[Music]
you
[Music]
I had the idea that there was one region
of this country that was still
unexplored and that was the canyons of
the green and grand and Colorado River
we have an unknown Canyon yet to explore
an unknown River to run what falls there
may be we know not what walls rise over
the river we know not what rocks beset
the channel we know not and it wasn’t at
all clear that we could survive it
[Music]
so tonight we’re going to be doing a
little bit of time-traveling and as some
of you know National Geographic is in
the middle of celebrating its 125th year
we were founded 125 years ago here in
Washington DC at the Cosmo club by 33
men and one of those 33 men is our
speaker tonight how crazy is that huh
also tomorrow 125 years ago we began the
first lecture at National Geographic and
that first lecture was presented by our
speaker tonight John Wesley Powell so
it’s a pleasure to have him here this
evening won’t you please join me in
giving a warm National Geographic
welcome to John Wesley Powell
[Applause]
good evening everyone
my friends call me Wes and my colleagues
call me the major but the ute and Paiute
Indians whose culture I studied for many
many years called me copper Otts
one arm gone copper aughts arm missing
such as the directness of the Indian
mind you know me of course for my great
adventure down the green and Colorado
rivers in 1869 and so let me say this
much most of the important work that I
did was right here in Washington I moved
here in 1872 after my second Colorado
journey and I helped to establish the
cosmos Club in 1878 in fact the first
meeting of the what would become the
cosmos Club was in the parlor of my
house not so very far from here and as
you just heard and on January 13 1888 I
was one of 33 men who gathered at the
cosmos Club to create the National
Geographic Society I grew up in Ohio my
father was a tailor and an itinerant
Methodist preacher and part-time farmer
and generally speaking of fail here and
he expected me to become a farmer too
but that did not in any way appeal to me
I don’t know what I would have done if
it hadn’t been for the Civil War but the
minute had happened I joined the
volunteer infantry and served in a range
of different places but at the Battle of
Shiloh on April 6th 1862 I was leading a
charge over a ridge and a nun
spent or nearly spent miniball that’s a
lead ball with a conical top struck me
just below the elbow and shattered it
two days later without anesthetic of any
sort they sawed off my arm just below
the elbow that hurt it never stopped me
from doing a single thing in the course
of my life
now after the Civil War the country was
a different place and there was a lot of
disillusionment in the East and there
was a sort of a sense that maybe there
was a new beginning out west I had the
idea that there was one region of this
country that was still unexplored and
that was the canyons of the green and
grand and Colorado River and so I
decided to put together a small
exploring party and see if it could be
done and we we met at Green River
Station and we embarked on our journey
down the green Colorado on the 24th of
May 1869 there were 10 of us to start
none of them were scientists I didn’t
really even have scientific credentials
at the time for boats enough provisions
for about 10 months and off we went into
the the unknown on May 24th 1869 I can’t
tell you all of the stories of our
adventure but I can give you I think a
flavor of it first about the depths and
we started it a flat place and we would
go down a thousand feet into the earth
and then 3,000 feet and eventually in
the Grand Canyon
were 6,000 feet into the bowels of the
earth in a lecture that I gave when I
came back I said it would be as if there
were a street like Broadway in New York
and there were skyscrapers on either
side of that Street and they were 200
stories high for 600 miles that’s what
it felt like it was glorious
you know every time we came around to
bend in the river we were seeing
something that nobody had ever seen
before we had no idea what to expect
that’s the nature of exploration isn’t
it two weeks into the excursion in the
canyon of lador we had disaster I had
developed a series of flag and hand
signals in the pilot boat and if I made
a certain sort of signal than the men
were to get to shore and we would
recognize her and maybe portage or line
down the boats or see if there was a way
to thread our way through the rapids but
for some reason three of the boats came
in to shore but the no name the fourth
of the boats did not get to shore there
was a long dispute later about what had
happened and maybe that they didn’t see
the signal it may be that they ignored
it they said that the boat was so
waterlogged that they were bailing and
didn’t see anything but whatever it was
that fourth unfortunate boat the no-name
went over the first rapid and recovered
well enough and then it struck a rock
sideways and split in two the men were
thrown from it and most most likely
would have drowned if they hadn’t washed
up on a little sandbar in the middle of
the river Frank Goodman the florid
