Part 30

From this dark mountain-tara flows a strong outlet fed by the snows. Its whole youth lies in the depths and gloom of cañons, for range after range open their gates to let it pass, but the gates are narrow and the pathway rough. Thus this river, constantly recruited, more and more the _Grand_, fights its way from the center almost to the western edge of the state. There, when its labor is fairly done, and aid is no longer needed, comes the help of the powerful Gunnison, and doubly strong it rolls westward to the Utah line, and then southwestward till it meets the flood of the Green and both become the Rio Colorado.

Where the Gunnison now empties into the larger stream was once a wide lake embanked by the abrupt and lofty bluffs that now bound the plain, and whose mesa-top indicates the ancient level of the whole country, out of which the valleys, cañons and lake-beds were eroded.

Into this old expansion of the rivers, had been poured the freight of soil brought down from the mountain-sides, where the varied rocks were being ground to powder under the feet of glaciers, and swept along by gigantic torrents fed with endless meltings. Hither was carried by the swift waters the mingled dust and pebbles of primeval granite, volcanic overflows and sedimentary sands, lime, and argillaceous rock. It was the latest mixture of all that before this had been handled again and again through the fires that upheaved the inner ranges, and the waters that laid down the rocky tables, leaning against their flanks. Into the river-lakes went all this mixture to sink into mud upon the bottom of the quiet sea,--a union of the best elements in all the composition of the western slope of the Rockies. In the whole world you could not find a soil made after a better recipe. Slow changes in the climate proceeded, and the lake drained away and left a valley twenty-five miles long and half as wide, waiting to nourish the farmer's grain and the children's flowers.

The first requisite to adapt it to human service, however, was that the valley should be watered. Thousands of acres of good land in the Rocky mountains from Kootenai to Chihuahua remain worthless because there is not enough water available to spread over them, but at Grand Junction there is no such deficiency. The great drainage of the Grand would not miss all the water that could possibly be used. Already along its margin miles of ranches have been begun, by men digging small and temporary ditches bringing water to irrigate a single farm or a small group of fields in the bottom. These were the first comers who had choice of the whole area. Later two or three larger ditches were made having a greater scope, and now there has just been finished a waterway, led for twenty-five miles along the benches at the base of the Roan or Little Book Cliffs, bounding the plain on the north, which will bring under cultivation thirty thousand acres of valley heretofore unwatered, and may be extended when the population demands. This ditch comes out twelve miles above town. It is fifty feet wide across the top, and is thirty-five feet at the bottom; the depth is five feet, and it delivers seven hundred cubic feet of water each second, at a speed of two miles an hour, though there is only twenty-two inches of slope in each mile of length. A ditch like this costs $200,000, yet dividends are confidently expected. If anybody can invent a steamer which will not wash the banks, pleasure yachts and freight barges will be put upon it, for it is of considerably greater dimensions than the Erie Canal when first opened. There is no lack of water, therefore. Competent observers say the supply is sufficient for half a million acres, so that the intricate and expensive lawsuits vexing the farmers of the eastern slope can hardly arise here. This abundance is a matter of vital importance, and an inestimable advantage. Water has a value above that of land everywhere in Colorado. Where land, in the valley of the Cache la Poudre, is valued at ten dollars per acre, a water right carries a cash valuation of fifteen dollars per acre and is more easily disposed of. The blessing attending the cultivation of the soil where the water-supply exceeds the area of land, can only be appreciated by those who have seen their crops wither for want of it.

