CHAPTER 1. 
THE VALLEY OP THE COLORADO. 
The Colorado River is formed by the junction of the Grand and Green. 
The Grand River has its source in the Rocky Mountains, five or six 
miles west of Long's Peak, in latitude 40 11' and longitude 105 43' 
approximately. A group of little alpine lakes, that receive their waters 
directly from perpetual snow-banks, discharge into a common reservoir, 
known as Grand Lake, a beautiful sheet of water. Its quiet surface reflects 
towering cliffs and crags of granite on its eastern shore; and stately pines 
and firs stand on its western margin. 
The Green River heads near Fremont's Peak, in the Wind River Mount 
ains, in latitude 43 15' and longitude 109 45' approximately. This 
river, like the last, has its sources in alpine lakes, fed by everlasting snows. 
Thousands of these little lakes, with deep, cold, emerald waters, are em 
bosomed among the crags of the Rocky Mountains. These streams, born 
in the cold, gloomy solitudes of the upper mountain-region, have a strange, 
eventful history as they pass down through gorges, tumbling in cascades 
and cataracts, until they reach the hot, arid plains of the Lower Colorado, 
where the waters that were so clear above empty as turbid floods into the 
Gulf of California. 
The mouth of the Colorado is in latitude 31 53' and longitude 115. 
The Green River is larger than the Grand, and is the upper continua 
tion of the Colorado. Including this river, the whole length of the stream is 
about two thousand miles. The region of country drained by the Colorado 
and its tributaries is about eight hundred miles in length, and varies from 
three hundred to five hundred in width, containing about three hundred 
thousand square miles, an area larger than all the New England and Middle 
States, with Maryland and Virginia added, or as large as Minnesota, Wiscon 
sin, Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri. 
There are two distinct portions of the basin of the Colorado. The 