Englishman found a rock and he was
holding on to it for dear life well we
rescued them
but now the no-name was gone
and with it all the personal effects of
the three men in the boat or Milland
Seneca Holland and Frank Goodman their
clothing or personal kits Foley a third
of our provisions including food rifles
and
and scientific instruments were now lost
in fact in searching through the other
three boats we discovered that for some
unknown reason we had packed all of the
thermometers and barometers in the No
Name now we had very little pretensions
to real science but all of them were now
gone with the barometer you can
determine the the altitude above camp of
the cliffs and the thermometers would be
useful in AI that night I despaired I
thought I might leave the expedition and
go overland to Salt Lake and bring back
more barometers and see if we could
piece it back together but it was was a
time of great gloom a third of our
provisions just two weeks into the
expedition the next morning after a good
sleep we discovered that the no name at
least part of the hull had lodged
against some rocks on the other side of
the river and so Jack Sumner and another
man said that they would be willing to
take the Emma Deane the pilot boat and
see if they can go over there and
determine if anything had been saved and
at some risk to themselves they made
their way across the rapids and to the
wreckage and you have to understand that
when you’re in the canyons you can’t
hear a thing it’s like the sound of ten
freight trains going by a close
proximity and so we could it was a
pantomime there they got to the hull of
the no-name and they searched around it
for all then they held up a package and
it was the barometers and so we were
saved as a as a scientific expedition
and then they dug around some more than
they were dancing and glee and I had no
idea that their commitment to science
was what it was but it turns out that
they had secreted a keg of whiskey
in the no name I’m a teat although I had
forbidden whiskey on this tour
they had secreted a keg and it was
intact so when they got back I made an
executive decision decided to call that
whiskey medicinal but now we crowded
into the three remaining boats and moved
on chastened by the river a few days
later just at the end of June 1869 we
came to the mouth of the winter Creek
and if you follow that Creek back up
towards the west you come to the Uintah
Indian agency and I walked out to post
some letters and a couple amendment with
me including Frank Goodman and when it
was time to turn back he said I’ve had
enough
and so one member of the expedition had
now retired we were sorry to see him go
but with our reduced provisions and just
three boats that actually made a kind of
sense and so on we went eventually we
came to the confluence of the Grand and
the green which forms the Colorado
proper there’s no way that I can
describe it all I can say is that the
canyons are so deeply incised there that
when you look up you see a kind of a
quarry but not a quarry where castles
are made a quarry where mountains could
be lifted out from the rocks and the
cliffs are so high that it’s not the
kind of place where you would see
swallows having their nests partway up
you’d see Eagles and those Eagles would
disappear from sight before they reach
the summit it’s one of the most amazing
places on earth and it’s a geologists
dream you know in England geology is
difficult because it’s all covered with
Verger but here the country is exposed
because of the aridity and Earth reveals
its skeleton
and it’s spine and it’s it’s entablature
it’s a geologists paradise our
provisions by now were were rotten the
flower was sour the bacon was molded
there was nothing good to eat and
shortly after the disaster with the
no-name we had been making dinner on a
little spot of sand at the beach and
unfortunately Hawkins had caught the
trees on fire right there they burned
down the camp and we got singed eyebrows
and clothes burned and we scrambled into
the boats and went downriver and Hawkins
gathered up the cooking kit as best he
could and when he got to the boat he
tripped and lost almost all of it in the
river and so now we have spoiled food
that we’re cooking on one or two
miserable pans and that’s about that
point that we realized that we were we
were in a in a race for life here you
can’t really get out of these canyons we
had planned to hunt there was not much
to hunt the bighorn sheep or high up and
very skittish there are almost no fish
in these rivers and the fish that we
pulled out were like eating sand paper
that were pin cushions and so we were
beginning to wonder whether we would
survive this expedition and on and on we
went well finally on August 6th we came
to the mouth of the Little Colorado
River if you know that part of the world
that’s really the beginning of the Grand
Canyon for wooden boats now reduced to
three all of them battered so much that
we’re caulking them almost every day the
men are mostly naked living in rags our
shoes are gone the food is is rancid and
inadequate
were exhausted mentally and physically
