The Carbon County news., 1926-08-19

taken on new and startling
| interest. -.
A few years ago, when 1t was as
inaccessible as the North Pole, John
Wesley Powell won fame by making
the first trip through 1t. A little later
another adventurer conceived opening
trail from the canyons rim down to |
the river. mile below. It seemed
grotesque, but the impossible was &C.
complished, and its accomplishment
has made the canyons innermost won
ders accessible to thousands OF tour
lists each year. They come from all
quarters Of the world every season in
greater numbers to traverse the
Bright Angel Trail That trail is
truly monument TO the daring and
devotion Of its builder He worked
at it for ten years, almost without help
or financial backing, at one period .
spending almost half year alone in ,
the vast gorge. But today Ralnh ;
Cameron, builder OF the Bright Angel :
Trail, occupying a seat in the United :
States Senate voted to him by the !
people OF Arizona, has his reward. :
Greatest Artificial Lake t
But the conquest OF the canyon had :
hardly been realized when the eng- b
neers discovered a new use for it. At 8
Boulder Canyon, Arizona, the greatest n
dam in the world, a third of a mile
high, should impound a lake which, :,
spreading over great area in Arizona "
and Utah, would be, next to Lake II
Michigan, the largest fresh water body >.
entirely within the United States. ~
darnessed to mighty turbines, the wa III
er, falling hundreds OF feet, would ~
'roduce power greater than Niagara,
md irrigate an area several times that IN
# the Nile Basin, which served for On
mounted centuries as granary of the s5
.ncient world. Asi a.
The Boulder Canyon dam has not of
et been built, but the people of the ma
outhWest are as confident OF it's con- th
truction as that the Colorado will ms
ontinue to flow between its giant w
rails. du
Now comes new chapter in the da
or the Colorado. The in me
'epid "wildcatters" of the oil indus as
y, scouting for new sources of petro-
um, have brought in an oil we'll right
the canyon! Drilling from a mar I
w shelf at the gorge's bottom, they moi
I've overcome unbelievable obstacles. los
walls OF rock grimly for III
de construction of road or trail 70 ST.
ansport machinery and supplies. wei
ON the river succession of roo1v scie
Ills rise In gargantuan terraces to a enc
light of 5000 feet dou
of ,
The "Great American Desert" T
The little Mormon town of Moab. on.
,hteen miles upstream, is the near W W
supply base. But Moab is not a Ao'o .,
lroad town; drive of forty miles is .,ii :,
IL required to reach the Denver & .no
Grande railroad. Salt Lake City oen
200 miles away, to the northwest. 90
at the foot of the derrick W., WI
1ch marks the site of the new oil 'Ae'
II, ones back is fairly against an Wal
foot cliff, which is matched by an 49,. 49,
Ter Immediately across the river. .nis
oking up, one imagines that II he M piol
I'D climb one OF these walls he .aAe
uld be outside" But, trying this. iioi,
finds himself on plateau or ter pioo
e, with another cliff a. littleo way
sad. To climb this, in turn, would p,
y bring him face to face with still m
other cliff. and so on till he had The
united full 5000 feet from the river. feste
Sot only must this succession OF the
Is be mounted. but to traverse the worl
X terraces. gashed and torn, is only tran,
dificult. And finally, the ascent helm
the outer rim accomplished, one vide
fronts waste of ridged scanned furnj
boulder-strewn desert, endless wh,c
9 for distant mountain peaks The
1anifestly, the oil "wildcatters" Alta
I'd not make roads. 30 they built worl