Bisbee daily review., 1909-03-16
COLORADO
 PLAYS INTO
 DEATHS HAND
Many Lives Have Been Sacri- feed In Exploring the Grand Canyon Since the Powell Expedition.

NEW YORK. March 13.-Every year the river and the Grand Canyon of the Colorado take their toll Tn human life. recently said Frederick s. De lenbaugh. the artist-author, who has rainted pictures and written books about that wonderful river that rushes for hundreds of miles through gorges hundreds of feet deep.
 When I was with Major Powell on <his exploring expedition through the Grand Canyon. forty years ago, we lost several men, and the few other expeditions that have followed onrs since then have all had to pay the river lis price in the same way" he continued. "Powell's party was the first journey white men ever made down through that portion of the Col orado river. and almost every day of the many months il took was full of aanger. Ever year some lives are ost there. There would be more, .nly so few people who venture into nat dangerous part of the Grand Can yon. No one knows v.Nst the total dessrt spaces through which the riv- CT runs a man may disappear in many ways and his body or bones may not
 
 ago a skeleton of a man was discoy- cred in Marble Canyon, lying on a rocky shelf little above the whirling waters of the river. newspaper dated in 1900 was in the pocket Of his coat SO that it Is likely the man per ished eight years ago at least. Wheth- CT he was Killed whie trying to scale the ins1rmouutable walls. or whether he died of starvation. no one knows.
 That Tart of the Colorado river never gives up it's dead Those who fall into the waters clutches literally are dashed tO pieces and no trace ot them is every found. The srream runs with such exceeding swiftness and turbulance in so many places that nothing less fragile than giant bOuld- CT can long exist.
 There are four so-cal'ed lords of the Colorado in the Grand Canyon. 'El Vaiie de los Padres. which is known as the Fathers Crossing, Tanby Crossing, Lee Ferry and Stones Ferry The last two are about 800 miles apart, and there is no way of crossing in between except by boat in some stretch of comraratively smooth water-oT by 1y'ng. The walls of the canyon rise vertically for many hundreds of feet and the places where it is possible to reach the river are few and far between. Even these lords of the Colorado are daD7erols the water runs so fast and the footing is 30 insecure
 "The Whirlpool Rapids of tue Mia Para river below the rals are terri ble to contemplate. but it can be said without exaggeration that the Niagara rapids are peaceable when compared to some on the Colorado. The whirL pools on the Colorado are of the true type-the water swirls round and round and there is a broad, hollow funnelsFaped hole in the center oi them through which one might peer down a good many feet if he could hover over it. After the river emerges from the Grand Canyon it flows over q flat country into the Gulf of Cali fornia. Even there it is a treacherous stream, full of sandbars and quick sands, and almost as dangerous to cross as in the rapids above,
 Not all the Canyons toll, however is collected by the river. No one knows what immeasurable mineral wealth Is hidden in the canyon walls and every year venturesome prospec. tors go into those gloomy depths seeking the treasures tf at they guard These men through some sudden rise Of water. or for some other reason frequently lose their lives in trying to escape from the canyon. Most oi them, l fancy, go mad with hunger and die in trying to scale the pre- cfpieces. It's the most awesome place in the wor,d-down there where the river fows-where it never is fully daylight except for Q brief few min ! utes at midday. with the roaring wa ter on one hand and the giant ciins towering thousands of feet above