we were about to begin the most
dangerous and challenging part of the
journey but we were spent now if we’d
gone out at that point and regrouped and
put some flesh back on our bones and
written some letters home and relaxed a
little come back we might have been able
to do this with some some ecstasy but by
the time we reached the portal of the
Grand Canyon we were in a pretty
desperate state and the rumblings of
discontentment were beginning to reach
even me here’s what I wrote we are now
ready to begin on our way down the great
unknown our our boats tied to a common
stake chafe each other as they are
tossed by the fretful river they ride
high and buoyant for their loads are
lighter than we could desire we have but
a month’s rations remaining our flower
has all been recipt Adamas ketonet sieve
the spoiled bacon has been dried and the
worst of it boiled our few pounds of
dried apples have been spread in the Sun
and re shrunken to their normal bulk our
sugar has long since melted and gone on
its way down the river but we have a
large bag of coffee the lightning of the
boats has this one advantage they will
ride the waves better and we shall have
but little to carry in the event of a
portage we are now three-quarters of a
mile in the depths of the earth and the
great river shrinks into insignificance
as it tosses its angry angry waves at
the walls and cliffs that rise to the
world above its waves are but puny
ripples and we but pygmies running up
and down the sand
or lost among the boulders we have an
unknown Canyon yet to explore an unknown
river to run what falls there may be we
know not what walls rise over the river
we know not what rocks beset the channel
we know not how well the men talk is
cheerfully as ever this morning
guests are bandied about freely among
them and yet to me the jests are ghastly
and the cheer is somber even I the
optimist begin to call the Grand Canyon
our prison in terms of the magnificence
of the scenery there’s nothing like it
in the world its geological potential
unmatched but we were now just hoping to
survive you know Bradley thus our cast
had written in his diary way back up at
the canyon of lador I think all the way
back at Flaming Gorge he had written
today we have seen the worst rapid that
we have ever been through and the worst
that we are ever likely to see but he
repeated that nineteen times
he literally repeated that nineteen
times in the course of this journey had
we been told before we started that the
Grand Canyon would contain the kinds of
Rapids that it has we never would have
tried it ever well finally on the 27th
of August things fell apart we came to
the worst rapid that any of us had ever
seen and it wasn’t at all clear that we
could survive it and so that day Aurra
Mulholland came to me took me aside and
said major
we can’t we can’t go on it’s it’s
suicide now to go on he said what good
would it be for us to die now at this
late stage of the expedition and lose
everything what we should do is admit
that we can’t do it not in our current
condition and with these boats and we’ll
climb the North Face of the canyon and
we’ll find our way to some Mormon
villages we’ll regroup and maybe come
back and do it another time we can cash
the boats but if we go on we’re all
going to die oh I said if we try to
climb out we’re probably going to die
it’s not even clear you can climb out a
mile up the North Face of the Grand
Canyon I asked him who he spoke for and
he said his brother Seneca Holland and
Bill Dunn three of them so we had supper
and then every man bedded down and I
went to each one of them and I asked
each one separately what he thought and
everyone but those three said they would
see it through that they weren’t going
to quit that they wanted to go on so
then I went back and woke up or
mulholland and pleaded with him a little
tried to persuade him and he said he
could not be persuaded and he knew that
Seneca and Bill Dunn were finished also
here’s what I wrote we have another
little talk about tomorrow and he lies
down again but for me there is no sleep
all night long I pace up and down a few
yards of sand beach along by the river
is it wise to go on I go to the boats
again to look at our rations
I feel certain we can get beyond the
dangers immediately before us but what
may be below
I know not from our position yesterday
high up on the cliffs the river seemed
to make another Great Bend to the south
which from our experience heretofore
means more and higher granite walls I’m
not sure we can climb out of the canyon
here and when at the top of the wall I
know enough of the surrounding
countryside to be certain that it is a
desert of rock and sand between this and
the nearest Mormon village which on the
most direct line must be at least 75
miles away true the late rains have been
favorable to us should we climb out for
the chances are we shall find water
standing in pools and at one time I
almost decide to leave the river but for
years I have been contemplating this
trip to say there is a part of the
canyon I cannot explore a part of the
Colorado I cannot run having already
