JOHN WESLEY POWELL. 35 



"The remaining portion of the day is occupied in making a 

 trail among the rocks to the foot of the rapid. 



"June 16. Our first work this morning is to carry our cargoes 

 to the foot of the falls. Then we commence letting down the 

 boats. We take two of them down in safety, but not without great 

 difficulty ; for, where such a vast body of water, rolling down an 

 inclined plane, is broken into eddies and cross currents by rocks 

 projecting from the cliffs and piles of boulders in the channel, it 

 requires excessive labor and much care to prevent their being 

 dashed against the rocks or breaking away. Sometimes we are 

 compelled to hold the boat against a rock, above a chute, until a 

 second line, attached to the stem, is carried to some point below, 

 and, when all is ready, the first line is detached, and the boat given 

 to the current, when she shoots down, and the men below swing 

 her into some eddy. 



"At such a place, we are letting down the last boat, and, as 

 she is set free, a wave turns her broadside down the stream, with 

 the stem, to which the line is attached, from shore and a little up. 

 They haul on the line to bring the boat in, but the power of the 

 current, striking obliquely against her, shoots her out into the mid- 

 dle of the river. The men have their hands burned with the fric- 

 tion of the passing line; the boat breaks away, and speeds, with 

 great velocity, down the stream. 



"The 'Maid of the Canyon' is lost, so it seems; but she drifts 

 some distance and swings into an eddy, in which she spins about, 

 until we arrive with the small boat and rescue her." 



Ten days of hard work bring them to the south base of the 

 Uinta Mountains, but they are still among canyons, and the river 

 is still swift and difficult. They are in the Plateau Province, where 

 the uplands are tables, flat or sloping, bounded by cliffs, and 

 adorned by buttresses and pinnacles. Among these the Green 

 River is joined by the Grand, to make the Colorado. The whole 

 narrative is a tale of adventure ; each successive canyon gives a 

 new type of scenery ; each climbing of a canyon wall reveals a new 

 wonderland ; each roaring rapid yields a new problem in naviga- 

 tion. At last, near the middle of August, the Grand Canyon is 

 reached, and all phases of the journey the labor and peril, the 

 beauty and grandeur, and the scientific interest find their super- 

 lative expression. 



"About eleven o'clock [August 14] we hear a great roar ahead, 

 and approach it very cautiously. The sound grows louder and 

 louder as we run, and at last we find ourselves above a long, broken 



