Part of a Rapid.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
The universal dread of the Colorado and its gorges had by this time considerably augmented. The public imagination pictured the roaring flood ploughing its dismal channel through dark subterranean galleries where human life would not be worth a single drop of tossing spray; or leaping at a bound over precipices beside which the seething plunge of Niagara was but a toy. No one could deny these weird tales. No one knew. But Powell was fortified by Science, and he surmised that nowhere would he encounter any obstruction which his ingenuity could not surmount.
I remember one morning, on the second voyage, when we had made an early start and the night-gloom still lingered in the depths of Marble Canyon as we bore down on a particularly narrow place where the river turned a sharp bend to disappear between walls vertical at the water, into a deep-blue haze, it seemed to me that anything might be found there, and looking up from my seat in the bow of our boat into the gallant explorer’s face, I said: “Major, what would you have done on the first trip if just beyond that bend you had come upon a fall like Niagara?” He regarded me a moment with his penetrating gaze, and then answered: “I don’t know.” Perhaps he thought that what we now would find there was enough for the moment.
Captain Mansfield, reporting to the Secretary of War, wrote in his letter of December 10, 1867: “Above Callville for several hundred miles the river is entirely unknown.” He recommended Callville as the starting-place for exploration, and a small steamer for the work, with skiffs and canvass boats for continuing beyond the steam-navigation limit; but Captain Rodgers, who had gone with the steamboat Esmeralda up through Black Canyon, thought the great canyon should be entered above Callville after the fall of water in the spring, and his was more nearly a correct idea. The War Department continued, however, to butt against the wrong end, even after the success of the other way had been demonstrated. Some Mormons, who did not know, reported the two hundred miles above Callville to be better than the one hundred below. The two hundred miles above contain some of the most dangerous portions of the river. Colonel Williamson stated in March, 1868, that he could obtain no information of importance with regard to the “Big” canyon except that contained in Dr. Parry’s account of White’s alleged journey, which journey, as I have pointed out, was a myth.
“If that report be reliable,” he says, “it is evident that in the high or middle stage of the river a strongly built boat can come down the canon with safety. Before reading that report I had an idea that it would be a very dangerous experiment to attempt to go down this canon in a boat of any kind, because I feared there were falls, in going down, in which a boat might be upset or even dashed to pieces. As it is, now I believe there are no falls, and I am inclined to think the best way is to start above and descend.”
During these efforts of the regular army officers to secure information as to the possibility of exploring the great canyons, Powell approached the problem from an entirely different direction, and his quick and accurate perception told him that to go down with the tide was the one and only way. He was not a rich man; and expeditions require funds, but this was no more of a bar to his purpose than the lack of an arm. His father was a Methodist clergyman of good old stock, vigorous of mind and body, clear-sighted, and never daunted. My immediate impression in meeting the father, even in his old age, was of immense mental and moral strength, resolution, and fortitude. These qualities he bequeathed to his children, and it was a fine inheritance. Major Powell, therefore, had his ancestry largely to thank for the intellect and the courage with which he approached this difficult problem.
Funds for the proposed expedition were furnished by the State Institutions of Illinois and the Chicago Academy of Science; none by the general Government, so that this was in no way a Government matter, except that Congress passed a joint-resolution authorising him to draw rations for twelve men from western army posts. Early in the spring of 1869, after returning from the rambles along Green River of the previous winter, Powell went to Chicago and engaged a competent builder to construct four strong boats after his suggestions. Three of these were of oak, twenty-one feet long, and one of light pine, sixteen feet long, the latter intended as an advance boat, to be quickly handled in the face of sudden danger. At the bow and stern of each was a water-tight compartment, in which supplies and instruments could be packed, and they would yet give buoyancy to the boats when they would be filled with water by the breaking waves of the rapids. Amidships the boats were open, and here also goods, guns, etc., were stowed away. Each had a long rope, to use in lowering past the most dangerous places. Unlike all the explorations on the lower course of the river, this expedition would require no lines for towing. These four little craft, which were to be the main reliance of the daring men composing the party, were transported free of charge, together with the men who were from the country east of the mountains, to Green River Station, Wyoming, by the courtesy of the officials of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy, and the Union Pacific railways, who took a deep interest in the proposed descent. The names given to the boats were, for the small one, Emma Dean, the pilot boat (after Mrs. Powell), Kitty Clyde’s Sister, Maid of the Canyon, and No-Name. The members of the party, together with their disposition in the boats at starting, were as follows: John Wesley Powell, John C. Sumner, William H. Dunn—the Emma Dean; Walter H. Powell, G. Y. Bradley—Kitty Clyde’s Sister; O. G. Howland, Seneca Howland, Frank Goodman—the No-Name; William R. Hawkins, Andrew Hall—Maid of the Canyon.