almost accomplished it is more than I am
willing to acknowledge and I determined
to go on the breakfast was like a
funeral
we made all the rest of our flour into
biscuits two little piles and put them
one for the those who were leaving on
the other for the rest of us we gave
them rifles and ammunition all of our
valuables gold watches and any rings
that we had because we were pretty
certain we weren’t going to make it and
letters to our families and then we said
farewell and shook hands to the the best
men you could ever meet in your life and
we watched as they began to to scramble
up the North Face of the Grand Canyon
now
we had no choice but to face this thing
and Bradley agreed to go first and one
of the boats we abandoned the Emma Dean
now so now we have to leaky boats left
and Bradley said he would go first to
take a look and so we lined him down
with all the rope we still had in our
possession got him as far out on that
Herculean rapid as we could and he was
going to look to see what it looks like
down river but the Colorado began to
sway his boat back and forth like a
pendulum and it was riding from one
cliff to the other hitting the wall and
then hitting the other wall and it was
certain that he would be smashed to
smithereens and so he took out his knife
and he cut the rope over the falls he
went we were certain he was dead and a
minute or two later his boat popped up
and he was alive and he waved his hat
like a rodeo cowboy and now we did the
stupidest thing we ever did the rest of
us gotten the other boat without
anything he just did it we just popped
over the thing it was insane and we were
half drowned and waterlogged and was
scrambled to shore we got out the rifles
and fired repeatedly as a signal to the
men if they couldn’t decline back down
and join us
but they didn’t whether they heard us
didn’t come or whether they didn’t hear
us at all we never learned and there was
one more significant rapid and then we
were out then we were at grande wash
cliffs and from 6,000 feet the cliffs
diminished to nothing and I wrote one of
the last entries in my diary I said ever
before us has been an unknown danger
heavier than the immediate peril every
waking hour we have spent in the Grand
Canyon has been one of toil we have
watched with deep
solicitude the steady disappearance of
our scant supply of rations and from
time to time have watched as the river
snatched away a little that was left to
us while we were hungry and toil and
danger have been known in those great
depths were off times clouds hid the sky
by day and but a narrow zone of stars
could be seen at night only during the
few hours of deep sleep consequent on
hard labor as the roar of the waters
been hushed but now the danger is over
now the toil has ceased now the gloom
has disappeared and now the firmament is
bounded only by the far horizon and what
a vast expanse of stars can now be seen
the river rolls by in silent majesty the
silence of our camp is sweet our joy is
almost ecstasy we sit up to after
midnight talking talking of the Grand
Canyon talking of home and talking
principally of the three men who left us
are they wandering around and these
great depths unable to find their way
out
are they scouring the plateau above in
search of water or as we hope are they
nearing the Mormon villages well when we
came out at grande wash cliffs there
were five men waiting for us four men
and a boy four of them were Mormons and
one was an Indian and they had been sent
by Bringham young I was a friend of
young he knew what we were doing and he
had sent them either to rescue us or to
pick up whatever was left and so they
helped us gave us food this was the end
of the journey for my brother Walter and
me we made our way overland to Salt Lake
City where we learned from the national
press that the entire expedition had
perished in the canyon of lador
when I got back to civilization and
corrected the erroneous Press reports I
found that I was a hero even a national
hero and Congressman wanted to talk with
me and give me money and find places for
me in Washington and fund for future
expeditions well let me just tie up this
one loose end the three men or Milland
Seneca Howland and Bill Dunn were able
to climb out they climbed a mile
straight up when they got to the to the
North Rim of the Grand Canyon they made
their way towards those settlements
nobody knows what happened but they died
I went back the following year to see if
I could make sense of it and it appears
that they had some sort of a dark
encounter with a group of ship wits
Indians the ship wits told me that
somebody had raped a young ship witch
girl and that they reckoned that these
were the culprits and so executed them
when I told them that that could not
have happened the ship withs apologized
and made a ceremony of reconciliation
nobody knows for sure but they died I
repeated the expedition in 1871 and 1872
with better boats and more science I
think we’ll stop at this point because
we’re out of time but here’s what I’m
going to do with that if you don’t mind
I’m going to remove this disgusting gear
you
you
you
[Music]
