*58 
The Colorado River 
stream. Ives had been Whipple’s chief assistant in 1853-54, 
and therefore well understood the situation. But he states 
that the company was “unable to spare a boat except for a 
compensation beyond the limits of the appropriation.” As a 
boat was spared, however, for the less important matter of 
going far up the river to ferry Beale across, it would appear 
that either the negotiations were not conducted in a proper 
spirit, or that Ives rather preferred a boat of his own. The 
cost of building in Philadelphia the boat he used, and sending 
her in sections to San Francisco, and thence to the Colorado, 
must have been very great. The steamer was ordered June i, 
1857, and had to be at the mouth of the Colorado by Decem¬ 
ber 1st of the same year. After a trial on the Delaware, a 
mill-pond compared with the Colorado, she was hastily shipped, 
with all her defects, by way of Panama, there being no time to 
make any changes. The chief trouble discovered was radical, 
being a structural weakness of the hull. To, in a measure, off¬ 
set this, timbers and bolts were obtained in San Francisco, the 
timbers to be attached to the outside of the hull on putting the 
sections together, there being no room within. It requires 
little understanding of naval architecture to perceive that a 
great handicap was thus imposed on the little vessel. Yet 
Lieutenant Ives says, on the trial trip she was “found satis¬ 
factory ” ! By November ist, the party was on board the 
schooner Monterey, bound for the head of the Gulf. Though 
the vessel was loaded down with supplies for Fort Yuma, room 
was made for the Ives expedition and they arrived, passing 
through a heavy gale in the gulf, at Robinson’s Landing on 
November 30th. The schooner was anchored over a shoal, 
and was soon aground, as the fierce tide ran out, a circumstance 
that enabled her to stay there and stem the torrent. A deep 
booming sound was presently heard, growing louder and nearer, 
and 
“ in half an hour a great wave several feet in height, could be dis¬ 
tinctly seen flashing and sparkling in the moonlight, extending from 
one bank to the other and advancing swiftly upon us. While it was 
only a few hundred yards distant, the ebb tide continued to flow by 
at the rate of three miles an hour. A point of land and an exposed 