It is only recently that this water-supply has become available, however, through the medium of the canals, for any extended farming. Large crops, therefore, cannot be expected until next year, but enough has been learned to make it sure that when the peculiarities of this adobe soil and the looser mesa soil are understood, so that the farmers may know exactly how to supply their irrigation to the best advantage, the most plentiful crops of all the cereals can be produced. We were told that the experiments right here at Grand Junction already, had yielded corn-stalks eleven feet seven inches high; a bunch of wheat having seventy-four stalks in one stool; barley with seventy-six stalks in a stool; oats five and a half feet high; Egyptian millet, one hundred and five stalks from a single seed, weighing thirty-six pounds; four cuttings of alfalfa; Irish potatoes weighing from two to four pounds apiece; cabbages from five to twenty-three pounds apiece; beets, carrots, parsnips, and all the vegetables of equally prodigious dimensions. There can be no question of the extraordinary productivity of this region, and that its agricultural future is to be a very prosperous one.

Equally large expectations are held at Grand Junction, Delta, Montrose on the North Fork, and in all the adjacent lowlands, that this whole region will prove a great fruit-bearing country. The plentitude and excellence of the wild fruits along the streams and in the foothills is remarkable, and formed one of the attractions of the reservation in the eyes of the Indian. The similarity in soil, climate and altitude to the fruit-growing region of Utah is adduced, and, in respect to grapes, peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, and all the small fruits, successful experiments have justified all the arguments. Just below Ouray, last year, a ranchman raised seven thousand quarts of strawberries for market. I saw watermelons and muskmelons growing finely on Surface creek at the foot of the Grand Mesa near Delta, and everywhere you will find young fruit trees doing well and uninjured by winter, which is always mild so far as known, the thermometer rarely indicating cold below zero, and the snowfall in the valleys being light. "This new Colorado has a climate essentially different from that of old Colorado and the country east of the Continental Divide. It is the climate of the Pacific coast modified only by altitude and latitude. The air currents come up over the valleys, plateaus, hills and mountain sides, fresh from the ocean currents that wash the Pacific shores. These ocean streams are heated under an equatorial sun and sweeping north around the circle of the earth, temper the whole western slope."

In this neighborhood, too, are splendid grazing regions, which are rapidly filling with cattle. I have before me a trustworthy scrap from the _Colorado Farmer_ on this point: "The face of the country," says the writer, referring to the hill regions of the Uncompahgre and the grand plateaus, "is gently sloping but cut by gulches, ravines and cañons; grass grows luxuriantly from the creek and river bottom to the very tops of the highest plateaus; on the higher uplands there are plenty of pine and piñon trees, in many places interspersed with cedars and aspens; many small brooks and springs course their way down the hillsides; natural shelter is found in every neighborhood from storms when they come, which is seldom. Game abounds in the greatest plenty and taken all in all, it is probably the finest stock range in the state. The quality of the grass is excellent and cures completely. It is different from the plains grass, grows tall with an abundant wealth of leaf, stem and seed. This country is to be the great cattle country of the state. The Rio Grande railway runs through it and will carry the fattened beeves to the market of the mountains and to Denver and even start them on their way to the great markets of the East. There are already cattle there and they are but forerunners of the thousands yet to come."

The important point is, that the wide mountain areas insure summer pasturage without driving to great distances; while the valleys afford good winter grazing. I have been in every cattle region in the United States, and I never saw anywhere such magnificent grass as I have ridden through for miles and miles along the upper part of Surface creek in Delta county. When the herds have so increased that the winter pasturage falls short--some years must elapse before that--the valley lands will furnish an abundance of millet, oats, alfalfa and other grasses, by means of the inexhaustible supply of water which is possible for irrigation.

As further aids to her progress, Grand Junction has easy access to coal, both hard and soft; has limestone in great abundance, and excellent white sandstone for building purposes; while the soil is adapted for making sun-dried adobes or for being made into burned brick, of which material most of the buildings and many of the sidewalks in town are now constructed. Game is common in the neighboring mountains, especially throughout the great wilderness which stretches northwest, and the rivers abound in edible fishes.

At length there comes a day when we are ready to leave Grand Junction and "go West." It is a long ride that lies ahead and we turn our parlor car into a sleeper by setting up the cots and curtains that have not been needed for several weeks. It is late in the afternoon, and when the morrow's light dawns we shall be out of Colorado and among the lakes and deserts, the mountains and Mormons of Utah.

