About two-fifths of its nearly 2,000 miles, reckoning from the sources of the Green, which is the main stream, flows through cañons, the series culminating in magnitude and grandeur in the Grand Cañon of the Colorado in Arizona. In 1875, the Government Printing Office at Washington printed in a finely illustrated quarto volume of 291 pages, under the modest and unpretentious title of "Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries, Explored in 1869, 1870, 1871, and 1872 Under the Direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution," the fascinating and graphic story of one of the most perilous explorations ever undertaken by man, and one whose origin and successful outcome were due to the scientific enthusiasm, the great endurance, the fertility of resources and the dauntless courage of Maj. J. W. Powell. Few men with two arms would have dared to enter upon, or could successfully have completed the task, and he had left his good right arm on a battle-field of our civil war. In 1882, the United States Geological Survey, of which Maj. Powell was then director, printed Vol. II of its Monographs, being the "Tertiary History of the Grand Cañon District, by Capt. C. E. Dutton, U.S.A.," a sumptuous quarto of 264 pages, with maps and splendid illustrations. These two books are, and must ever remain the great authorities on "The River of Cañons," and I shall only write briefly of the route to and scenic splendors of the Grand Cañon. It is accessible from various points along the Santa Fe Railway, but most easily at present by a stage ride of seventy-three miles, at an elevation above the sea varying from 6,866 to nearly 9,000 feet, from Flagstaff, Arizona--a beautifully situated mountain town at the southern base of the San Francisco Peaks, a cluster of volcanic mountains, the loftiest of which rises nearly 13,000 feet above the sea, and some 6,000 feet above Flagstaff. At Flagstaff is the famous Lowell Astronomical Observatory, and about it are many points of much interest, especially Walnut Creek Cañon, with its extensive ruins of the cliff dwellers' houses built midway up the face of the almost vertical cliffs. The first and last thirds of the stage ride to the Cañon are through the great Conconino Forest of long leaved pines--much scattered and with no underbrush--but commonly with splendid grass and unnumbered wild flowers covering all the open spaces between them. The middle third is over a more desert region, but not destitute of grass, and with stunted pines and cedars growing on most of the ridges and hills along the way. For the past two years there has been little rain and the route last July was much more dusty than when I went over it first in 1895, and deemed it one of the most enjoyable stage rides I had ever taken; but rains late in July made it much pleasanter when I returned in August, this year, for a third visit.