The undertaking was all the more remarkable from the fact that Powell had only one arm. He had lost his right arm in the battle of Shiloh. His plucky young wife, to whom he had been married but a month, was present at headquarters when he was wounded, and promptly offered herself as a substitute for the missing limb so that her husband could continue in service. She then and there enlisted, and General Grant gave her a “perpetual pass” to follow the army in the capacity she had chosen. With this help Major Powell continued in active service to the close of the war.
In his student days Powell had made a specialty of what was then called “natural history.” When the war was over he accepted a professorship of geology in the Illinois Wesleyan University, and later held a similar chair in the Illinois Normal University. In the summer of 1867 he initiated the practice of student field work by taking his class to the mountains of Colorado for geological exploration. It was on this trip that he formed the idea of exploring the cañons of the Colorado River of the West. Having obtained funds from public institutions of Illinois to outfit his little expedition, he started from Green River City, above the head of the Colorado proper, May 24, 1869, on one of the most hazardous adventures in the history of exploration. He emerged from the Grand Cañon on August 29, with five of the nine men he had started with. Four had deserted on the way, and three of these were killed by Indians.
Major Powell’s report on this first exploration of the Colorado River was published by the Smithsonian Institution in 1875. Together with the scientific data appended, it forms a large quarto volume, which is now out of print. The narrative part is here republished without abridgement.
In 1870, Congress established a Topographical and Geological Survey of the Colorado River of the West, and Powell was placed in charge of it. In 1871-1872 he made a second descent of the river, this time for the government. Again he came through unharmed, proving his mastery of a species of navigation so difficult that many who have tried it in later years have perished in those brawling waters.
Much of Powell’s attention was given to American ethnology, and when a Bureau of Ethnology was formed by the government, he was appointed its director. In 1881 he succeeded Clarence King as director of the U. S. Geological Survey. Major Powell died September 23, 1902.
Horace Kephart.
CONTENTS
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| I | The Valley of the Colorado | [15] |
| II | From Green River City to Flaming Gorge | [27] |
| III | From Flaming Gorge to the Gate of Lodore | [39] |
| IV | The Canyon of Lodore | [60] |
| V | From Echo Park to the Mouth of the Uinta River | [83] |
| VI | From the Mouth of the Uinta River to Junction of the Grand and Green | [113] |
| VII | From the Junction of the Grand and Green to the Mouth of the Little Colorado | [142] |
| VIII | The Grand Canyon of the Colorado | [198] |
| IX | The Rio Virgen and the U-In-Ka-Ret Mountains | [258] |
FIRST THROUGH THE
GRAND CANYON