XXXII

GREEN RIVER.

And then the moon like a goddess came Over the mountains far, Wrapping her mantle of silver light Over each golden star; And the cliffs grew grand in the dazzling light, High as the skies, and still and white. --FANNIE I. SHERRICK.

The sweet clear twilight was fading from the cliffs, and had long since left the valley, when it came time to leave Grand Junction. The rising moon beckoned us on, however, and we look forward with eagerness to our journey, for to-night we are to cross "the desert," to span the cañon-begirt current of Green river, and beheld the mountains of Utah. Doubtless the silent hours of the dog watch would finally close our eyelids; but now we bade Bert be sure that the lamps in the parlor car were well filled and trimmed, for none of us would confess the least desire for sleep.

In a short time the valley of Grand Junction had been left behind, and we quickly passed through the gravelly, grass-covered hills that lie between the river and the cliffs in this region. It was not quite dark, therefore, when all this had disappeared, and our train ran in a swift straight course across an open and level, though by no means smooth plain. Northward it was bounded at a few miles distant by the frowning and banded wall of the Book cliffs, colorless now in the wan light, but distinct in their majestic outline; southward it stretched to the horizon, save where it was broken by the splendid file of the Sierra La Sal--an isolated group of eruptive mountains singularly graceful in contours. The surface of the ground was drab or blue or yellow in color, nowhere quite flat, but divided into low, rounded ridges and conical mounds, by the shallow dry channels, down which have coursed the waters of the powerful storms that at long intervals burst over the desert. Stimulated by the occasional moisture in these channels, a few spears of grass and twigs of wormwood are thrust up through the soil, along their depressions; but between--over the general face of the country,--not a sign of water, vegetation, or animal life appears. It is the repose of utter silence and quietude, a netherworld only half lighted by the worn-out moon. Yet it has a fearful beauty, found in the magnitude of the space--the grandeur of the huge rocky masses faintly but continuously outlined against the bright sky north of us--the wide realms of gray darkness southward--the marvelous brilliance of the moon--the luminous glory of the overspreading dome, unbroken from horizon to horizon, almost as at sea, and so seeming really a part of the globe and not an external thing. These things impress us greatly and emphasize the sense of loneliness and remoteness. No other railway journey in the country, I believe, could reproduce as this does the impressions of an ocean-voyage.

At Grand Junction we leave the Grand river, though our course for some miles is parallel with it and not far remote. Skirting the edge of the great Uncompahgre plateau which lies between the Uncompahgre and Gunnison rivers and the Rio Dolores, the river flows west and southwest through deep gorges in the Jurassic and Triassic rocks as far as the mouth of the Dolores. This river comes in from the southeast, taking its origin in the Sierra de La Plata, and running a most picturesque course. Through its mouth it is supposed the Gunnison, before it was deflected toward its more northern outlet by the slow upheaval of the plateau, once flowed by the way of a cañon which connects the present valleys of the two rivers. This deserted cañon was called by the Utes Unaweep (Red Rock), describing the scenery it presents. The granite rises vertically from the bottom of the valley, in narrow, bas-relief columns, for some hundreds of feet; above, the beds of red sandstone cap it in broken precipices. In some places massive promontories of the granite, whose slow elevation has raised the whole breadth of the plateau upon its shoulders, juts out into the valley worn down through it. The scenery reminds one strongly of the Yosemite.

