V. THE INVESTIGATOR. 



THE last chapter leaves Major Powell at the mouth of the Rio 

 Virgen in the autumn of 1869. The remainder of his life is 

 to be reckoned in results, and the order of events is less important, 

 but it is fitting to complement the preceding narrative in a few 

 paragraphs before attempting to outline his scientific researches. 



Although the adventurous voyage of the Colorado solved a 

 geographic problem and added a volume of knowledge to the com- 

 mon stock, its results were far from exhaustive, for among its dis- 

 coveries were a host of new and attractive problems to be attacked. 

 Each river that came to the Colorado issued from a canyon of its 

 own and invited exploration. Each climbing of a canyon wall gave 

 a glimpse of a sculptured and tinted plateau land such as traveller 

 had never described. 



In no other part of the earth had there been revealed to the 

 geologist a great desert so bare of vegetation and soil as to expose 

 the naked rock, and at the same time so dissected by a ramifying 

 system of trenches as to reveal its deep-lying anatomy. The idea 

 of expanding the line of exploration into a belt of exploration was 

 immediately conceived and this soon grew into a plan for the sur- 

 vey of the broad area of the Colorado Plateaus. It was first deter- 

 mined to repeat the voyage of the river in a more deliberate way, 

 bringing supplies by land to various points demonstrated by the 

 exploration to be accessible from the shore, making many excur- 

 sions from the river, and complementing the river work by inde- 

 pendent exploration on land. Up to this point Powell had de- 

 pended on personal resources and those of private institutions, but 

 his plans now outgrew these slender means and he appealed to the 

 General Government for aid. He was granted a first appropriation 

 of twelve thousand dollars. 



The line of the river was retraversed by boat in 1871 and 1872 ; 

 and a survey of adjacent country was carried forward, with grad- 