I had the idea that there was one region
of this country that was still
unexplored and that was the canyons of
the green and grand and Colorado River
we have an unknown Canyon yet to explore
an unknown River to run what falls there
may be we know not what walls rise over
the river we know not what rocks beset
the channel we know not and it wasn’t at
all clear that we could survive it
[Music]
so tonight we’re going to be doing a
little bit of time-traveling and as some
of you know National Geographic is in
the middle of celebrating its 125th year
we were founded 125 years ago here in
Washington DC at the Cosmo club by 33
men and one of those 33 men is our
speaker tonight how crazy is that huh
also tomorrow 125 years ago we began the
first lecture at National Geographic and
that first lecture was presented by our
speaker tonight John Wesley Powell so
it’s a pleasure to have him here this
evening won’t you please join me in
giving a warm National Geographic
welcome to John Wesley Powell
[Applause]
good evening everyone
my friends call me Wes and my colleagues
call me the major but the ute and Paiute
Indians whose culture I studied for many
many years called me copper Otts
one arm gone copper aughts arm missing
such as the directness of the Indian
mind you know me of course for my great
adventure down the green and Colorado
rivers in 1869 and so let me say this
much most of the important work that I
did was right here in Washington I moved
here in 1872 after my second Colorado
journey and I helped to establish the
cosmos Club in 1878 in fact the first
meeting of the what would become the
cosmos Club was in the parlor of my
house not so very far from here and as
you just heard and on January 13 1888 I
was one of 33 men who gathered at the
cosmos Club to create the National
Geographic Society I grew up in Ohio my
father was a tailor and an itinerant
Methodist preacher and part-time farmer
and generally speaking of fail here and
he expected me to become a farmer too
but that did not in any way appeal to me
I don’t know what I would have done if
it hadn’t been for the Civil War but the
minute had happened I joined the
volunteer infantry and served in a range
of different places but at the Battle of
Shiloh on April 6th 1862 I was leading a
charge over a ridge and a nun
spent or nearly spent miniball that’s a
lead ball with a conical top struck me
just below the elbow and shattered it
two days later without anesthetic of any
sort they sawed off my arm just below
the elbow that hurt it never stopped me
from doing a single thing in the course
of my life
now after the Civil War the country was
a different place and there was a lot of
disillusionment in the East and there
was a sort of a sense that maybe there
was a new beginning out west I had the
idea that there was one region of this
country that was still unexplored and
that was the canyons of the green and
grand and Colorado River and so I
decided to put together a small
exploring party and see if it could be
done and we we met at Green River
Station and we embarked on our journey
down the green Colorado on the 24th of
May 1869 there were 10 of us to start
none of them were scientists I didn’t
really even have scientific credentials
at the time for boats enough provisions
for about 10 months and off we went into
the the unknown on May 24th 1869 I can’t
tell you all of the stories of our
adventure but I can give you I think a
flavor of it first about the depths and
we started it a flat place and we would
go down a thousand feet into the earth
and then 3,000 feet and eventually in
the Grand Canyon
were 6,000 feet into the bowels of the
earth in a lecture that I gave when I
came back I said it would be as if there
were a street like Broadway in New York
and there were skyscrapers on either
side of that Street and they were 200
stories high for 600 miles that’s what
it felt like it was glorious
you know every time we came around to
bend in the river we were seeing
something that nobody had ever seen
before we had no idea what to expect
that’s the nature of exploration isn’t
it two weeks into the excursion in the
canyon of lador we had disaster I had
developed a series of flag and hand
signals in the pilot boat and if I made
a certain sort of signal than the men
were to get to shore and we would
recognize her and maybe portage or line
down the boats or see if there was a way
to thread our way through the rapids but
for some reason three of the boats came
in to shore but the no name the fourth
of the boats did not get to shore there
was a long dispute later about what had
happened and maybe that they didn’t see
the signal it may be that they ignored
it they said that the boat was so
waterlogged that they were bailing and
didn’t see anything but whatever it was
that fourth unfortunate boat the no-name
went over the first rapid and recovered
well enough and then it struck a rock
sideways and split in two the men were
thrown from it and most most likely
would have drowned if they hadn’t washed
up on a little sandbar in the middle of
the river Frank Goodman the florid
Englishman found a rock and he was
