Colorado River

“ The Colorado River rises in the heart of the continent on the dividing ranges and ridges between the two oceans, drains thousands of snowy mountains through narrow or spacious valleys, and thence through canons of every color, sheer-walled and deep, all of which seem to be represented in this one grand canon of canons. ”

“ When you stand on the rim of the canyon, the river looks like a little thread of silver ribbon, but if you were to descend 6000 feet, you would discover that the Colorado is a wild, dashing, terrible river—so wild that only a few men have ever tried to launch their boats on it, and some of those few have lost their lives in the attempt. ”

“ The Colorado River in flood is a terrible stream. Unlike the Eastern rivers, there are no populous cities—with apologies to Needles and Yuma—along its shores, to be inundated with the floods. Unlike the rivers of the South, few great agricultural districts spread across its bottoms. Along the upper seven hundred miles there are not a half-dozen ranches with twenty-five acres under cultivation. But if destructive power and untamed energy are terrible, the Colorado River, in flood, is a terrible stream. ”

“ The bottom lands of the Colorado in its course across Patagonia are fertile and wooded, but their area is too limited to support more than a small, scattered population.
COLORADO RIVER, a stream in the south-west of the United States of America, draining a part of the high and arid plateau between the Rocky mountains and the Sierra Nevada in California. The light rainfall scarcely suffices over much of the river’s course to make good the loss by evaporation from the waters drained from mountain snows at its source. ”

“ Thus are the rills and the rivulets from the summits collected in these beautiful alpine lakes to give birth to the Colorado in white cascades, typical, at the very fountainhead, of the turbulence of the waters which have rent for themselves a trough of rock to the gulf. [1] Springing from these clear pools and seething falls, shadowed by sombre pines and granite crags, its course is run through plunging rapids to the final assault on the sea, where wide sand-barrens and desolation prevail. ”

“ To-morrow you will be ferried over Green River, as near its source,—a stream whose cradle is in the same snow-peaks as the Platte,—whose mysterious middle-life, under the new name of the Colorado, flows at the bottom of those tremendous fissures, three thousand feet deep, which have become the wonder of the geologist,—whose grave, when it has dribbled itself away into the dotage of shallows and quicksands, is the desert-margined Gulf of California and the Pacific Sea. ”

“ The new tributary was Grand River, and when our boats floated on the united waters, we were at last on the back of the Dragon. Away sped the current of the Colorado, swirling along, spitefully lashing with its hungry tongue the narrow sand-banks fringing the rugged shores, so that we scarcely knew where to make a landing. ”

“ Every stream is wearing away its banks, while trees and grass blades are holding on to the soil with all their roots
[Pg 89]
The Colorado River flows through a canyon with walls that in places present sheer vertical faces a mile in depth, and so smooth that no trail can be found by which to reach from top to bottom. The region has but slight erosion by wind, and practically none by rain. The local rainfall is very slight. So the river is the one force that has acted to cut down the rocks, and its force is all expended in the narrow area of its own bed. ”

“ The Colorado river, in passing through the Grand Canyon, makes many sharp turns in drift because of great rocks which have tumbled down from the cliffs, and so block the flow, turning it aside in angry swirls. It was one of these eccentricities the boys faced.
“There’s where I want to fish!” Clay explained, bending to the oars again. “Keep her over to the west, and we’ll get a big one in that deep pit next to the shore. If we ease along with the current, we won’t tip over. Don’t let the current strike her on the side!” ”

“ The great Western wilderness was now no longer “unknown” to white men. By the year 1840 the American had traversed it throughout, excepting the canyons of the Colorado, which yet remained, at least below the mouth of Grand River, almost as much of a problem as before the fur trade was born. Like some antediluvian monster the wild torrent stretched a foaming barrier miles on miles from the mountains of the north to the seas of the south, fortified in a rock-bound lair, roaring defiance at conquistadore, padre, and trapper alike. ”

“ The peak period of the river trade from 1870 to 1877 was one of great activity. Steam service was extended from Yuma to San Francisco, and sailing vessels disappeared from the ocean route. Mountains of freight, yards and docks humming with activity, and the picturesque river steamers industriously splashing the waters of the Colorado from Port Isabel to El Dorado Canyon, are indicative of the river trade at its best. For three decades the Colorado River was the life line through which the heavy machinery for the mines of Arizona came, and the ore, wool, hides, and pelts were sent to market. ”

“ The Colorado Basin is the dry bed of an ancient sea whose shore line is yet visible in many places upon the sides of the mountains which surround it. Its floor is composed of clay with deposits of sand and salt. Strong winds sometimes sweep over it that shift and pile up the sand in great dunes. The entire region is utterly bare and desolate, yet by the use of water diverted from the Colorado river it is being reclaimed to agriculture. ”

“ A young man from New York City, with his companion, walked down the Bright Angel Trail to the Colo [Pg 160] rado River. Everybody knows, or should know, that the Colorado River is a most treacherous river. One glance at the sullen, silt-filled current tells that story. It seldom gives up its dead. ”

“ We are now in the bottom of the main cañon, but deeper still is the last and inner gorge, through which the Colorado is flowing. For thousands of centuries the river has been sawing its way down into the earth. The precipitous cliffs which we have passed are formed of hard sandstone or limestone. The more gentle slopes consist of softer shales. Now the river has cut through them all and has reached the very heart of the earth, the solid granite. ”

