CA NON-MA KING. 5 I 



another. Owing to the character of the country through 

 which they flow there is indeed little or nothing to restrain 

 their progress ; for the high lands are either not wooded at 

 all, or so sparsely covered with trees, that the river banks 

 have but little power of resistance, and the clayey, sandy soil 

 of the prairies, intersected by numerous deep rain-made 

 watercourses, is still less capable of opposing the flood of 

 waters. 



It is when we look farther west still, however, that we are 

 perhaps most impressed by the magnitude of the work 

 accomplished by rivers ; for here they have to deal not with 

 yielding banks of sand, but with the solid rock, which be- 

 comes a permanent monument of their mighty power. 



The Colorado, with the Green River, as it is called during 

 the first part of its course, is 2,000 miles long, and the upper 

 two-thirds of the basin which it drains lie at a height of 

 from 4,000 to 8,000 feet above the sea, surrounded by 

 snow-clad mountains. During winter the snow falls heavily, 

 filling all the gorges and covering all the hills ; and when 

 summer comes and the great piles melt, millions of cascades 

 leap down from the rocks on all sides. "Ten million cas- 

 cades," writes Mr. J. W. Powell, " rush together and form ten 

 thousand torrent-creeks ; these again unite to form a hundred 

 rivers beset with cataracts, and a hundred roaring rivers 

 unite to form the Colorado, which rolls, a mad, turbid 

 stream, into the Gulf of California." 



The current is- at all times strong and rapid,* and is 

 provided with exactly the right tools, in the shape of mud, 



* The velocity of the water and stone in the Cataract Canon is equal to 

 that of a railway train going forty miles an hour. 



