254 ON THE FEONTIEE. 



We are within a day's march of our destination down-hill ! 

 The hardships of the trip are over. 



Standing on the edge of Pah-Ute' hill, where the descent 

 begins, we are at an elevation of nearly three thousand nine 

 hundred feet above the sea-level, and, to reach the valley 

 below, shall have to wind and twist about for eighteen miles 

 of short abrupt rises, and long curving descents; some of 

 the latter so precipitous, indeed, as to require the hind- 

 wheels of every waggon to be rough-locked and chained to 

 the waggon-beds. 



Only one sentence only one word can adequately describe 

 the view. 



The Colorado and its valley are before us ! 



Magnificent ! 



Far below where we stand flows the river ; two hundred 

 and fifty miles from its mouth at the top of the Gulf of Cali- 

 fornia ; sixty miles below the termination of its wonderful 

 canon, the Canon Grande of the Colorado profoundest, most 

 stupendous, longest chasm in the world ; and seven hundred 

 miles from its sources in the Rocky Mountains. 



Looking across, our view is limited by the crests of what 

 appears to be a range of mountains bounding the Colorado 

 Valley on the other side of the river, but which really is the 

 scarp and glacis to the table-lands of Central Arizona, and 

 piercing through it for several miles, the " croppings " of the 

 Great Moss Lode are traceable. 



The Great Moss Lode is a gold-bearing quartz vein, 

 and its outcroppings are larger, and have been traced farther, 

 than those of any other lode yet discovered. It has been 

 mined in many places, both by American and Mexican 



