Not only was their food supply reduced, but the whites also spread strange maladies among the Indians. Measles and smallpox are known to have been fatal in many cases. When Silver Reef, a mining town of 1500 people, was flourishing in the 70’s and 80’s it is known that venereal diseases were spread among the Indians. Fatalities from disease and the diminution of food supplies were undoubtedly heavy factors in the drastic reduction of the Indian population. Of the estimated thousand Parrusits living along the Virgin River in the 50’s and 60’s, there was only one survivor (until his death in June, 1945), an old fellow called Peter Harrison, who lived among the Shivwits Indians on the Santa Clara reservation. Among the neighbors of the Parrusits there remained in 1933 only about seventy-five Kaibabits on a reservation at Moccasin, Arizona, some fifty Shivwits on a reservation on the Santa Clara Creek, fifty miles to the west; and about fifty Com-o-its in the vicinity of Cedar City. The Uinkarets and several smaller groups are today entirely extinct. Asked to account for this tragedy, the old Kaibabits Indian George explained it this way: “When white man come, lotsa Injuns here; alla same white man now. Injuns heap yai-quay [meaning lots of them die]; maybe so six, maybe so five, maybe so two in night. Purty soon all gone. White man, he come: raise’m pompoose. Purty soon lotsa white man.” Early Explorations Zion Canyon was known to the Indians from time immemorial, but its discovery by white men, so far as is known, dates only from the middle of the 19th century. However, the series of explorations in this region which finally led to its discovery cover the period of three quarters of a century beginning in 1776. In that year a party of Spaniards passed through the region and crossed the Virgin River within twenty miles of Zion Canyon without knowing of its proximity. This was the remarkable expedition led by Fathers Dominguez and Escalante through portions of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona. The object of the expedition was two-fold. The Spanish government desired a direct route from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the Presidio of Monterey, California, and the priests themselves had dreams of founding new Indian missions in the unexplored territory beyond the Colorado River. The governor of New Mexico furnished provisions, Father Dominguez provided the horses and mules and Father Silvestre Velez de Escalante was the diarist of the party.[7] The expedition set out July 29, 1776 from Santa Fe, passing through explored territory as far as the Gunnison river in southwestern Colorado, whence it struck out into the unknown. The priests were fortunate in finding a couple of young Ute Indians from Utah Lake, who acted as guides and who led them safely across the Colorado (Grand) and Green Rivers up the Duchesne to its headwaters and across the Wasatch Range to their home on Utah Lake.