St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-05-13
4 FORCED EXPLORATION.
James Whites Trip Through the
Grand Canyon of Colorado
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.
Captain Baker and His BAND Cross the
Plnins-s0me Grow Faint-Mearted-
Fix Draye Men Perish West OF
Canyon Clty-They Reach the
Head Waters of the San Juan.

In 1867 was connected with q party OF
engineers, sent out to survey route from
Albuquerque. New Mexico, along the line Of
the thirty-Hfth parallel to Los Angeles, in
California.
At that time the road that had pushed
farthest west had its terminus at Junction
City, in Kansas, and while the Union Pacific
Railroad was then in process of rapid con-
struction, there were not wanting engineers
who doubted its completion, or the posi-
bility Of running it after it had been COM
pleted. It was believed that the snow in the
Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada ranges
would prove an insurmountable barrier
against the operation Of this road for at least
eight months in the year. In those days it
was thought that, at the most, one road
would be ample to accommodate all the COM
merce and passenger business between the
Atlantic and Pacific coasts for fifty years to
come. Although not twenty-seven years
have elapsed, we have now six transconti-
mental roads, with wonderful network Of
branches, and others are being constructed.
It was the belief that road along the
fortieth parallel would be found to he in
operative that led to the survey along the
thirty fifth parallel, because of the lower lat
itude, and the lower elevations which the
line would traverse.
In October Of the year named, found N.Y.
self at Fort Mojaye pronounced Mohayy), on
the Colorado River, a few hours gallop above
the present crossing point at the Needles.
Here learned from my old friend, "Jim"
Browniow. son of the celebrated "Parson"
Brownlow, who was attached to the Eighth
man named White had just come through
the Grand Canyon Of the Colorado. As this
was an exploit supposed, up to this time, to
be impossible, because of the profound depths
and inaccessible banks of the wonderful
fssure, I doubted the report and determined
to verify it from original sources.
Up to 1867 all our school maps represented
Northern Arizona and Southern Utah and
Nevada as s'unexplored territory" and some
of them, with an attempt at greater accuracy,
added this country to the then mythical
region known as "The Great American
Desert"
While this territory remained SO long I'M
explored by Americans, it is not little
curious to note that about forty years after
the discovery Of America by Columbus, Pedro
de Nisa Coronado and other Spanish adven-
turers had penetrated this desolate region,
prompted thereto by their desire to find Ell
Dorado, that fabulous land Of wealth, which
has led SO many of these cavaliers into
realms that remained unknown for centuries
after their death. Coronado was the first
man to visit the Pueblo Indians, along the
Sierra Madre Mountains and up the Rio
Grande as far as the site of the present city
of Santa Fe. One of Coronado's captains,
under the guidance of Moquai Indian, fol-
lowed up the Colorado Chiquito, or Little
Colorado, to the point where, between preci-
pices six thousand feet In height, it enters
the main river. The descriptions given by
these early explorers to the Captain General
of New Spain, as Mexico was then called, and
to the Government at home, while slightly
exaggerating, give tolerably fair pen pictures
OF the amazing chasms, mesas, banks and
stupendous gorges, through which the great
river flows in a tortuous course for over four
hundred miles.
The gold hunters and trappers, soon after
the discovery Of the precious metal in Cali
fornia, made the world thoroughly familiar
with the Green and Grand rivers and their
tributaries, the united waters of which go to
make up the Colorado proper.
In 1857 the Government sent Lieutenant
Ives, of the Typographical Engineers, to the
mouth of the Colorado River, where he built
small stern-wheel steamer that had been
sent down in sections from San Francisco.
The report of Lieutenant Ives, admirably il
Illustrated, was issued by the War Department,
and even at this late date it has all the thrill
ing interest of a romance. Lieutenant Ives
accurately describes the Yumas, Chimeuavis,
Mojaves and Pluto Indians, whom he met
along the banks of the till then unexplored
river, and their amazement at seeing the
steamboat is not the least interesting part Of
that, admirably written report. Lieutenant
Ives succeeded in passing the shoals and OBJ
structions peculiar to this stream. which is
continually changing its course, and finally
he passed the Black Canyon, and reached the