whose quiet surface reflects towering cliffs and crags of granite on its eastern shore, and stately pines and firs on its western margin.

Green River heads near Fremont's Peak in the Wind River Mountains. 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 embosomed among the crags of the Rocky Mountains. These streams, born in the gloomy solitudes of the upper mountain region, have a strange and 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 muddy floods into the Gulf of California.

Green River is larger than the Grand, and is the proper continuation 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, larger than all of New England and the Middle States, with Maryland and Virginia added. . . .

an area

Very little water falls within the basin, but, all winter long, snows fall on its mountain-crested rim, filling the gorges, half burying the forests,

and covering the crags and peaks with a mantle woven by the winds from the waves of the sea. When the summer sun comes, these snows melt and tumble down the mountain-sides in millions of cascades. Ten million cascade brooks unite to form ten thousand torrent creeks; ten thousand torrent creeks unite to form a hundred rivers beset with cataracts; a hundred roaring rivers unite to form the Colorado, which rolls a mad, turbid stream into the Gulf of California.

II.

Consider the action of one of these streams, its source in the mountains where the snows fall, its course through the arid plains. Now, if at the river's flood storms were falling on the plains, the channel of the stream would be cut but little faster than the adjacent country would be washed, and the general level would thus be preserved; but, under the conditions here mentioned, the river deepens its bed, as there is much erosion, and but little lateral degradation. So all of these streams cut deeper and still deeper year by year, until their banks are towering cliffs of solid rock. These deep, narrow gorges are called cañons. For more than a thousand miles along its course the Colorado has cut for itself such cañons. The Rio Virgen, Kanab, Paria, Escalante, Fremont, San Rafael, Price, and Uinta, on the west; the Grand, Yampa,

San Juan, and Little Colorado on the east have also cut for themselves such narrow, winding gorges or deep cañons. Every river entering these has cut another cañon; every lateral creek has cut a cañon; every brook runs in a cañon; every rill born of a shower, and born again of a shower, and living only during these showers, has cut for itself a cañon; so that the whole upper portion of the basin of the Colorado is traversed by a labyrinth of these deep gorges.

III.

On the 30th of May we started down the mysterious cañons, with some anxiety. The old mountaineers had told us it could not be run; we had heard the Indians say: "Water heap catch 'em!" But all were eager for the trial. Entering Flaming Gorge, we quickly ran through it on a swift current, and emerged into a little park. Half a mile below, the river wheeled sharply to the left, and we turned into another cañon cut into the mountain. We entered the narrow passage; on either side the walls rapidly increased in altitude; on the left were overhanging ledges and cliffs five hundred, a thousand, fifteen hundred feet high; on the right the rocks were broken and ragged; the water filled the channel from cliff to cliff. Then the river turned abruptly around a point to the right, and the water plunged swiftly down among

the great rocks. And here we had our first experience with cañon rapids. I stood up on the deck of my boat to seek a way between the wave-beaten rocks. All untried as we were with such waters, the moments were filled with intense anxiety. Soon our boats reached the swift current; a stroke or two, now on this side, now on that, and we threaded the narrow passage with exhilarating velocity, mounting the high waves whose foaming crests dashed over us, and plunging into the troughs until we reached the quiet water below. And then came a feeling of great relief; our first rapid was Another mile, and we came out into the val

run.

ley again.

Soon we left the valley and entered another short cañon, very narrow at first, but widening below as the walls increased in altitude. The river was broad, deep, and quiet, and its waters mirrored towering rocks. Kingfishers were playing about the stream, so we named it "Kingfisher Cañon."

At the foot of this cañon the river turns to the east, past a point which is rounded to the shape of a dome; on its sides little cells have been carved by the action of the water. In these pits, which cover the face of the dome, hundreds of swallows had built their nests; and as they flitted about the rock they looked like swarms of bees, giving to the whole the appearance of a colossal bee-hive,

of the old-time form; so we named it "Bee-Hive Point."

One evening when we camped near this point, I went out into a vast amphitheatre, rising in a succession of terraces to a height of eighteen hundred or two thousand feet. Each step of this amphitheatre is built of red sandstone, with a face of naked, red rock and glacis clothed with verdure; so that the amphitheatre is surrounded by bands of red and green. The evening sun lighted up the rocks and the cedars, and its many-colored beams danced on the waves of the river. The landscape revelled in sunshine.

Below Bee-Hive Point we came to dangerous rapids, where we toiled along for some days, making portages or letting our boats down the stream with lines.

IV.

Now and then we had an exciting ride; the river rolled down at a wonderful rate, so that where there were no rocks in the way, we made almost railroad speed. Here and there the water rushed into a narrow gorge, the rocks on the sides rolled it into the centre in great waves, and the boats went bounding over these like things of life. Sometimes the waves would break and their waters roll over the boats, which made much bailing necessary, and obliged us to stop occasionally for that purpose. At one time we