18 EXPLORATION OP THE CANONS OF THE COLOEADO. 
fall. One great cubical block, thirty or forty feet high, stands in the middle 
of the stream, and the waters, parting to either side, plunge down about 
twelve feet, and are broken again by the smaller rocks into a rapid below. 
Immediately below the falls, the water occupies the entire channel, there 
being no talus at the foot of the cliffs. 
We embark, and run down a short distance, where we find a landing- 
place for dinner. 
On the waves again all the afternoon. Near the lower end of this 
canon, to which we have given the name Red Caiion, is a little park, where 
streams come down from distant mountain summits, and enter the river on 
either side; and here we camp for the night under two stately pines. 
June 3. This morning we spread our rations, clothes, &c., on the 
ground to dry, and several of the party go out for a hunt. I take a walk 
of five or six miles up to a pine grove park, its grassy carpet bedecked with 
crimson, velvet flowers, set in groups on the stems of pear shaped cactus 
plants ; patches of painted cups are seen here and there, with yellow blos 
soms protruding through scarlet bracts; little blue-eyed flowers are peeping 
through the grass; and the air is filled with fragrance from the white blossoms 
of a Spiraea. A mountain brook runs through the midst, ponded below by 
beaver dams. It is a quiet place for retirement from the raging waters of 
the canon. 
It will be remembered that the course of the river, from Flaming Gorge 
to Beehive Point, is in a southerly direction, and at right angles to the Uinta 
Mountains, and cuts into the range until it reaches a point within five miles 
of the crest, where it turns to the east, and pursues a course not quite parallel 
to the trend of the range, but crosses the axis slowly in a direction a little 
south of east. ' Thus there is a triangular tract between the river and the 
axis of the mountain, with its acute angle extending eastward. I climb 
a mountain overlooking this country. To the east, the peaks are not very 
high, and already most of the snow has melted ; but little patches lie here 
and there under the lee of ledges of rock. To the west, the peaks grow 
higher and the snow fields larger. Between the brink of the canon and the 
foot of these peaks, there is a high bench. A number of creeks have their 
sources in the snow banks to the south, and run north into the canon, turn- 
