TABLES OF GRAND RIVER VALLEY. 
51 
animals, which had been eleven hours in making fourteen miles. One of our wagons had broken 
an axletree in the passage of the first hill in the morning, and did not arrive at camp until late 
in the evening.. On each side of the river to-day, and, as we can see, for some days ahead, the 
banks rise rapidly towards the precipitous sides of the mesas, which extend back from fifteen to 
thirty miles to the mountains. These elevated tables are in classes, each class preserving the 
same level, though on opposite sides of the river, and consisting of the same formations—all of 
them terminated at the top by a capping of greater or less thickness of igneous rocks, overlaid by 
a few feet of soil, on which, occasionally, small groves of trees may be seen. They were formed, 
doubtless, by the upheaval of large plains at the same time; and the immense cracks and 
crevices of those convulsions have been enlarged, in time, by the elements, and now form the 
canones, gorges, ravines, gullies, and passes, which in every direction surround us. While the 
current of the river is rapid, and the descent very considerable, these tables seem to preserve the 
same absolute level, and consequently become more elevated above the river as it descends. 
They are judged to be, to-day, 1,200 feet above it, and not less than 1,500 twenty miles west 
of us. Sage alone flourished along our path. 
Captain Gunnison rode into the canones several times during the day. He says of the first, 
“that it would require blasting one-third of the distance for the construction of a road, and solid 
masonry, with many arches for culverts on the whole line—a stupendous work for an engineer. 
The second is less formidable, the rocks being more friable, and the curves of larger radius, while 
f he cliffs are but 100 feet in height.” The river, at high water, he judged to cover the bottoms 
in places to the depth of six and eight feet; and from a neighboring hill, he esteemed the 
country “ the roughest, most hilly, and most * cut up,’ he had ever seen. Hills with flat tops, 
hills with rounded tops, and hills with knife edges and points, and deep chasms, are on every 
side.” Gray and brown-headed ducks are numerous on the river; the cock of the plains and 
blue grouse are common, and also deer, antelope, and elk. The average descent of the river 
from camp to camp to-day was less than ten feet per mile. 
September 8.—Last night was clear and cold, ice of some thickness forming in our water- 
vessels ; and the thermometer half an hour before sunrise this morning indicated 23° of Fahren¬ 
heit, but the Sensation of cold is much less than at a much higher temperature in a moist climate. 
We were obliged to cross the river twice at this camp to pass around a bluff from a spur of the 
Elk mountains, and to avoid ravines on the south, which enter the river at a gorge a short dis¬ 
tance below. Leroux had gone in advance, leaving a man who had been over the road with him 
the previous day to point it out to us, but he wandered off in search of mountain sheep, and our 
pilots, after crossing a spur, descended to the river again, where we lost much time in searching 
for a ford, the river being narrow and too deep for our wagons; and we were eventually obliged 
to return to the hills, and follow them for a short distance, when we again crossed to the southern 
bank of the river, and proceeded immediately from it towards the base of the high tables on that 
side. We ascended rapidly, having, however, but one sharp ravine to cross, the opposite bank 
of which we ascended only by dint of hard labor, and descending into another ravine, where we 
found a small spring of cool water, encamped, with abundant grass on the hills for our animals, 
having travelled but four miles, our -camp being 346 feet above that of the morning, although 
200 feet below the crest of the ravine. A large smoke ascending from our last camp, from the 
grass taking fire after we left it, a larger counter-smoke was seen during the day directly on our 
route ahead, made doubtless by the Utah Indians, in the heart of whose country we have been 
travelling for several weeks, and whom we expect daily to meet, as we are approaching their 
summer hunting-grounds—the elk, which they follow both north and south in the winter, migrating 
here at this season. Antelope are also abundant, and are taken by the Utahs by building a pen, 
or rather two sides of a triangle, and driving a large district of country, narrowing in until they 
themselves form the third side, when they bag the game; and a whipping betides the unfortu¬ 
nate women , says our guide, if one happens to escape where they are stationed. 
