1876-11-01 Alumni Journal

              THE
+
ALUMNI OURNAL,
OF THE
ILLINOIS WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY.
Vol. VI. NOVEMBER, 1876. No. 11.
SKETCHES BEYOND
MAJOR J. W. POWELL, by his daring
and successful exploration of the Colo-rado
river and its tributaries, has earned
a national reputation. The bold, origi-nal
and hazardous project of descending
the Green river to its junction with the
Grand, where the two unite to form the
Colorado, and then the Colorado, through
its mysterious and before unknown can-ons,
to the head of navigation was thought
to be the fanciful creation of a wild or
maddened brain, or of a no less insane
scientific fanatic. But it remained for
the bold projector to realize the dream
of his ambition and to carry to a suc-cessful
issue, his hazardous enterprise.
To have any just conception of the
magnitude and danger of the undertak-ing,
one must stand on the brink of those
fearful precipices and gaze upon the tur-bulent
waters of the mighty river, re-duced
by distance to a mere thread of
silver light, wending its seemingly quiet
course amidst the dark cavernous recesses
of the vast channel which it has been the
work of ages to carve out.
During the summer of 1872 in company
with the Major, I spent six days on the
Kaibab Plateau, and had the privilege of
gazing into the Grand canon of the Col-
-3 I
THE ROCKY RANGE.
orado. This canon, the deepest on the
continent, probably in the world, is
formed by the Colorado cutting through
the southern end of the plateau. I well
remember the morning set apart for a
visit to its brink. No language can ade-quately
describe the scene which greeted
our eyes. Just beyond the precipice,
4,000 feet below, the scraggy cedars
looked like turf; and far out upon the
valley, cut and rounded into forms of
beauty and grandeur, stood the old red
sandstone buttes like the deserted castles
of some monster race of giants. Wind-ing
along in a varying, tortuous channel
we could trace the gorge through which
the mighty Colorado pours its noisy
flood, while 6,ooo feet below our point
of observation a silvery thread of light,
weaving its graceful curves along this
yawning chasm, marked the water-line of
this restless river.
But, to more fully comprehend the
dangers which beset these bold explorers
in their perilous voyage, one must gain a
nearer view, pass down with circuitous
windings the almost perpendicular ledge
and stand at the river's brink, and listen
to the thunderings of its uneasy waters
as they are lashed into foaming billows