In the acute angle between the Rio Dolores and the southward bending Grand lies the Sierra La Sal,--a center of drainage in all directions. It is a mass of volcanic rocks thrust up from beneath. Like the Henry mountains, the Sierra Abajo and other groups of that region, these peaks were once covered by a great thickness of sedimentary strata bent over them; but they have been cleaned away, leaving the hard core of porphyritic rock exposed. The original shape of the upthrust was probably that of a huge dome, but the tooth of time has gnawed it into a score or more of clustered mountains rising eight and nine thousand feet above the level of the adjacent rivers. Yet there is no doubt that the summits of mountains like these, as I remarked of the elevations about Abiquiu in New Mexico, mark the depressions in the primitive surface before this prodigious work of erosion and corrosion had begun. One of the streams flows with strong brine, suggesting the name Salt mountains to the group; but the rest give pure, sweet currents when they flow at all, which with many of them is only for a few hours following a storm. The source of Salt creek is in Sinbad's valley,--a steep-walled nook in the mountain-side abounding in crystallized salt.

After receiving the Dolores the Grand river flows straight southwest to its junction with the Green, burying itself at first in a deep, narrow, winding cañon in the red beds, then emerging into a valley of erosion surrounded by tremendous cliffs of deep red sandstone, 1,600 to 2,500 feet high, carved in fantastic forms. It rose 8,150 feet above the sea, 350 miles away; it has fallen to 3,900 feet, or an average of more than ten feet in every mile, and delivers to the Rio Colorado about 5,000 cubic feet of water every second. Considering this weight and speed we need not wonder at the profound cañons it has cut, and is still chiseling deeper and deeper, nearly keeping pace with the slow elevation of the land.

The line of ragged, roan-tinted, book-edged cliffs on the north, behind whose battlements stretched an invisible plateau of broken wilderness, covered with grass, but almost treeless and waterless, where the traveler must not leave the Indian trails,--this line of massive and vari-colored cliffs stretched all the way to Green river (and far beyond it,) rising there into the loftier and bluer bluffs which have been named Azure, and, in the sunlight, seemed carved from cobalt. Between their towering portals, through the corridors of Gray cañon, came the yellow flood of the Green river, sweeping with enormous power from north to south, and crossed by us toward midnight upon a long and lofty bridge. We looked down with eager eyes upon its swift flood of chocolate-colored water, half as broad as the Missouri--twice as deep and impetuous. We wished it had been daylight, that the pregnant mysteries of the half-darkness might be revealed, wherein distant forms full of curious interest were dimly suggested. They told us that here, at noonday, the passenger upon the railway can see the summits of the broken walls that form the Grand cañons of the Colorado, fifty miles to the south.

But all the "grand cañons" are not away in the southern drylands. The whole track of Green river from its birth to its death runs in gorges whose depth and splendor excite our amazement. There are few rivers in the world that have a history so striking; and if, as is fair, we count it one stream from the Wind River mountains to the Pacific, the mighty river is without a peer in its erosive work.

Its source is at the southwestern corner of Yellowstone park, in Wyoming; its mouth, two thousand miles southward, at the head of the Gulf of California. The present writer pens with gratification the record that he has seen both these points. Its upper course lies in open, or wooded valleys, where sparkling, trout-haunted rapids alternate with pools in whose mirror-smooth surface the images of fleecy clouds play with the tremulous forms of snowy peaks. Then it learns lessons for the hard-working future among the plains and buttes of southern Wyoming, cutting through its first obstacle where the Alcove bluffs rear their gaudy crests abreast of Bitter creek.

Here is a little village, settled long ago by emigrants and cattle-breeders, and here, in 1869, Major J. W. Powell, now Director of the United States Geological Survey, and chief of the Bureau of Ethnology, began his celebrated exploration of the river in small boats, which ultimately navigated all the thousand miles of almost continuous cañons that lay unexplored, uncanny and perilous before them. Wonderful stories of it were believed by the frontiersmen. Boats, they told Major Powell, had been carried into overwhelming whirlpools, or had been sucked with fearful velocity underground, never to reappear, for the river was lost in subterranean channels for hundreds of miles. Falls were reported, whose roaring music could be heard on distant mountain-tops; and the walls were so steep in the desert, that persons wandering on the brink had died of thirst, vainly endeavoring to reach the waters they could see below. The Indians believed the river had been rolled into an old trail that once led from their hard home to the beautiful balmy land of the Hereafter in the great west, in order to keep them away until death gave their release.

