Arizona weekly miner., 1877-04-20
iRoUGH THE GRAND CANYON ON A
 RAFT.

Is, n Arizona ss guide, interpreter, pros. ctor, etc, has been giving the San Fran sco Call game" His first disclosures M that paper related to his acquaintance fuol luith John D. Lee, and the part the Nor pns played in the Mountain Meadows k,,. assacre. And in the issue of April 9th, L"YUe find him representing himself as tine fsal of steamboat Adams" in exploring
 he Colorado river. Some old Arizonans cethereabout are illnatured enough to believe |H1 1hat the Captain dreamed this narritive in E s.u Ean Francisco.
 |I Capt. Moss Adventure.
 It was iu the Summer of 1861 said Cap |ct0r tim Moss 10 his listencrl, no one with me bt on the raft, but three or four soldiers
 % %stDd couple of Indians with me when the D ,uft was built. IL was purely an exploring Expedition. My object was to locate the Frssmputh of the Litt.e Colorado (Chiquitol, la. which has its rise in Arizona, and il hap pencd m thiS way: l was at Fort MOhave E guide ia the Government troops, aud an old mOuHtaineer called Weaver who had been trapping on the Colorado for thirty years. had said he had seen the mouth of Ia k athe Little Colorado; had, in fact, ascen ed rom Fort Mohavc to the point at which the U ttream empties into the big Colorado I doubted his informatoD; in fact knew Shat he could not have gone upstream so Es f4r. Steamboat Adams, in d lecture. said of | fbc Colorado, that it had fall of loo Fe- feet tn thc mile for thousand miles, which |- would make pretty tall fall of 100000 3eet; but whatever may be deducted from ' this imaginative estimate, the Colorado has avery rapid run through the canyons. say rom live to six miles an hour, and has many t0ngcrous places, where 1t swirlS round Eandiy with boiling force. Anyhow, doubted Weaver, and. to satisfy myself and fs the officers of the Fort, volunteered to |.. raft II from the entrance to the Great Canyon to fort Mohave, provided two In- ky Italians would accompany me. Lieut.. Ri- ley, three soldiers and the Indians set out vlth me We struck across the country to d the northeast by way of San Francisco 1 |,. Mountain To q point now known as Lees ! ferry-the J. D. Lee who was shot the other i
 day. He had a ranch at that placea which | bls wife Anna lived. IL is in Iavapai cuun- ! Ia tS. then in New Mexico but now in Arizona ] sEelow tins the river enters the Grand Gam l |s- yen and receives the Colorado Chiquito on i tbe left bank; lower down it receives on the bs fight bank the Virgin river, and then it en-
 terS the Big Canyon, and turns eastward and zscntlwIrd into the Black Canyon. below |'1 which is Fort Mohave. The Grand Canyon | |-is really Seri of deep channels with | &<sare intersections or cracks in a great ! |-1mc>a. The walls of the canyons rise Der l. 1endiculdriv to a height of rom 5O0 to ! | 3O0J feet, and adown the base of the narrow l cAannei thc cpmpre>s,1 river flows in q su- l !. len roar, and except al high noon there is {
 ever in the depth, of the chasm an even ! Twilight gloom that k scarcely alternatcd l |t by the biackncSs of night. You peer up | rhroagh the rift and trace line of blue sky. ! with here and there patch of sunshine on | |r prolecting points near the summit: no veg ] etation to relieve the prevailing gray of ;he 1 grim limestone cleavage; ro twittcr or ch;rp | of life could be seen or heard. 70 suggest ! that all Is not the desoation of death, the ! strife of unquickened nature. IL may he | ellled one canyon from Lees Ferry to the biS bend, where the river turns southward, er te the northward of ihe Eldnrado Canyon. Fort Mohave Is sixty-tive miles lower down, snd you may call the distance 400 mics. + THE RIDE oS THE RAFT.
 How the canyons were formed I am not ln tine position to pass an opinion. The up- E Der portion Is limestone, with here and there E Sandstone metamorphosed; the lower DOT thon. Black Canyon, Is volcanic and il seems fo me impossible, that the river could not l'ave eroded Us passage to the depth at which 1i now flows. The walls. instead of being farther divergent at the top of the mesa are Father convergent, and incline to the view that the whole Assure is the result of subter- raneau force. Some eroding has uudoubt- |-ediy by the stream and the deep pools filled np; the average depth of the river will not Exceed thirty or forty feet, and the width is