holding on to it for dear life well we
rescued them
but now the no-name was gone
and with it all the personal effects of
the three men in the boat or Milland
Seneca Holland and Frank Goodman their
clothing or personal kits Foley a third
of our provisions including food rifles
and
and scientific instruments were now lost
in fact in searching through the other
three boats we discovered that for some
unknown reason we had packed all of the
thermometers and barometers in the No
Name now we had very little pretensions
to real science but all of them were now
gone with the barometer you can
determine the the altitude above camp of
the cliffs and the thermometers would be
useful in AI that night I despaired I
thought I might leave the expedition and
go overland to Salt Lake and bring back
more barometers and see if we could
piece it back together but it was was a
time of great gloom a third of our
provisions just two weeks into the
expedition the next morning after a good
sleep we discovered that the no name at
least part of the hull had lodged
against some rocks on the other side of
the river and so Jack Sumner and another
man said that they would be willing to
take the Emma Deane the pilot boat and
see if they can go over there and
determine if anything had been saved and
at some risk to themselves they made
their way across the rapids and to the
wreckage and you have to understand that
when you’re in the canyons you can’t
hear a thing it’s like the sound of ten
freight trains going by a close
proximity and so we could it was a
pantomime there they got to the hull of
the no-name and they searched around it
for all then they held up a package and
it was the barometers and so we were
saved as a as a scientific expedition
and then they dug around some more than
they were dancing and glee and I had no
idea that their commitment to science
was what it was but it turns out that
they had secreted a keg of whiskey
in the no name I’m a teat although I had
forbidden whiskey on this tour
they had secreted a keg and it was
intact so when they got back I made an
executive decision decided to call that
whiskey medicinal but now we crowded
into the three remaining boats and moved
on chastened by the river a few days
later just at the end of June 1869 we
came to the mouth of the winter Creek
and if you follow that Creek back up
towards the west you come to the Uintah
Indian agency and I walked out to post
some letters and a couple amendment with
me including Frank Goodman and when it
was time to turn back he said I’ve had
enough
and so one member of the expedition had
now retired we were sorry to see him go
but with our reduced provisions and just
three boats that actually made a kind of
sense and so on we went eventually we
came to the confluence of the Grand and
the green which forms the Colorado
proper there’s no way that I can
describe it all I can say is that the
canyons are so deeply incised there that
when you look up you see a kind of a
quarry but not a quarry where castles
are made a quarry where mountains could
be lifted out from the rocks and the
cliffs are so high that it’s not the
kind of place where you would see
swallows having their nests partway up
you’d see Eagles and those Eagles would
disappear from sight before they reach
the summit it’s one of the most amazing
places on earth and it’s a geologists
dream you know in England geology is
difficult because it’s all covered with
Verger but here the country is exposed
because of the aridity and Earth reveals
its skeleton
and it’s spine and it’s it’s entablature
it’s a geologists paradise our
provisions by now were were rotten the
flower was sour the bacon was molded
there was nothing good to eat and
shortly after the disaster with the
no-name we had been making dinner on a
little spot of sand at the beach and
unfortunately Hawkins had caught the
trees on fire right there they burned
down the camp and we got singed eyebrows
and clothes burned and we scrambled into
the boats and went downriver and Hawkins
gathered up the cooking kit as best he
could and when he got to the boat he
tripped and lost almost all of it in the
river and so now we have spoiled food
that we’re cooking on one or two
miserable pans and that’s about that
point that we realized that we were we
were in a in a race for life here you
can’t really get out of these canyons we
had planned to hunt there was not much
to hunt the bighorn sheep or high up and
very skittish there are almost no fish
in these rivers and the fish that we
pulled out were like eating sand paper
that were pin cushions and so we were
beginning to wonder whether we would
survive this expedition and on and on we
went well finally on August 6th we came
to the mouth of the Little Colorado
River if you know that part of the world
that’s really the beginning of the Grand
Canyon for wooden boats now reduced to
three all of them battered so much that
we’re caulking them almost every day the
men are mostly naked living in rags our
shoes are gone the food is is rancid and
inadequate
were exhausted mentally and physically
we were about to begin the most
