I am indebted to Mr. Robert Brewster Stanton, who completed the Brown Expedition triumphantly, for valuable information and photographs and for many interesting conversations comparing his experiences with ours; to the Geological Survey for maps and for the privilege of using photographs from negatives in the possession of the Survey; and to Mr. John K. Hillers for making most of the prints used in illustrating this book. My thanks are due to Brigadier-General Mackenzie, U. S. Engineers, for copies of rare early maps of the region embraced in our operations, now nearly impossible to obtain.
In 1902 when I informed Major Powell that I was preparing my history of the Colorado River, he said he hoped that I would put on record the second trip and the men who were members of that expedition, which I accordingly did. He never ceased to take a lively interest in my affairs, and the year before he wrote me: "I always delight in your successes and your prosperity, and I ever cherish the memory of those days when we were on the great river together." Professor Thompson only a month before he died sent me a letter in which he said: "You are heir to all the Colorado material and I am getting what I have together." These sentiments cause me to feel like an authorised and rightful historian of the expedition with which I was so intimately connected, and I sincerely hope that I have performed my task in a way that would meet the approval of my old leader and his colleague, as well as of my other comrades. One learns microscopically the inner nature of his companions on a trip of this kind, and I am happy to avow that a finer set of men could not have been selected for the trying work which they accomplished with unremitting good-nature and devotion, without pecuniary reward. Professor Thompson possessed invaluable qualities for this expedition: rare balance of mind, great cheerfulness, and a sunny way of looking on difficulties and obstacles as if they were mere problems in chess. His foresight and resourcefulness were phenomenal, and no threatening situation found him without some good remedy.
Some of the illustrations in Powell's Report are misleading, and I feel it my duty to specially note three of them. The one opposite page 8 shows boats of the type we used on the second voyage with a middle cabin. The boats of the first expedition had cabins only at the bow and stern. The picture of the wreck at Disaster Falls, opposite page 27, is nothing like the place, and the one opposite page 82 gives boats in impossible positions, steered by rudders. A rudder is useless on such a river. Long steering sweeps were used.
Time's changes have come to pass. You may now go by a luxurious Santa Fé train direct to the south rim of the greatest chasm of the series, the Grand Canyon, and stop there in a beautiful hotel surrounded by every comfort, yet when we were making the first map no railway short of Denver existed and there was but one line across the Rocky Mountains. Perhaps before many more years are gone we will see Mr. Stanton's Denver, Colorado Canyon, and Pacific Railway accomplished through the canyons, and if I then have not "crossed to Killiloo" I will surely claim a free pass over the entire length in defiance of all commerce-regulating laws.
Frederick S. Dellenbaugh.
Cragsmoor,
August, 1908
