The Great Basin of California is largely an area of inland drainage. The rivers flow into lakes with no outlets to the sea.
Colorado River (Spanish for “red” or “reddish”), is a remarkable river formed by the union of the Grand and Green Rivers, and flowing through the great plateau region. Below the junction of the Green and Grand, the main affluent in Utah is the San Juan, which drains an interesting region in the southwest of Colorado and the northwest of New Mexico. In Arizona the main affluents are the Colorado Chiquito or Flax River, the Bill Williams, and the Rio Gila, all from the left. The only important affluent the Colorado receives from the right is the Rio Virgen. From the junction of the Grand and Green the general course of the stream is to the southwest through the southern part of Utah and northwestern Arizona; and it afterwards separates Arizona from Nevada and California. The lower part of its course is in Mexican territory, where it flows into the northern extremity of the Gulf of California.
The most striking features of the Colorado basin are its dryness, and the deeply channeled surface of the greater part of the country. Almost every stream and watercourse, and most of all the Colorado itself, has cut its way through stratum after stratum of rock, until now it flows in a great part of its course, at the bottom of a deep trench or cañon.
The Grand Cañon.—The main stream, for nearly four hundred miles below the mouth of the Colorado Chiquito, thus makes its way through a great plateau, forming what is called the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, the most extensive and marvelous example of the kind anywhere known.
Throughout the upper part of the great cañon the walls are from four thousand to seven thousand feet in height, and are often nearly perpendicular. Frequently they are terraced and carved into a myriad of pinnacles and towers, tinted with various brilliant colors. At some points the walls on either side rise sheer from the water; at others there is a talus of fallen rock, or occasionally a strip of fertile soil, on one or both banks. There are two main trails by which the bottom of the cañon may be reached. The Bright Angel Trail is seven miles down from the rim to the river and requires three hours for the descent. The Grand View Trail is somewhat longer and more difficult.
This over-drained river basin has an area of two hundred and twenty-five thousand square miles. The whole course of the river below the junction is about nine hundred miles; to its remotest sources it is over two thousand miles. Navigation is possible for light-draft steamers for over six hundred miles. The river is subject to vast and frequent changes of volume, and except where confined by cañon-walls, the river channel shifts to and fro in a very remarkable degree.
Hudson River, one of the most beautiful and important in America, rises in the Adirondack Mountains, four thousand three hundred and twenty-six feet above the level of the sea, where its head-streams are the outlets of many mountain-lakes. At Glens Falls it has a fall of fifty feet, and soon after, taking a southerly course, runs nearly in a straight line to its mouth, at New York City. It is tidal up to Troy, one hundred and fifty-one miles from its mouth, and magnificent steamboats ply daily between New York and Albany.
Below Newburg, sixty miles from New York, the river enters the highlands, which rise abruptly from the water to the height of sixteen hundred feet. Here historical associations add to the interest of varied scenery of singular beauty and grandeur: here was the scene of Arnold’s treason and of André’s fate; and at West Point, the seat of the United States military academy, eight miles below Newburg, are the ruins of Fort Putnam, built during the War of Independence.
Emerging from the highlands the river widens into a broad expanse called Tappan Bay, which is four and one-half miles wide and thirteen miles long. Below, on the right bank, a steep wall of trap rock, called the Palisades, rises from the river’s brink to a height of three hundred to five hundred and ten feet, and extends for nearly twenty miles to the upper portion of the city of New York.
The river from here is known as the North River, and is from one to two miles wide; and after passing between New York and Hoboken and Jersey City, it falls into New York Bay. Its whole length is about three hundred and fifty miles, and its principal tributaries are the Sacondaga, Mohawk, and Walkill.