“ Apaches, then the Wallapais, then the Hopis, then the Paiutes, then the
Navahos.
"And Tochopa told them all where they should live, and you find them there to this day."
CHAPTER XXVIII. The Colorado River From The Mountains To The Sea Perhaps no river in the world has so remarkable a life-history as has the Colorado. It is formed of two great streams, the Green and the Grand. Both have their rise in the far-away mountains, in banks of virgin and purest snow. ”

“ The river and its tributaries flow in a natural basin almost surrounded by large mountain ranges and drain 242,000 square miles, an area about 900 miles long from north to south and 300 to 500 miles wide from east to west-practically one-twelfth the area of the continental United States excluding Alaska. Much of this large basin is so arid that it is, as it always has been, largely dependent upon managed use of the waters of the Colorado River System to make it productive and inhabitable. ”

“ The vast volume of water in the Colorado River, only seven miles away, is not available. No way has yet been found to pump economically the precious fluid from a river that to-day is thirty feet deep, and to-morrow is seventy feet deep, flowing below you at the depth of over a mile. ”

“ This is particularly true of Western Kansas and Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico. The great rivers of the Platte, Arkansas, Rio Grande, and Colorado could be divided at or near their source in the mountains, and made to cover vast quantities of land. In Utah, it is proposed to take out canals from the Jordan, Weber, and Bear rivers, diminishing the supply in Great Salt Lake, and distributing it over other adjacent portions of the territory. And in California, engineers have been sent out to turn the Colorado River into the desert of Arizona, and Southern California. ”

“ No other river is so rapidly removing the highlands through which it flows.
FIG. 2.—LOOKING DOWN THE COLORADO RIVER FROM ABOVE THE NEEDLES Over a large portion of the watershed of the Colorado the rainfall is light. This fact might lead one to think that upon its slopes the work of erosion would go on more slowly than where the rainfall is heavy. This would, however, be a wrong conclusion, for in places where there is a great deal of rain the ground becomes covered with a thick growth of vegetation which holds the soil and broken rock fragments and keeps them from being carried away. ”

“ The Colorado is almost the only other large river created from many tributaries, which debouches between the Columbia and the Isthmus,—and that rises east of the mathematical axis of the Rocky Mountains. The Yo-Semite valley is one of the cradles through which the short Sierra-draining rivers reach the ocean; its threading stream is the Merced ”

“ It would be vain recapitulation to tell just how many times each of the poor struggling communities had to rally back on the sands of the river bed to built up anew the structure of gravel and brush that must be depended upon, if bread were to be secured from the land. The Little Colorado is a treacherous stream at best, with a broad channel that wanders at will through the alluvial country that melts like sugar or salt at the touch of water. ”

“ Below their junction, the Colorado passes through what is in some respects the most remarkable region on the earth, not only for its natural scenery, but also for the great interest which it possesses for geologists, as it gives on a grand scale the clearest exemplifications of the action of erosive forces in shaping the contour of the land. In the Eocene epoch the whole region of Arizona, Utah, and Nevada was subjected to a vast upheaval, and what was formerly the bottom of the ocean was raised to a height of more than 10,000 feet above sea-level. ”

“ When any man again tells you that “it never rains in Colorado,” remind him of Ananias’ fate.
A day did come, finally, and go, through all the hours of which the sun had an easy time of it in making things warm; in the evening we could fairly see the boulders in the river, and the next day it was clear. But back in the west the clouds had already gathered, and if any trout were to be captured we could not stand upon the order of our going. After breakfast half a dozen of us piled into the wagon, rode five miles down the river and began operations, which we were 138 satisfied must cease by noon. ”

“ A variety of formations have been exposed by millennia of erosion by the Colorado River. The Cambrian, Devonian, and Mississippian formations (Muav Limestone, Temple Butte Formation, and the Redwall Limestone) are exposed at the southern end of the lower Grand Wash Cliffs. ”

“ In the basin of the Colorado are found in perfection all the extraordinary conditions that are needed to bring forth mammoth canyons. The headwaters of all the important tributaries are invariably in the highest regions and at a long distance from their mouths, so that the flood waters have many miles of opportunity to run a race with the comparatively feeble erosive forces of desert lands. ”

“ For most of its course it flows through a fertile region and has an average width of 250 feet. It is a clear stream; its name, meaning red, was originally applied to the Brazos N. and E., but the two were interchanged. The Colorado is some 900 miles long, and navigable to Austin or farther. ”

“ The result of the uplifting and erosion was the washing away of the weaker and softer strata, especially to the west of the present course of the Colorado, while those rocks that were protected by harder layers were left standing as extensive plateaus with precipitous escarpments. ”

“ According to information, the lower end of the valley is the most eastern part of the Colorado; and the latitude of our encampment, which was opposite to the remains of an old fort on the left bank of the river, was 40° 46' 27", and, by observation, the elevation above the sea 5,150 feet. The bearing to the entrance of the canon below was south 20° east. Here the river enters between lofty precipices of red rock, and the country below is said to assume a very rugged character, the river and its affluents passing through canons which forbid all access to the water. ”