dangerous and challenging part of the
journey but we were spent now if we’d
gone out at that point and regrouped and
put some flesh back on our bones and
written some letters home and relaxed a
little come back we might have been able
to do this with some some ecstasy but by
the time we reached the portal of the
Grand Canyon we were in a pretty
desperate state and the rumblings of
discontentment were beginning to reach
even me here’s what I wrote we are now
ready to begin on our way down the great
unknown our our boats tied to a common
stake chafe each other as they are
tossed by the fretful river they ride
high and buoyant for their loads are
lighter than we could desire we have but
a month’s rations remaining our flower
has all been recipt Adamas ketonet sieve
the spoiled bacon has been dried and the
worst of it boiled our few pounds of
dried apples have been spread in the Sun
and re shrunken to their normal bulk our
sugar has long since melted and gone on
its way down the river but we have a
large bag of coffee the lightning of the
boats has this one advantage they will
ride the waves better and we shall have
but little to carry in the event of a
portage we are now three-quarters of a
mile in the depths of the earth and the
great river shrinks into insignificance
as it tosses its angry angry waves at
the walls and cliffs that rise to the
world above its waves are but puny
ripples and we but pygmies running up
and down the sand
or lost among the boulders we have an
unknown Canyon yet to explore an unknown
river to run what falls there may be we
know not what walls rise over the river
we know not what rocks beset the channel
we know not how well the men talk is
cheerfully as ever this morning
guests are bandied about freely among
them and yet to me the jests are ghastly
and the cheer is somber even I the
optimist begin to call the Grand Canyon
our prison in terms of the magnificence
of the scenery there’s nothing like it
in the world its geological potential
unmatched but we were now just hoping to
survive you know Bradley thus our cast
had written in his diary way back up at
the canyon of lador I think all the way
back at Flaming Gorge he had written
today we have seen the worst rapid that
we have ever been through and the worst
that we are ever likely to see but he
repeated that nineteen times
he literally repeated that nineteen
times in the course of this journey had
we been told before we started that the
Grand Canyon would contain the kinds of
Rapids that it has we never would have
tried it ever well finally on the 27th
of August things fell apart we came to
the worst rapid that any of us had ever
seen and it wasn’t at all clear that we
could survive it and so that day Aurra
Mulholland came to me took me aside and
said major
we can’t we can’t go on it’s it’s
suicide now to go on he said what good
would it be for us to die now at this
late stage of the expedition and lose
everything what we should do is admit
that we can’t do it not in our current
condition and with these boats and we’ll
climb the North Face of the canyon and
we’ll find our way to some Mormon
villages we’ll regroup and maybe come
back and do it another time we can cash
the boats but if we go on we’re all
going to die oh I said if we try to
climb out we’re probably going to die
it’s not even clear you can climb out a
mile up the North Face of the Grand
Canyon I asked him who he spoke for and
he said his brother Seneca Holland and
Bill Dunn three of them so we had supper
and then every man bedded down and I
went to each one of them and I asked
each one separately what he thought and
everyone but those three said they would
see it through that they weren’t going
to quit that they wanted to go on so
then I went back and woke up or
mulholland and pleaded with him a little
tried to persuade him and he said he
could not be persuaded and he knew that
Seneca and Bill Dunn were finished also
here’s what I wrote we have another
little talk about tomorrow and he lies
down again but for me there is no sleep
all night long I pace up and down a few
yards of sand beach along by the river
is it wise to go on I go to the boats
again to look at our rations
I feel certain we can get beyond the
dangers immediately before us but what
may be below
I know not from our position yesterday
high up on the cliffs the river seemed
to make another Great Bend to the south
which from our experience heretofore
means more and higher granite walls I’m
not sure we can climb out of the canyon
here and when at the top of the wall I
know enough of the surrounding
countryside to be certain that it is a
desert of rock and sand between this and
the nearest Mormon village which on the
most direct line must be at least 75
miles away true the late rains have been
favorable to us should we climb out for
the chances are we shall find water
standing in pools and at one time I
almost decide to leave the river but for
years I have been contemplating this
trip to say there is a part of the
canyon I cannot explore a part of the
Colorado I cannot run having already
almost accomplished it is more than I am
