The Coconino sun., 1916-01-07

Colorado. His incidental exploration of two small canyons of the Grand River kindled the purpose which shaped his after career, namely, to explore the canyons of the Grand and Green Rivers and of the then mysteri- ous Colorado River which their union forms.
 The following summer he organized his expedition, proceeded down the Grand River and across the mountains to the White River, where from his winter camp he made extensive stud ies of the rivers and their canyons, and perfected plans for his dangerous passage of the unknown Colorado.
 His great adventure, the passage of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, was made in the summer of 1869. Un- til then it was unknown. "Yet enough had been seen to foment rumor," he wrote in his report to the Smithsonian Institution, land many wonderful stories have been told in the hunters cabin and prospector's camp. Stories were related of parties entering the gorge in boats and being carried down with fearful velocity into whirl- pools, where all were overwhelmed in the abyss of waters; others, of under ground passages for the great river, into which boats had passed never to be seen again. It was currently be- lieved that the river was lost under the rocks for several hundred miles. There were other accounts of great falls, whose roaring music could be heard on the distant mountain sum- mits."
 Into the Great Unknown
 The start into the Great Un- known" was made on August 13. The party, consisting of 10 men in four boats, had been afioat since their start from Green River City on May 24. Two of the boats were decked, form ing water-tight compartments.
 Now, after three months of labori- ous battle with rapids and waterfalls and the still more laborious explora- tion of innumerable side canyons, they had reached, with scant provisions, the supreme test of strength and courage,
 What falls there are," says his diary, "we know not; what rocks be- set the channel, we know not; what walls rise on the river, we know not. An, well, we may conjecture many things. The men talk as cheerfully as ever; jests are banded about freely this morning; but to me the cheer is somber and the jests are ghastly."
 The following day comes the first of many tests. The diary goes on.
 First Many Upsets
 About II o'clock we hear great roar ahead, and approach it very eau tiously. The sound grows louder and louder as we run, and at last we find above a long, broken fall, with ledges and pinnacles of rock ob- structing the river. There is a descent of perhaps 75 to so feet in third of a mile, and the rushing waters break into great waves on the rocks, and ash themselves into a mad, white foam. We can land just above, but .here is no foothold on either side by which we can make portage.
 "It is nearly a thousand feet to the ,op of the granite, so it will be inn to carry our boats around, ,hough we can climb to the summit up ! side gulch, and, passing along a mile | ,r two, can descend to the river. This We find on examination; but such a portage would be impracticable for us, md we must run the rapid or abandon he river. There is no hesitation. | We step into our boats, push off, and way we go, first on smooth but swift | water, then we strike glassy wave, md ride to its top, down again into he through, up again on a. higher wave, and down and up on waves higher and still higher, until we strike me just as it curls back, and break 1T rolls over our little boat.
 "Still, on we speed, shooting past projecting rocks, till the litle boat is aught in whirlpool and spun around everal times. At last we pull out | gain into the stream.
 Hurried back from a rock, now on his side, now on that, we are carried nto an eddy, in which we struggle for ] few minutes, and are then out again, he breakers still rolling over us."
 How Bright Angel was Named
 The many thousands who have de-
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