3 JOHN WESLEY POWELL. 



fall, with ledges and pinnacles of rock obstructing the river. There 

 is a descent of, perhaps, seventy-five or eighty feet in a third of a 

 mile, and the rushing waters break into great waves on the rocks, 

 and lash themselves into a mad, white foam. We can land just 

 above, but there is no foot-hold on either side by which we can make 

 a portage. It is nearly a thousand feet to the top of the granite, 

 so it will be impossible to carry our boats around, though we can 

 climb to the summit up a side gulch, and, passing along a mile 

 or two, can descend to the river. This we find on examination ; 

 but such a portage would be impracticable for us, and we must run 

 the rapid, or abandon the river. There is no hesitation. We step 

 into our boats, push off and away we go, first on smooth but swift 

 water, then we strike a glassy wave, and ride to its top, down again 

 into the trough, up again on a higher wave, and down and up on 

 waves higher and still higher, until we strike one just as it curls 

 back, and a breaker rolls over our little boat. Still, on we speed, 

 shooting past projecting rocks, till the little boat is caught in a 

 whirlpool, and spun around several times. At last we pull out 

 again into the stream, and now the other boats have passed us. 

 The open compartment of the 'Emma Dean' is filled with water, 

 and every breaker rolls over us. Hurled back from a rock, now on 

 this side, now on that, we are carried into an eddy, in which we 

 struggle for a few minutes, and are then out again, the breakers 

 still rolling over us. Our boat is unmanageable, but she cannot 

 sink, and we drift down another hundred yards, through breakers ; 

 how, we scarcely know. We find the other boats have turned into 

 an eddy at the foot of the fall, and are waiting to catch us as we 

 come, for the men have seen that our boat is swamped. They 

 push out as we come near, and pull us in against the wall. We 

 bail our boat, and on we go again. 



"The walls, now, are more than a mile in height a vertical 

 distance difficult to appreciate. Stand on the south steps of the 

 Treasury building, in Washington, and look down Pennsylvania 

 Avenue to the Capitol Park, and measure this distance overhead, 

 and imagine cliffs to extend to that altitude, and you will under- 

 stand what I mean ; or, stand at Canal street, in New York, and 

 look up Broadway to Grace Church, and you have about the dis- 

 tance ; or, stand at Lake street bridge, in Chicago, and look down 

 to the Central Depot, and you have it again. 



"A thousand feet of this is up through granite crags, then 

 steep slopes 'and perpendicular cliffs rise, one above another, to the 

 summit. The gorge is black and narrow below, red and gray and 



