82 MOJAVE VALLEY TO MOUTH OF BLACK CANON—DETENTION. 
the bow were thrown overboard; the doctor, Mr. Mollhausen, and myself, having been seated 
in front of the upper deck, were precipitated head foremost into the bottom of the boat; the 
fireman, who was pitching a log into the fire, went half-way in with it; the boiler was 
thrown out of place; the steam pipe doubled up; the wheel-house torn away; and it was 
expected that the boat would fill and sink instantly by all, but Mr. Carroll, who was looking 
for an explosion from the injured steam pipes. Finding, after a few moments had passed, that 
she still floated, Captain Robinson had a line taken into the skiff, and the steamer was towed 
alongside of a gravelly spit a little below; it was then ascertained that the stem of the boat, 
where the iron flanges of the two bow sections were joined, had struck fair upon the rock, and 
that, although the flanges were torn away, no hole had been made, and the hull was uninjured. 
‘he other damages were such as a day or two of labor could repair. 
Fig. 24.—Gravel Bluffs south of Black Mountains. 
After making these unexpected and welcome discoveries, the captain and myself went out in 
the skiff and examined the rock. It stands in the centre of the channel; has steep sides and 
a conical shape. The summit, which comes almost to a point, is about four inches below the 
surface of the water; and if the boat had struck half an inch to one side or the other of the 
flanges, the sheet of iron that forms the bow would have been torn open as though it had been 
a strip of pasteboard. 
Nearly three days have elapsed since the accident, and everything is restored to its. former 
condition. I have thought it would be imprudent, after this experience of sunken rocks, to 
attempt the passage of the caiion without making a preliminary reconnaissance in the skiff. A 
second escape of the boat, in the event of a similar encounter with a rock, would be too much 
to hope for; and should she be sunk in the cation, and there be nothing to swim to but perpen- 
