Green River

“ The people are not Mormons; they are newcomers and hence what might be called “tenderfeet.” They will learn, and some day Green River will be a beautiful little city, but to-day it lies bare and dusty and new, baking in the sun.
Monday, Doc and I went on an exploring trip down the river and Bob stayed about the camp. We climbed up on top of a bare, ragged mountain to see what we could of the country and the river, but with not much success. The river runs through a canyon and can not be seen, and the country is much the same south of us,--hard, ragged desert buttes. ”

“ Some few ford above the ferry, but it is attended with great danger. One wagon went rolling down the stream, while we were there. One horse belonging to it was drowned, but the men were saved by the ferry boat. One went down yesterday in the same manner. I understand that 14 men have been drowned here this season in crossing. Flour is worth here $50 per hundred lbs. Green River presents the most romantic scenery in the world; it is deep set in the midst of bluffs that take the shapes of towers, castles, cities, and of every imaginable work of art. ”

“ Emerging from the river plain we entered upon another mauvaise terre, with knobs and elevations of clay and green gault, striped and banded with lines of stone and pebbles: it was a barren, desolate spot, the divide between the Green River and its western influent, the shallow and somewhat sluggish Black's Fork. The name is derived from an old trader: it is called by the Snakes Ongo Ogwe Pa, or "Pine-tree Stream;" it rises in the Bear-River Mountains, drains the swamps and lakelets on the way, and bifurcates in its upper bed, forming two principal branches, Ham’s Fork and Muddy Fork. ”

“ Catching the oars and starting again, the boats are once more borne down the stream, until we land at a small cottonwood grove on the bank and camp for noon.
During the afternoon we run down to a point where the river sweeps the foot of an overhanging cliff, and here we camp for the night. The sun is yet two hours high, so I climb the cliffs and walk back among the strangely carved rocks of the Green River bad lands. These are sandstones and shales, gray and buff, red and brown, blue and black strata in many alternations, lying nearly horizontal, and almost without soil and vegetation. ”

“ A comfortable hotel, with accommodations for a large number of people, and ten cottages have already been erected. Green river is the most beautiful mountain stream in the west, and teems with trout and salmon. It derives its name from the green hue of its clear, transparent waters, brilliant in the sunlight and dark green in the shade. The mountains are full of deer, bear, mountain sheep, grouse and other game. No shooting is permitted within two hundred and fifty yards of the hotel, but the hunter and angler has not far to go to find employment for his rod and gun. ”

“ Green River is a mountain stream and flows very rapidly, and at this place was very narrow, and if the team should get ten feet below the Ford they would be lost so swift is the current. We worked hard two days getting everything across the river, but we got everything over in good shape at last. ”

“ The Green river has its source in the mountains of Western Wyoming and has a total length of about 700 miles. After passing through a series of canyons, the rock walls of which are of great height, it enters the Green River valley in which the town of Green River, Utah, is situated, about 117 miles above the river's mouth. The drop in elevation between the town of Green River, Wyo., and Green River, Utah, is from 6,067 to 4,046 feet-2,021 feet in 387 miles causing many difficult and dangerous rapids. ”

“ If you follow with your eyes this calm, reposeful river, now hiding itself beneath its protecting banks with their wealth of branching trees, tall cocoanut palms, and luxuriant undergrowth, now emerging like a huge blue serpent encrusted with diamonds, so brightly does the clear water sparkle in the sun, you note that it finally loses itself in a heavy, impenetrable mass of green forest. ”

“ To our right was the stagnant river, dammed up behind the blockading arm of grass. Leftward, downtown, the thumb of the cityhall pointed rudely upward and far beyond was the listless Pacific. Ahead, the gridiron of streets was shockingly interrupted and severed by the great green mass plumped in its center.
It grew to enormous bigness and everything else disappeared; we were over and looked down upon it, a pasture hummock magnified beyond belief; retaining its essential identity, but made ominous by its unappropriate situation and size. ”

“ The waters, entering through numerous domes and pits, and falling, during the rainy season, in cascades of great volume, are finally collected in River Hall, where they form several extensive lakes, or rivers, whose connection with Green River is known to be in two deep springs appearing under arches on its margin. Whenever there is a freshet in Green River the streams in the cave are joined in a continuous body of water, the rise sometimes being as much as sixty feet above the low-water mark. The subsidence within is less rapid than the rise ”

“ Ashley led his band up the North Platte, about on the track of Robert Stuart's eastward journey from Astoria of 1812-13, named the Sweetwater Branch, and passed over to Green River Valley, an inviting basin surrounded by high mountains, the Wind River range on the north, and on the south the point where the Green, then commonly called the Colorado, Spanish River, or the Seedskedee, enters the Uinta range by Flaming Gorge, the first of the thousand miles of canyons now celebrated, which enclose the river and, together with the rush of descending waters, make travelling by it hazardous. ”

“ At almost any point upon Green River the grass upon the bottom lands is sufficient for a night's encampment for a small party; but at the place selected for the rendezvous, in the space of two or three miles upon either side of the river, the bottom spreads out in a broad prairie, and the luxuriant growth of grass, with the country open all about it, made the spot desirable for a large encampment. ”

“ The Sheetskadee, or Green River, runs through it, sweeping in a beautiful curve from the north-west to the south-west part of it, where it breaks its way through the encircling mountains, between cliffs, one thousand feet in height, broken and hanging as {15} if poised on the air. The area of the plain is thickly set with the rich mountain grasses, and dotted with little copses of cotton wood and willow trees. The soil is alluvial, and capable of producing abundantly all kinds of small grains, vegetables, &c., that are raised in the northern States. ”