Undeterred by these tales, the explorers started. Their story has been told by Major Powell himself in his report to the government, and in magazine articles. Before him Macomb, Ives, and Newburry had seen the southern gorges; since then Dutton, Homes and others of the Geological Surveys have surveyed, mapped and sketched the strange scenery of that strange river. Yet to no one can anything but seeing with his own eyes bring more than the faintest conception of the reality. And here we are, at midnight, in the very midst of it--northward and southward lie the profound chasms, the immeasurable and uncountable cliffs;--under our feet flows the mighty river that carved them out and connects them into one.

What a voyage was that of Powell's! The fantastic architecture of the Alcove foothills, with the gleaming points of the Uinta range in the south; the ever-changing panorama of the badlands--scenery for Hades; the vermillion gateway opened through the snow-capped mountains, called Flaming Gorge, where lies a vast amphi-theatre, each step built of naked red sandstone, and a glacis clothed with verdure! Then the cautious advance, after letting the unladen boats down with ropes over foaming rapids; threading gorge and cañon and flume, each characteristic in some new way, and separated by little parks and lowlands filled with trees and quaintly shaped rocks from the next; always hemmed in by lofty and brilliant walls; on to the Cañon of Lodore and Ashley's Falls where years ago a party of men were drowned and where Powell loses one of his boats. "Just before us," he says at one point, "the cañon divides, a little stream coming down on the right, and another on the left, and we can look away up either of these cañons, through an ascending vista, to cliffs and crags and towers, a mile back, and two thousand feet over head. To the right a dozen gleaming cascades are seen. Pines and firs stand on the rocks, and aspens overhang the brooks. The rocks below are red and brown, set in deep shadows, but above they are buff and vermillion, and stand in the sunshine. The light above, made more brilliant by the bright-tinted rocks, and the shadows below more gloomy by the somber hues of the brown walls, increase the apparent depth of the cañons.... Never before have I received such an impression of the vast heights of these cañon walls; not even at the Cliff of the Harp, where the very heavens seemed to rest on their summits."

Below the Cañon of Lodore was found the wonderful Echo Rock, where the Yampa enters; next the Whirlpool, where the boats waltz down the tortuous and bowlder-strewn rapids in a merry dance of eddies over which the oars have no control. "What a headlong ride it is! Shooting past rocks and islands! I am soon filled with an exhilaration only experienced before in riding a fleet horse over the outstretched prairie." Passing through the "broad, flaring, brilliant gateway" of Split mountain, and down a series of rapids in a more open region, the mouths of the White and Uinta rivers are passed, and the river brings them to the chaotic scenery of the Cañon of Desolation.

This cañon is very tortuous, and many lateral cañons enter on either side. The great plateau, in which they are sunken, extends across the river east and west from the foot of the Colorado Rockies to the base of the Wasatch. It is eight thousand feet above the sea, and therefore in a region of moisture, as is attested by the forests and grassy vales. On these high table lands elk and deer abound, and they are favorite hunting-grounds for the Utes, whose trails cross them. Nothing of this, however, is seen from the river level, where the voyager is surrounded by a wilderness of gray and brown crags. "In several places," says Powell, "these lateral cañons are only separated from each other by narrow walls, often hundreds of feet high, but so narrow in places, that where softer rocks are found below, they have crumbled away and left holes in the wall, forming passages from one cañon into another.... Piles of broken rock lie against these walls; crags and tower-shaped peaks are seen everywhere; and away above them long lines of broken cliffs, and above and beyond the cliffs are pine forests.... A few dwarf bushes are seen here and there, and cedars grow from the crevices--not like the cedars of a land refreshed with rains, great cones bedecked with spray, but ugly clumps, like war clubs beset with spines."