willing to acknowledge and I determined
to go on the breakfast was like a
funeral
we made all the rest of our flour into
biscuits two little piles and put them
one for the those who were leaving on
the other for the rest of us we gave
them rifles and ammunition all of our
valuables gold watches and any rings
that we had because we were pretty
certain we weren’t going to make it and
letters to our families and then we said
farewell and shook hands to the the best
men you could ever meet in your life and
we watched as they began to to scramble
up the North Face of the Grand Canyon
now
we had no choice but to face this thing
and Bradley agreed to go first and one
of the boats we abandoned the Emma Dean
now so now we have to leaky boats left
and Bradley said he would go first to
take a look and so we lined him down
with all the rope we still had in our
possession got him as far out on that
Herculean rapid as we could and he was
going to look to see what it looks like
down river but the Colorado began to
sway his boat back and forth like a
pendulum and it was riding from one
cliff to the other hitting the wall and
then hitting the other wall and it was
certain that he would be smashed to
smithereens and so he took out his knife
and he cut the rope over the falls he
went we were certain he was dead and a
minute or two later his boat popped up
and he was alive and he waved his hat
like a rodeo cowboy and now we did the
stupidest thing we ever did the rest of
us gotten the other boat without
anything he just did it we just popped
over the thing it was insane and we were
half drowned and waterlogged and was
scrambled to shore we got out the rifles
and fired repeatedly as a signal to the
men if they couldn’t decline back down
and join us
but they didn’t whether they heard us
didn’t come or whether they didn’t hear
us at all we never learned and there was
one more significant rapid and then we
were out then we were at grande wash
cliffs and from 6,000 feet the cliffs
diminished to nothing and I wrote one of
the last entries in my diary I said ever
before us has been an unknown danger
heavier than the immediate peril every
waking hour we have spent in the Grand
Canyon has been one of toil we have
watched with deep
solicitude the steady disappearance of
our scant supply of rations and from
time to time have watched as the river
snatched away a little that was left to
us while we were hungry and toil and
danger have been known in those great
depths were off times clouds hid the sky
by day and but a narrow zone of stars
could be seen at night only during the
few hours of deep sleep consequent on
hard labor as the roar of the waters
been hushed but now the danger is over
now the toil has ceased now the gloom
has disappeared and now the firmament is
bounded only by the far horizon and what
a vast expanse of stars can now be seen
the river rolls by in silent majesty the
silence of our camp is sweet our joy is
almost ecstasy we sit up to after
midnight talking talking of the Grand
Canyon talking of home and talking
principally of the three men who left us
are they wandering around and these
great depths unable to find their way
out
are they scouring the plateau above in
search of water or as we hope are they
nearing the Mormon villages well when we
came out at grande wash cliffs there
were five men waiting for us four men
and a boy four of them were Mormons and
one was an Indian and they had been sent
by Bringham young I was a friend of
young he knew what we were doing and he
had sent them either to rescue us or to
pick up whatever was left and so they
helped us gave us food this was the end
of the journey for my brother Walter and
me we made our way overland to Salt Lake
City where we learned from the national
press that the entire expedition had
perished in the canyon of lador
when I got back to civilization and
corrected the erroneous Press reports I
found that I was a hero even a national
hero and Congressman wanted to talk with
me and give me money and find places for
me in Washington and fund for future
expeditions well let me just tie up this
one loose end the three men or Milland
Seneca Howland and Bill Dunn were able
to climb out they climbed a mile
straight up when they got to the to the
North Rim of the Grand Canyon they made
their way towards those settlements
nobody knows what happened but they died
I went back the following year to see if
I could make sense of it and it appears
that they had some sort of a dark
encounter with a group of ship wits
Indians the ship wits told me that
somebody had raped a young ship witch
girl and that they reckoned that these
were the culprits and so executed them
when I told them that that could not
have happened the ship withs apologized
and made a ceremony of reconciliation
nobody knows for sure but they died I
repeated the expedition in 1871 and 1872
with better boats and more science I
think we’ll stop at this point because
we’re out of time but here’s what I’m
going to do with that if you don’t mind
I’m going to remove this disgusting gear
you
you
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