CHAPTER XIV 
A Railway Proposed through the Canyons—The Brown Party, i88g, Undertakes 
the Survey—Frail Boats and Disasters—The Dragon Claims Three—Collapse 
of the Expedition—Stanton Tries the Feat Again, 1889-go—A Fall and a 
Broken Leg—Success of Stanton—The Dragon Still Untrammelled. 
T he topographic, geologic, and geodetic work of the survey 
did not cease with our departure from the river, but was 
continued in the remarkable country shown in the relief map 
opposite page 41, till the relationships and distances of the 
various features were established and reduced to black and 
white. That autumn, while we were engaged in these labours, 
Wheeler, with an elaborate outfit, entered the region, pursuing 
his desultory operations; and, drifting along the north side of 
the Grand Canyon for a little distance, he proceeded to the 
neighbourhood of St. George. The following year, for some 
unknown purpose, he crossed the Colorado at the Paria, though 
he knew that Powell’s parties had previously mapped this area. 
When the winter of 1872-73 had fairly set in we established a 
permanent camp at Kanab, where, under Thompson’s always 
efficient direction, our triangulations and topographic notes 
were plotted on paper, making the first preliminary map of 
that country. When this was ready, Hillers and I took it, and 
crossing the southern end of the High Plateaus, then deep with 
snow, we rode by way of the Sevier Valley to Salt Lake, where 
the map was sent on by express to Washington, whither Powell 
had already gone. 
Seventeen years passed away before any one again tried to 
navigate the Colorado. The settling of the country, the 
knowledge of it Powell had published, the completion of the 
Southern Pacific Railway to Yuma in 1877, and of the Atlantic 
342 
