INTRODUCTION. 
COLORADO EXPLORATIONS —ORGANIZATION OF THE EXPEDITION. — 
VOYAGE TO THE MOUTH OF THE RIVER, 
Position AND EXTENT OF COUNTRY DRAINED BY THE COLORADO.—EARLY EXPLORATIONS OF THE RIVER.—EXPEDITION OF coronapo.—OF 
DIZA —OF FERNANDO ALARGON.—OF CARDINAS.—VISITS OF JESUIT MISSIONARIES.—FOUNDATION OF CATHOLIC MIS*I0ONS.—EsPE” 
ON OF ESCALANTE.—HsTABLISHMENT OF FORT YUMA.—EXPEDITION OF LIRUTENANT DERBY.—OF CAPTAIN SITGREAVES,—OF 
LIEUTENANT WHIPPLE.—ACCOUNTS OF TRAPPERS.—ORGANIZATION OF COLORADO EXPLORING EXPEDITION.—PREPARATIONS 10 TAKE 
THE FIELD —DIVISION OF PARTY AT SAN FRANCISCO.— V OYAGE TO THE HEAD OF THE GULF OF CALIFORNIA, —DEscripTion OF THE 
GULF.— APPROACH TO THE MOUTH OF THE COLORADO 
THE Colorado of the West is the largest stream, with one exception, that flows from our 
Territory into the Pacific ocean. It has its sources in the southern portions of Nebraska and - 
Oregon, and in its course to the Gulf of California drains two-thirds of the Territory of New 
Mexico, and large portions of Utah and California, an area of more than 300,000 square miles. 
Very little has been known concerning this river. Two streams, Green and Grand rivers, 
which flow through Utah in a southerly direction, have been supposed to unite somewhere 
near the southern boundary of that Territory and form the Colorado, but the point of junction 
has never been visited nor determined. For hundreds of miles below this point the streame 
has not been seen, till recently, by white men, excepting at one spot, and few Indians, for 
centuries past, have been near its banks. Notwithstanding this, some portions of the river 
were among the earliest parts of America to be explored. In less than fifty years after the 
landing of Columbus, Spanish missionaries and soldiers were travelling upon the Colorado, 
following its course for a long way from the mouth, and even attaining one of the most distant 
and inaccessible points of its upper waters. More information was gained concerning it at that 
time than was acquired during the three subsequent centuries. 
In the year 1540 the viceroy of New Spain, interested in the accounts derived from a Fran- 
ciscan monk of the latter’s travels in the Territory now called New Mexico, sent an exploring 
expedition into that region under the command of Vasquez de Coronado. A detachment of 
twenty-five men, led by one Diaz, left Coronado’s party and travelled westward. They dis- 
covered the Colorado and followed it to its mouth. Their description of the river and of the 
tribes they met upon it is not at all inapplicable to the condition of things at the present day, 
though the statements concerning the prodigious size of one community of Indians that they 
encountered are a little exaggerated. The Mojaves, whom, doubtless, they refer to, are per- 
haps as fine a race of men, physically, as can anywhere be found, but they do not quite come 
up, In stature and strength, to the descriptions of the Spaniards. 
About the same time Captain Fernando Alargon, by order of the viceroy, sailed up the Gulf 
of California and ascended the Colorado in boats for a long distance. The account of what 
he saw agrees with that of his cotemporary explorer. 
Another of Coronado’s captains, named Cardinas, with a party of twelve men, reached the 
pueblos of Moquis, and repaired from them, with Indian guides, to a portion of the Colorado, 
far distant from that seen by the others. The history states that after twenty days’ march, — 
over a desert, they arrived at a river, the banks of which were so high that they seemed to a 
be three or four leagues in the air. The most active of the party attempted to descend, but _ 
came back in the evening, saying that they had met difficulties which prevented them from 
reaching the bottom; that they had accomplished one-third of the descent, and from that = 
