Through these thousand miles of cañon, more than one fifth of which is the Grand Cañon, the river has a fall of about five thousand feet, unevenly divided. There are long stretches of quiet water, but in the Lodore, Cataract, Marble, and Grand Cañons are numerous and turbulent currents flowing amid masses of wild, rocky débris. There are about five hundred bad rapids and many others of lesser power. Most of these rapids are caused by rock-jams—dams formed by masses of rocky débris that have fallen from the walls above or have been swept into the main cañon by tributary streams. A few rapids are caused by ribs of hard, resistant rock that have not been worn down to the level of the softer rock.
The cañon was discovered by Spaniards in 1540. A government expedition visited it in 1859. The report of this expedition, printed in 1861, is accompanied with a picture of an ideal cañon. It is shown as narrow, with appallingly high vertical walls. Lieutenant Ives, who was in charge, thus closes his account:—
Ours has been the first and will doubtless be the last party of Whites to visit this profitless location. It seems intended by Nature that the Colorado River, along the greater portion of its lonely and majestic way, shall be forever unvisited and undisturbed.
Ten years later Major John W. Powell explored the series of cañons from end to end. Hundreds of expeditions that have attempted to go through them have failed. Of the half-dozen that succeeded, one was organized and conducted by Julius F. Stone, a manufacturer of Columbus, Ohio.
"Why," I asked Mr. Stone, "did you take the hazard and endure the acute hardship of this expedition?" His reply was:—
To photograph consecutively the entire cañon system of the Green and Colorado Rivers, which, so far as the upper cañons are concerned, had not yet been done. We also wished to determine the accuracy of some statements heretofore made which seemed reasonably open to question.
Mr. Stone went all the way through the cañon, took hundreds of photographs, and made numerous measurements. He made a thorough study of this cañon, added greatly to our knowledge of it, and corrected a number of misconceptions concerning it.
But [continued Mr. Stone] it was also to get away from work! For the fun of the thing! Year after year the voice of many waters had said: "Come join us in our joyous, boisterous journey to the sea, and you shall know the ecstasy of wrestling with Nature naked-handed and in the open, as befits the measure of a man." It takes on many forms and numberless variations, this thing called play. Its appealing voices come from far and near, in waking and in dreams; from quiet, peaceful places they allure with the assurance of longed-for rest; from the deeps of unfrequented regions they whisper of eager day- and night-time hours brimming with the fullness of heart's desire, while bugle-throated, their challenge sounds forever from every unsealed height.
I presume it is quite true that the chance of disaster (provided we consider death as being such) followed us like the eyes of the forest that note every move of the intruder but never reveal themselves. But somehow or other the snarling threat of the rapids did not creep into the little red hut where fear lives, and so burden our task with irresolution or the handicap of indecision; therefore, whatever dangers may have danced invisible attendance on our daily toil, they rarely revealed themselves in the form of accident, and never in the shape of difficulties too great to be overcome, though sometimes the margin was rather small.
Looking back now at the chance of our having been caught, a shade of hesitation flits over the abiding desire to see it all again, but the free, buoyant life of the open, unvexed by the sedate and superfluous trifles of conventionality, the spirit of fair companionship vouchsafed by the wilderness, and the river that seemed to take us by the hand and lead us down its gorgeous aisles where grandeur, glory, and desolation are all merged into one—these still are as a voice and a vision that hold the imagination with singular enchantment.