DENVER & RIO GRANDE WESTERN ROUTE. 



206 



A few hundred feet west of the station at Greenriver the railroad 

 has cut through the dark shale at the base of the ^lancos formation. 

 If the traveler could have the opportunity of leaving the railroad 

 coach and of walking through this small cut he would find that almost 

 every fragment of shale is covered with impressions of shells. Ex- 

 perts who have studied these shells say that at one time each was 

 inhabited by an animal that lived in the sea and that when the animal 

 died the shell was filled with the dark mud that has since been consoli- 

 dated into shale. The form and all the delicate markings of these 

 shells have been well preserved. The general distribution of this 

 shale in Xew Mexico, northeastern Arizona, eastern Utah, Colorado, 

 Wyoming, ISIontana, North Dakota, and South Dakota shows that the 

 sea in which it was deposited must have been of great extent and that 

 the Eocky Mountains of to-day could not then have been in existence. 

 Geologic evidence over all the world shows that its surface has been 

 continually changing. At one time a region may be covered with 

 water ; at another time it may have been a plain much like that which 

 the traveler crossed east of Denver ; and at still another time it may 

 have been high land, with mountains. Such a succession of changes 

 has been repeated many times, with infinite variations, through all 

 the ages, and the present age is no exception but is also a scene of 

 general change or transformation. Such a transformation is going 

 on to-day as in the past, but we are scarcely aware of it, for it is so 



intervene between that beautiful land, 

 the balmy region in the great west, 

 and this, the desert home of the poor 

 Xu-ma. 



" This trail was the canyon gorge of 

 the Colorado, Through it he led him, 

 and when they had returned the deity 

 exacted from the chief a promise that 

 he would tell no one of the joys of 

 that land lest, through discontent with 

 the circumstances of this world, they 

 should desire to go to heaven. Then 

 he rolled a river into the gorge, a mad, 

 raging stream that should engulf any- 

 one that might attempt to enter there- 

 by. 



" More than once have I been warned 

 by the Indians not to enter this can- 

 yon. They considered it disobedience 

 to the gods and contempt for their au- 

 thority and believed that it would 

 surely bring upon me their wrath." 



One of the Indians described to 

 Powell the fate of some members of his 



tribe who attempted to run one of the 

 canyons of Green River in .the follow- 

 ing graphic manner : 



" 'The rocks,' he said, holding his 

 hands above his head, his arms ver- 

 tical, and looking between them to the 

 heavens, ' the rocks h-e-a-p, h-e-a-p 

 high ; the water go h-oo-woogh, h-oo- 

 wough; water pony [boat] h-e-a-p 

 buck; water catch 'em; no see 'em 

 Injun any more ! no see 'em squaw any 

 more ! no see 'em papoose any more !' " 



Despite these admonitions Powell 

 made preparations to undertake the 

 descent of the canyons, and on May 24, 

 1869, he floated away from the fron- 

 tier settlement of Green River, Wyo, 

 with a party of ten men in four boats. 

 One of the boats was wrecked in the 

 canyon of Lodore, where the river cuts 

 through the great mass of the Uinta 

 Mountains, but none of the party was 

 lost. The expedition passed what was 

 then caUed Gunnison's Crossing, now 



