Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v3.djvu/176

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Travellers and Explorers, 1846-1900
158

required topographical and geological data, prevented by disaster and lack of trained men on the first voyage. The account of the first voyage is given in Powell's Exploration of the Colorado River of the West (1875), a report to the government. He did not include a narrative of the second descent, which is related in A Canyon Voyage (1908) by Frederick S. Dellenbaugh, a member of the party. The same author's The Romance of the Colorado River (1902) tells the history of this unique river from the Spanish discovery in 1540, and gives a table of altitudes along the river. A recent experience (1911) in navigating the river which has been chronicled by Ellsworth Kolb in Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico (1914) furnishes valuable data.

In 1889 Frank M. Brown attempted a railway survey through the canyons from Gunnison Crossing down. He was drowned in Marble Canyon, as were two of his men. His engineer, Robert B. Stanton, returned to the task the same year with better boats and successfully completed the descent. He relates what befell him and his men in an article in Scribner's Magazine for November, 1890, "Through the Grand Canyon of the Colorado," and there are other magazine articles on the subject.

It is interesting to note that the first proper maps of the United States were made of Far Western territory, and this was due to the initiative of several energetic explorers. Clarence King inaugurated a geological survey with map work in conjunction with it, the results appearing in seven volumes, Report of the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel 1870-80. King wrote a charming volume, too, Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada (1871), and later that literary gem in The Century Magazine (1886), "The Helmet of Mambrino," the "helmet" and the original manuscript being preserved in the library of the Century Association.

Powell's Colorado River Exploring Expedition developed into the Rocky Mountain Survey, and Dr. F. V. Hayden conducted a series of surveys in Colorado, etc., called the Geographical and Geological Survey of the Territories. At the same time the army put into the Western field Lieut. George M. Wheeler, who conducted Geographical Surveys West of the l00th Meridian. Wheeler, in 1871, ascended the Colorado