“ The wall of sandstone is many miles in length. The valley presents a beautiful picture as you go eastward; at this time of the year the alfalfa is so green. Each farm joins another. Each has a cabin in which the rancher lives while they irrigate and make hay. When that is finished they move into their houses in “town.” Beyond the hogback [Pg 9] rise huge mountains, rugged cañons, and noisy mountain streams; great forests of pine help to make up the picture. Looking toward the east we could see where mighty Green River cuts its way through walls of granite. ”

“ In the evening, Ben, who was fresh from his army life, led the veterans to recitals of many of their recent experiences on southern battle-fields. One more day of travel brought us to Green River. The country traversed is a barren clay land, inhospitable, and apparently sterile, presenting hardly a blade of grass to relieve the monotony of the scenery. The young people who had saddle horses, caring little then for scenery, rode leisurely in advance of the train and planned somewhat for the future. ”

“ There a rapid river runs in and out, amid a paradise{266} of green; then a sheet of silver water, or placid lake, calm as an infant’s sleep, dimples in the light of the sun; and wild wildernesses lie nestling among what look like English fields of buttercups and daisies and acres of waving grain; while a rich growth of variegated green fringes the feet or climbs up the sides of the softly swelling distant hills. Tender lights and shadows are lying restfully everywhere. It all looks so calm and peaceful—as though nature, hushed to sleep, was smiling in her dreams. ”

“ The country is not very broken, and we had no difficulty in traveling wherever we chose. We intersected Green River at a point where grass was abundant{67} and wood plentiful. Mr. Hodgdon, a prominent man of our company, was taken sick yesterday and was unable to travel this morning, consequently we left him behind together with eight other men, and we shall remain here until they arrive.
Sunday, August 5.
Remained in camp here today. Green River is a clear, rapid stream, ten to fifteen rods wide and is fordable in many places. It is one of the principal branches of the Colorado. ”

“ The Green River Formation is easily recognized by its light color and continuous bedding, in strong contrast to the red, discontinuous, variegated Wasatch Formation below. The Green River Formation can be thought of as a gigantic lens of lacustrine sediments enclosed in the fluvial Wasatch Formation. The name Green River Formation is applied to all of the roughly contemporaneous deposits laid down in lakes of Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. ”

“ The upper continuation of the Colorado River of the West is Green River which heads in the Wind River Mountains at Frémont Peak. From this range southward to the Uinta Mountains, on the southern boundary of Wyoming, the river flows through an open country celebrated in the early days of Western exploration and fur trading as "Green River Valley," and at that period the meeting ground and "rendezvous" of the various companies and organisations, and of free trappers. ”

“ We brought a packer across the desert in our wagon who was unable to travel on horse back, from sickness; he was so much better when we reached Green River that he concluded to try his horse again. Our company is peculiarly fortunate, for we not only escape sickness ourselves, but are often able to relieve others who are suffering. We crossed Green River in a ferry boat and drove seven miles, passing a creek six miles from the river, and camped for the night. Found the grass poor, but good water. We paid $5 a wagon for crossing, and swam our stock. ”

“ Seven miles from hence we came to Green river on the left, about two hundred yards wide. It falls into the Ohio from the eastward, and at the junction the latter river, changing its direction from S. W. to west, the view of it upwards is lost, {241} and looking back to the eastward, Green river appears to be a continuation of the Ohio. Several new settlements are forming on the banks of Green river, the climate and soil being well adapted to the culture of cotton, but the former is esteemed unhealthy, the inhabitants being very subject to intermittent fevers. ”

“ Sometimes they were sent to the mountains at West River and the Great Falls, "to lodge on ye top," and from these lofty watch-towers the keen eyes of the rangers scanned the mapped expanse of forest, when it was green with summer leafage, or gorgeous as a parterre with innumerable autumnal hues, or veiled in the soft haze of Indian summer, or gray with the snows of winter and the ramage of naked branches, "viewing for smoaks" of hostile camp-fires. ”

“ The bottom through which it flowed was several yards in breadth, bright green with grass, and thickly feathered with willows and cotton-wood. It showed no sign of cultivation; the absence of cereals may be accounted for by its extreme cold; it freezes there every night, and none but the hardiest grains, oats and rye, which here are little appreciated, could be made to grow. We are now approaching the valley of the VALLEY OF THE GREEN RIVER.Green River, which, like many of the rivers in the Eastern States, appears formerly to have filled a far larger channel. ”

“ The Green River Group.—I include in this group the Black Diamond and Franklin collieries, the Kirke or Moss Bay Company mines, and the Sugar Loaf Mountain beds. This, as well as the Carbon River field, is nearly equidistant from Tacoma and Seattle, being about thirty miles in a right line from each place. ”

“ He decided that the starting point must be where the Union Pacific Railway had just been thrown across Green River, and that the only chance for success was to continue on the torrential flood till either he should arrive at the end of the great canyons near the mouth of the Rio Virgen or should himself be vanquished in the endeavour. It was to be a match of human skill and muscle against rocks and cataracts, shut in from the outer world, always face to face with the Shadow of Death. ”

“ A glamour of tender new green enveloped the world, and the air was sweet with the odor of young and growing things. The brown river, streaked with green where the fresher currents of the creeks poured in, circled the base of a long hill that dominated the landscape from every direction. ”

“ Perhaps the most attractive place on the Arrow Lakes is the point where the upper lake narrows into the stretch of fifteen miles of river joining the two lakes. The mountains on either hand, in great billows of forest green and blue, rise ever upward till they break against the eternal frost. ”