. What, then, was their 

 astonishment, on entering the basin of the Mad- 

 ison, weary and exhausted, and with a feeling 

 of the utmost indifference and listlessness, at 

 seeing just before them an immense body of 

 sparkling water projected suddenly and with 

 terrific force into the air, to the height of 125 

 feet! They had found a real geyser. In the 

 valley before them there were 1,000 hot 

 springs of various sizes, and 500 craters throw- 

 ing out vapor. The geysers were seen in ac- 

 tion in every direction, projecting water to 

 various heights. The one first referred to was 

 throwing from an irregular crevice, about sev- 

 en by three feet, a column of water of corre- 

 sponding dimensions to a height of 125 feet. 

 Various names were given to the geysers. 

 One was called the " Fan," as it threw up to a 

 height of 60 feet two radiating sheets of water, 

 resembling a feather fan. Forty feet from this 

 geyser is a vent, connected with it, and two 

 feet in diameter, which during the eruption 

 expels, with loud reports, dense masses of va- 

 por. One of the party crawjed into the 

 " Grotto " from curiosity, not supposing it to 

 be a live geyser, and, as he emerged, he was 

 followed by an eruption of boiling water, 

 which, if it had overtaken him, would have 

 cooked him. The " Giant " is a rugged de- 

 posit, presenting in form a miniature model of 

 the Coliseum. It has an opening six feet in 



diameter. A remarkable peculiarity of this 

 geyser is, the duration of its discharges, which 

 continued for three hours, in a steady stream, 

 five feet in diameter and 145 feet high. Op- 

 posite their camp was a symmetrical cone, like 

 a bee-hive, about five feet in diameter at the 

 base, and with an orifice at the top, of twenty- 

 four by thirty-six inches. They had not sus- 

 pected it to be a geyser, till one morning there 

 suddenly shot up from it a column of water, 

 which was found, by triangulation, to be 219 

 feet high. The " Giantess " throws up a col- 

 umn, six inches in diameter, to a height of 250 

 feet. This is the highest of all. The rays of the 

 sun falling upon the geysers in action produced 

 an infinite variety of prismatic hues, like bro- 

 ken-up rainbows. 



The descent of the Colorado River by the 

 Powell Expedition, of which some account was 

 given in the ANNUAL CYCLOPEDIA for 1869, 

 was attended with great peril and some loss of 

 life ; three of the party, having become dis- 

 couraged and determined upon making an 

 overland journey across the plateau to the 

 Mormon settlement, were killed by the Indians 

 within a few miles of that settlement, while 

 those who remained with Major Powell came 

 through safely, though not without much anx- 

 iety and peril. The scenery was generally 

 gloomy, but sometimes grand and sublime. 

 The practical results of the expedition are 

 mainly negative. The settlement of the pla- 

 teau, through which the Colorado and its afflu- 

 ents, the Grand, Green, Colorado Chiquito, 

 and other streams, have eroded for themselves 

 channels, seems impossible as well as unde- 

 sirable unless some system of irrigation could 

 be devised which would restore to these lands 

 their ancient fertility ; and situated as it is in 

 the great Colorado Basin, on which little or no 

 rain falls, and with the river-beds from one 

 thousand to six thousand feet below their sur- 

 face, any scheme of irrigation which should be 

 at all effective would be so costly as to render 

 it impossible. On some portions of the plateau 

 it is possible that the planting of the seed of 

 forest-trees of quick growth and great tenacity 

 of life, such as the ailantus, the locust, the 

 mezquit, or the post-oak, might, with the nat- 

 ural fertility of the soil, eventually induce a 

 forest- growth which would attract a larger 

 rainfall, and so restore the plateau to a habit- 

 able condition. Such has been the result in 

 other portions of what was formerly known as 

 the Great American Desert, large districts of 

 which are now among the most fertile lands in 

 the world. 



The measurement of the altitude of the sum- 

 mits of the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Ne- 

 vada, and the Coast Range, has been prosecuted 

 with much activity during the year and very 

 few of them remain whose height is not known. 

 The peaks of Colorado and the "High Sierras" 

 of California have been especially examined 

 of late, and their height ascertained both by 

 means of the barometer and by triangulation. 



