YUMA TO BLYTHE 321 



nobler quietude of motion it sweeps through the 

 vast chasms of the Grand Canon. Here it was a wide 

 red flood, majestic in its expression of power, but 

 with monotony for its prevailing note. This monot- 

 ony, however, as I soon found, comes to be itself a 

 feature of impressiveness. The union of silence with 

 motion has also its peculiar charm, and the Colorado 

 might well be named the Silent River. Its lack of 

 sound might pass without notice if it were not 

 brought to the attention by sudden swirls or whirl- 

 pools that now and again break the stillness with a 

 rush of rapid water, followed again by the deathlike 

 hush. These periodical suctions are a characteristic 

 of this stream, and are caused by the continual 

 shifting of the material of the bed. A phenomenal 

 quantity of silt is carried by the Colorado, and its 

 deposition results in constant changes of the bot- 

 tom, a newly formed shoal at one place being bal- 

 anced by a displacement at another. On the shores, 

 also, every flood rebuilds and tears down the banks, 

 which even at this time of low water I often noted 

 to be rapidly caving at some point where I might be 

 standing. This again causes changes of current in 

 the channel, with the result of fresh alterations of 

 the bed. 



The river has had various names in the course of 

 its history. We first hear of it in 1538 under the 

 name Rio de las Balsas, river of the rafts, from the 

 Franciscans, Fray Juan de la Asunci6n and Fray 

 Pedro Nadal, who saw the Yumas cross the stream 

 on rafts. Two years later one of Coronado's officers, 

 Hernando de Alargon, the first to discover its mouth 



