Abstract
To the south of Salt Lake and the Mormon Territory lies a dreary series of plateaux traversed by the Colorado river and its tributaries, which bear their burthen of waters into the Gulf of California. Though this region possesses many considerable streams; it is over large areas a kind of desolate wilderness, for instead of irrigating the ground these streams flow in profound gorges, which serve as natural drains to carry off the water which may fall upon the tablelands. Many fabulous tales have been told of these regions, their natural marvels receiving many amplifications as they came to be rehearsed by Indians, trappers, and adventurous wanderers into the far west. In 1857 the Government of the United States despatched an expedition to explore that little known portion of the Continent, and the report published by the expedition in 1861 gave the first trustworthy and detailed account of the Colorado region. The truth turned out to be almost stranger than the fiction. A vast territory was found to be intersected by ravines leading into the main line of gorges of the Colorado. These ravines, or cañons as they are termed, meander over the table-land as rivers do over alluvial meadows; but they are thousands of feet deep—hundreds of miles long, and so numerous that the country traversed by them is said to be impassable, save to the fowls of the air.
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GEIKIE, A. Cañons . Nature 1, 435–436 (1870). https://doi.org/10.1038/001435a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/001435a0