In such a bay Major Powell landed one day, and, seeing one of the rear boats making for the shore after he had given his signal, he supposed the others would follow her example, and walked along the side of the canon-wall to look for the fall of which a loud roar gave some premonition. But a treacherous eddy carried the boat manned by the two Howlands and Goodman into the current, and a moment later she disappeared over the unseen falls. The first fall was not great--not more than ten or twelve feet--but below the river sweeps down forty or fifty feet through a channel filled with spiked rocks which break it into whirlpools and frothy crests. Major Powell scrambled around a crag just in time to see the boat strike one of these rocks, and, rebounding from the shock, careen and fill the open compartment with water. The oars were dashed out of the hands of two of the crew as she swung around and was carried down the stream with great velocity, and immediately after she struck another rock amidships, which broke her in two and threw the men into the water. The larger part of the wreck floated buoyantly, and seizing it the men supported themselves by it until a few hundred feet farther down they came to a second fall, filled with huge boulders, upon which the wreck was dashed to pieces, and the men and the fragments were again carried out of Major Powell's sight. He struggled along the scant foothold afforded by the canon-wall, and coming suddenly to a bend saw one of the men in a whirlpool below a large rock, to which he was clinging with all possible tenacity. It was Goodman, and a little farther on was Howland tossed upon a small island, with his brother stranded upon a rock some distance below. Howland struck out for Goodman with a pole, by means of which he relieved him from his precarious position, and very soon the wrecked crew stood together, bruised, shaken and scared, but not disabled. A swift, dangerous river was on each side of them and a fall below them. It was now a problem how to release them from this imprisonment. Sumner volunteered, and in one of the other boats started out from above the island, and with skilful paddling landed upon it. Together with the three shipwrecked men he then pushed up stream until all stood up to their necks in water, when one of them braced himself against a rock and held the boat while the three others jumped into her: the man on the rock followed, and all four then pulled vigorously for the shore, which they reached in safety. Many years before an adventurous trapper and his party had been wrecked here and several lives had been lost. Major Powell named the spot Disaster Falls.