10 
SURVEY OF THE COLORADO OF THE WEST. 
scending Green River, the Cation of Desolation, Gray Canon, Labyrinth 
Canon, and Stillwater Cation, with many lateral canons; then Cata- 
ract Canon, a profound chasm below the junction of the Grand and 
Green ; then Narrow Cation, which terminates at the mouth of the 
Dirty Devil River ; then Glen Canon, extending from the mouth of the 
Dirty Devil River to the mouth of the Paria, and Marble Canon from 
the mouth of the Paria to the mouth of the Colorado Chiquito. 
Then we have the Grand Canon, the most profound chasm known 
on the globe. Were a hundred mountains, each as large as Mount 
Washington, plucked up by the roots to the level of the sea and tum- 
bled into the gorge, they would not fill it. 
Along all of the streams mentioned we have series of canons, and yet 
all of these represent but a part of the canons explored and mapped, for 
there are many profound chasms, the channels of intermittent streams, 
dry during the greater portion of the season, that are hundreds of feet 
deep, and tluit never have a continuous stream for their entire length. 
PLATEAUS. 
To the knowledge of the geography of this country we have added a 
great number of plateaus. The streams cut through plateaus rather 
than through mountain-ranges. 
Immediately south of the Uintah and White River Valleys, streams 
which unite with the Green at points almost opposite each other, the 
last-mentioned river enters a great table-land, and cuts through it by 
the deep gorge known as the Canon of Desolation. We have called this 
Ta-va'-puts Plateau. The southern boundary of this plateau is an ab- 
rupt wall, and it slopes gently to the north until it is lost in the valleys 
of the White and Uintah Rivers ; on the west it is lost in the Wasatch 
Mountains; its extension to the east is yet unknown. Still continuing 
to the south, Green River cuts through another plateau, which we have 
named, in honor of Captain Gunnison, Gunnison Plateau. The south- 
eren boundary of this is a line of cliffs mapped by Captain Gunnison, 
and called by him Roan, or Book Mountains, east of Green River and 
Little Mountains on the west. 
Between Sanpete Valley and the headwaters of Price and San Rafael 
Rivers there is an elevated district of country which has heretofore 
been mistaken as the extension of the Wasatch Mountains to the south ; 
it is in fact a plateau. We propose to call this Wasatch Plateau. 
Geographers and geologists have heretofore spoken of a great Colo- 
rado Plateau, referring to the district of country through which Marble 
and Grand Canons are cut, for so it appeared to the observer standing 
on the southwest margin of this great district; but it has proved, in 
fact, to be a complex system of plateaus, bounded by walls of faults, 
escarpments, or cliffs of erosion, and canon gorges. 
The Mar-ka'-gunt Plateau is an extensive table-land, bounded by a line 
of precipitous cliffs on the south, and by cliffs or abrupt slopes, which 
