[137] See Coues's edition of Pike's Expeditions, pp. 430, 431.—Ed.
[138] For the South Pass, or "Great Gap," see Wyeth's Oregon, in our volume xxi, p. 58, note 37. Wind River Mountains are noted in Townsend's Narrative in the same volume, p. 184, note 35.—Ed.
[139] Grand River, the eastern tributary of the Colorado, rises in two branches in Middle Park, flows west, and thence on a long, south-westward (not north-west) course nearly three hundred and fifty miles until it unites with the Green, in south-eastern Utah, to form the Colorado.—Ed.
[140] From the place where it leaves Middle Park, to its union with the Gunnison, Grand River is practically a series of cañons. What is locally known as Grand River Cañon is a stretch about sixteen miles in length, above Glenwood Springs, through which runs the Denver and Rio Grande Railway; it is thought by many to surpass in majesty the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas.—Ed.
[141] This should be three hundred miles, not thirty. For the great Cañon of the Colorado, see Pattie's Narrative in our volume xviii, p. 137, note 67, and the references therein cited.—Ed.
[142] There is apparently no other record of this disaster unless it may be an imperfect reminiscence of the explorations of the friar Francisco Garcés, who was murdered (1781) at his mission, not lost on the river. See Elliott Coues, On the Trail of a Spanish Pioneer (New York, 1900).—Ed.
[143] In 1869, Major J. W. Powell found some wreckage in Lodore Cañon, on Green River, which Frederick S. Dellenbaugh, Romance of the Colorado River (New York, 1902), pp. 112, 131, thinks may have belonged to the party of trappers whose adventures are cited by Farnham.—Ed.
[144] It is difficult to know what stream Farnham intends by the "great north fork" of the Grand, which has almost no northern tributaries of any size. Probably the course followed was up Muddy River, a considerable stream rising in the divide between North and Middle Parks and for about forty miles flowing south into the Grand, nearly opposite the mouth of Blue River.—Ed.
[145] This must be some pass in Park range, which here forms the watershed between the Grand and Green systems.—Ed.
[146] North (or New) Park was frequently called by trappers the Bull Pen. It is the source of the North Platte, which rises therein in many branches, uniting near the north or upper end of the park.—Ed.