Reviews — PoweWs Exploration of the Colorado. 367 



often showing smooth surfaces of naked solid rock ; in some places, 

 where the rocks are richly -coloured and variegated marls, the surface 

 is a bed of loose disintegrated material, through which one walks as 

 in a bed of ashes ; in some the disintegration of loose sandstone has 

 left broad stretches of drifting sand, white,' golden, and vermilion ; 

 in others conglomerates have left a paving of pebbles of many- 

 colours, polished by the drifting sands. All the scenic features of 

 this caiion-land are on a giant scale, strange and weird. The streams 

 run at depths almost inaccessible ; lashing the rocks which beset 

 their channels, rolling in rapids, and plunging in falls, and making 

 a wild music which but adds to the gloom of the solitude." 



After the canons, the most remarkable features of the country are 

 the cliffs, bold escarpments — often hundreds or thousands of feet in 

 height, scores or hundreds of miles in length — from the vertical 

 edges of which a gentle or imperceptible slope often leads to the 

 foot of other cliffs. The region is still further diversified by short 

 ranges of eruptive mountains, the materials of which issue through 

 a vast system of fissures, whence floods of lava have poured, covering 

 mesas and table-lands with sheets of black basalt. " The expiring 

 energies of these volcanic agencies have piled up huge cinder-cones, 

 that stand along the fissures, red, brown, and black, naked of vege- 

 tation, and conspicuous land-marks set in contrast to the bright 

 variegated rocks of sedimentary origin." 



Until the exploration guided by Professor Powell, this canon- 

 country was almost unknown. Stories were related, of people enter- 

 ing the gorges in boats, and being carried down with fearful velocity 

 into whirlpools, to be " overwhelmed in the abyss of waters," or 

 getting into "underground channels, and being never seen again" 

 (for it was " believed the river was lost under rocks for several 

 hundred miles") ; again, of great water-falls, " whose roaring music 

 could be heard on distant mountain summits;" or of ''parties 

 wandering on the brink of the canon, vainly endeavouring to reach 

 the waters below, and perishing with thirst in sight of the river 

 which was roaring its mockery into dying ears." But nothing 

 daunted, the author and his courageous assistants ran the whole 

 river in boats, or let these over rapids by lines, making toilsome 

 portages, calling the strange places they found themselves in some- 

 times, by such strange names as " Hell's half-mile," "Canon of deso- 

 lation," "Bonita bend," "Vasey's paradise," "Dirty-devil river," 

 " Paru-nu-weap," or other equally euphonious Indian designations. 

 At times they lost their boats and instruments, or had their pro- 

 visions spoiled by immersion in the cataracts ; sometimes they sat 

 perched all night upon the rocks in drenching rain, and sometimes 

 one of them or more was in such a predicament as this : " The boat is 

 in very swift water, and Bradley is standing in the open compart- 

 ment, holding out his oar to prevent her from striking against the 

 foot of the cliff. Now she shoots out into the stream, and up as far 

 as the line will permit, and then wheeling drives headlong against 

 the rock ; then out and back again, now straining on the line, now 

 striking on the rock." A second line is brought, but he does not see 



