ft. above the surface of the water. Upon the generally treeless plateaus divided by these rivers rise other terraces, with nearly perpendicular walls 1,000 ft. or more in height. Both the loftier and lower plateaus are covered with massive ruins of once populous walled towns and cities, which are supposed to have been occupied by the Toltecs, the predecessors of the Aztecs. The Moqui Indians in N. E. Arizona, near the Colorado Chiquito, are supposed to be descendants of this race. The Green river first enters the Uintah mountains in the extreme N. W. corner of Colorado, at a point called Flaming Gorge, just below which the walls of the cañon are nearly 1,500 ft. high. The stream is swift, the descent being in places 20 ft. to the mile. Rapids and cataracts, some of them of great height, are frequent. Above the junction of the Grand there is generally on the one side or the other a narrow strip of land forming the valley of the river. The extent of these cañons is over 500 m. The largest and most noted of them, the Grand cañon, extends down the river, from the mouth of the Little Colorado, a distance of more than 200 m. The height of the walls varies from 4,000 to 7,000 ft. The channel is from 50 to 300 ft. in width, and the descent of the stream from 5 to 200 ft. to the mile. “The banks of the river,” says Major Powell, “are cliffs of solid rock, often vertical for hundreds or thousands of feet; but in places these cliffs or walls of the cañon are broken down in steep slopes, and in other places they are terraced on a grand scale, the glacis often being from a half mile to a mile in width, and the step to a higher terrace several hundred feet. There is no proper flood plain along the river through this cañon, but usually rocks have fallen down from the walls on one or both sides, so as to form a talus, varying from 25 to 300 ft. in height. But in other places there is no talus, the river filling the channel from wall to wall. Numerous streams come down from the high plateaus on either side, each having its own winding cañon, and these have tributary cañons, making the topography adjacent to the river exceedingly intricate.” In the valley of the Colorado below the cañons is found a large extent of fertile bottom land, easily cultivated by artificial irrigation. This valley varies in width from 3 to 8 m. The greater part of it is covered with timber, chiefly cottonwood and mezquite. Just below Callville is the Black cañon, about 25 m. long, with walls in places from 1,000 to 1,500 ft. high, which is the only cañon below the Grand cañon. After receiving the Gila, the Colorado takes a sudden turn westward, forcing its way through a chain of rocky hills, 70 ft. high and about 350 yards in length. In this passage it is about 600 ft. wide, but soon expands to 1,200 ft., which it retains. After sweeping round 7 or 8 m., it resumes its S. direction, and pursues a very tortuous course of nearly 180 m. to its mouth. The bottom lands are here from 4 to 5 m. wide, and covered with a thick forest.—The length of the Colorado, from the sources of Green river, is about 2,000 m. It is navigable for steamers to Callville, 612 m.; and it is thought that navigation may be carried to the foot of Grand cañon, 57 m. above. Arnold's point, 35 m. from the mouth, is the head of navigation at low water (winter) for vessels drawing 9 ft. To the head of tide water, 40 m., navigation is difficult and dangerous, from the rapid rise of the tide and the shifting of the channel. Above this point the current, obstructed by small snags and sawyers, runs from 1 to 3 m. an hour (in freshets from 2 to 6 m.) through a narrow channel. The rise of ordinary spring tides is 12 ft. In freshets the river rises at Arnold's point 15 ft. above low water, and in seasons of unusual height it flows back over the California desert, filling up several basins, and what is known as New river, in Lower California. This water remains one or two years, when it is swallowed up by the sands, or evaporated by the hot sun. At the mouth of the river a good harbor was discovered in 1864. It consists in fact of a second mouth of the Colorado, which branches off some 80 m. up, and empties in such a way as to afford secure shelter from the terrible “borers” of the gulf. It is from 50 to 80 yards broad, and with perpendicular banks of hard clay some 25 ft. high at low tide. At high tide the banks overflow a few inches, but the anchorage remains good. About 6 m. up there is an abrupt fall extending across the stream, some 4 or 5 ft. high at low water, but disappearing at high tide. The depth of water in this singular harbor at low tide is from 15 to 25 ft. This harbor is now used almost exclusively by the vessels in the Colorado trade. Their cargoes are here transferred to the small river boats and barges, and they here receive their outward-bound freights.—In 1540 Fernando Alarcon, in a voyage to explore the gulf of California, by order of the viceroy of Spain, discovered the mouth of the Colorado, which he describes as “a very mighty river, which ran with so great a fury of stream, that we could hardly sail against it.” He fitted out two boats with which he sailed up the river. Father Kino, about the year 1700, also sailed up to the confluence with the Gila, where he established a mission. Lieut. Ives explored the Colorado below the cañons in a steamer in 1857. The first descent through the cañons was made in 1867 by James White, from a point on Grand river about 30 m. above its junction with the Green. White, Capt. Baker, an old miner and an ex-officer of the confederacy, and Henry Strole were prospecting for gold in the W. portion of Colorado. Having met with ill success, and having lost Capt. Baker during an attack by Indians in a lateral cañon of the Grand, which they had descended for water, White and Strole determined to attempt an escape by the river rather than retrace their steps through a country beset by Indians. They constructed a frail raft of a
