GEOGEAPHICAL EXPLOEATIONS AND DISCOVEEIES IN 1869. 291 



and opening for settlement, with extraordinary 

 rapidity, the whole region lying between the 

 Missouri Kiver and the Pacific coast. This 

 vast region must soon become densely popu- 

 lated, and its mineral wealth and its agricul- 

 tural facilities developed. A Northern Pacific 

 Railway following the valleys of the Upper 

 Missouri and the Columbia, and a Southern 

 Pacific beginning at Memphis, taking possession 

 of some roads already constructed, passing 

 through El Paso, and finally terminating at 

 San Diego on the Pacific, are already in prog- 

 ress, and will be hurried forward as rapidly as 

 possible. With these varied routes, and the 

 additional advantages of the Panama Eailroad 

 and the Darien Canal, soon to be constructed, 

 the trade of Eastern Asia and of Western 

 South America must be ours beyond all possi- 

 bility of competition. The Eio Colorado, or 

 Eed Eiver of the West, the only stream which 

 drains the great Central North American basin, 

 and discharges its water through the Gulf of 

 California into the Pacific, has been explored 

 during the year 1869 by a daring and energetic 

 corps, under the command of Captain J. W. 

 Powell. It is, in some respects, the most re- 

 markable river in the world. Its sources are 

 in the Eocky Mountains, one of them far up in 

 Idaho, above Fort Bonneville ; the other in 

 Colorado, not far from Denver. Its two prin- 

 cipal tributaries, the Green Eiver and the 

 Grand Eiver, as well as the smaller yet consid- 

 erable affluents, the San Juan and the Little 

 Colorado, very soon begin to cut their way 

 through the mountain-ridges, at a very consid- 

 erable depth below the surface of the plateau. 

 The Green Eiver, whose gorges and cafions 

 are deepest, first enters the Uintah Mountains 

 in the extreme northwest corner of Colorado, 

 at the point named by the explorers, Flaming 

 Gorge, from the brilliant colors of the sand- 

 stone walls of the gorge, and just below this 

 the walls of the cafion are nearly fifteen hun- 

 dred feet high. The stream is rapid, the de- 

 scent, aside from the cataracts and minor falls, 

 being near twenty feet to the mile in many 

 places. Frequent falls, rapids, and cataracts 

 were met with, and though, for the most part, 

 there was, on one side or the other, a narrow 

 strip of land forming the valley of the river, 

 there were considerable distances where the 

 walls, perpendicular, dark, and frowning, came 

 to the edge of the water, and reared their 

 grim, dark walls 5,000, 6,000, or even, at one 

 point, 6,500 feet above the surface of the river. 

 At several points the explorers were able to 

 land, and, by dint of vigorous climbing, reach 

 the surface of the plateau above; but these 

 points were on the Green Eiver, above its 

 junction with the Grand Eiver. Below this 

 point, in the fearful black cafion, there' was no 

 chance of escape, except by going forward 

 through the dark and terrible gorge. They 

 could not turn back. No mortal arm could 

 stem the swift-flowing current, and the cata- 

 racts below were untried, except by the two or 



three parties who had attempted their descent, 

 and of whom but one man, and he almost by 

 a miracle, had escaped with life. Still the 

 brave-hearted company went forward. Stop- 

 ping at landings when they could find them, 

 lowering the boats carefully over the falls, 

 after unpacking them, at last, late in July, 

 the end of the Black Canon was reached at 

 Callville, and thenceforward navigation was 

 easy. The extent of these frightful cafions is 

 over five hundred miles, and from their termi- 

 nation at Callville to'the mouth of the Colorado 

 is more than five hundred miles more. The 

 entire length of the river to the source of its 

 most northern affluent is about one thousand 

 six hundred miles. The expedition measured 

 the height of the plateau above them at many 

 points, collected sets of the strata, and surveyed 

 very carefully the course and descent of the 

 river. Prof. J. S. Newberry, of the Colum- 

 bia School of Mines, and formerly one of the 

 scientific corps employed by the Government 

 in what were known as the Colorado and San 

 Juan Expeditions, in 1858-'61, has given to the 

 public, in a lecture, his observations of this 

 Colorado region, to which some allusion was 

 made in the AMEBIOAN ANNUAL CYCLOPAEDIA 

 for 1868. He ascended the river from its mouth 

 to the entrance of the Black Canon, and the 

 party then ascended to the plateau, and trav- 

 ersed it in the two expeditions for a distance 

 of many hundred miles. They attempted to 

 cross the Little Colorado at its junction with 

 the Colorado, but, after descending about four 

 thousand feet, they came to a perpendicular 

 wall of rock, still one thousand five hundred 

 feet above the surface of the river. They were 

 compelled to make a detour of about two hun- 

 dred miles, and cross the Little Colorado above 

 the falls, near San Francisco Mountain, in Cen- 

 tral Arizona. From this point they travelled on 

 the plateau about sixty miles, and visited the 

 villages of the Moqui Indians, on buttes (ele- 

 vated bluffs of moderate extent), five hun- 

 dred feet above the plain. They found 

 them living in walled towns, and in appear- 

 ance, language, customs, manufactures, and re- 

 ligion, entirely distinct from either the Pueblos 

 or the wandering tribes, Apaches, Navajos, etc. 

 The professor believes these Moquis to be the 

 descendants of the Toltecs, the race which pre- 

 ceded the Aztecs in their conquest of Western 

 North America. Penetrating, in the second of 

 these expeditions, to the vicinity of the San 

 Juan, an affluent of the Colorado flowing 

 through Northwestern New Mexico and South- 

 eastern Utah, they found its 'banks lined with 

 ruins of large towns, and evidence that, within 

 a short distance, a hundred thousand people 

 had found homes and plenty, where now was 

 only utter desolation and a waterless desert. 



Dr. William A. Bell, an English surgeon and 

 physicist, who had accompanied an exploring 

 expedition, sent out in 1867-'68 by the Union 

 Pacific Eailroad Company, Western Division, to 

 explore a feasible route for a railway through 



