The Romance of the Colorado River : $b The Story of its Discovery in 1840, with an Account of the Later Explorations, and with Special Reference to the Voyages of Powell through the Line of the Great CanyonsDellenbaugh, Frederick Samuel
History
The Romance of the Colorado River : $b The Story of its Discovery in 1840, with an Account of the Later Explorations, and with Special Reference to the Voyages of Powell through the Line of the Great Canyons
Dellenbaugh, Frederick Samuel
Colorado River (Colo.-Mexico) -- Description and travel; Colorado River (Colo.-Mexico) -- Discovery and exploration; Colorado River Valley (Colo.-Mexico) -- Description and travel; Colorado River Valley (Colo.-Mexico) -- Discovery and exploration; Grand Canyon (Ariz.) -- Description and travel; Gran
lower stretches, from Mohave down, the thermometer in summer stands
around 112 degrees F. a great deal of the time, and reaches 118 degrees
F. Yet Dr. Coues said he felt it no more than he did the summer heat of
New York or Washington.[8] In winter the temperature at the bottom of
the Grand Canyon is very mild, and flowers bloom most of the time. One
November I descended from the snow-covered top of the Kaibab to the
Grand Canyon at the mouth of the Kanab, where I was able to bathe in
the open air with entire comfort.
[8] I was at the Needles one summer for a brief time, and the air
seemed very oppressive to me.
Gray’s Peak, 14,341 feet. Torrey’s Peak, 14,336 feet. Gray’s Peak,
14,341 feet. Torrey’s Peak, 14,336 feet.
Tip-top of the Continental Divide whence the Colorado derives flood
waters.
Photograph by U.S. Geol. Survey.
Balanced Rock. Balanced Rock.
On Trail from House Rock Valley to Lee’s Ferry.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN.
Outline Sketch of the Grand Canyon from Point Sublime. Outline Sketch
of the Grand Canyon from Point Sublime.
Drawn by W.H. HOLMES.
There are six chief topographical features, canyons, cliffs, valleys,
mesa plateaus, high plateaus, mountains. There are two grand divisions:
the lowland or desert, below the Virgen, and the plateau, but the
topography of the immediate river course separates itself into four
parts, the Green River Valley, the canyon, the valley-canyon, and the
alluvial. The canyon part is the longest, occupying about two-thirds of
the whole, or about 1200 miles. It is cut mainly through the plateaus.
The last of these southward is the Colorado, a vast upheaval reaching
from the lower end of the Grand Canyon south-east to about where the
34th parallel crosses the western line of New Mexico. Lieutenant
Wheeler several times claims the honour of naming it (1868-71), but the
name occurs on Lieutenant Ives’s map of 1858. This plateau breaks
sharply along its south-west line to the lowland district, and on its
north-westerly edge slopes to the Little Colorado. It bears a noble
pine forest, and from its summit rise to over 12,000 feet the volcanic
peaks of the San Francisco Mountains. Its northern edge is the Grand
Canyon, which separates it from its kindred on the other side. These
and the Colorado Plateau rise to from 6000 to 8000 feet above
sea-level, and it is through this huge mass that the river has ground
out the Grand Canyon, by corrading its bed down tremendously, the
bottom at the end being only 840 feet above the sea, whereas the start
at the mouth of the Little Colorado is 2690. Yet here it is already
3500 feet below the surface at the end of Marble Canyon, which,
separated only by the deep canyon of the Little Colorado, is
practically a northward continuation of the Grand Canyon itself. As the
river runs, the Grand Canyon is 217½ miles long. To this may be added
the 65½ miles of Marble, giving a continuous chasm of 283 miles, the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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