A Canyon through Marble—Multitudinous Rapids—Running the Sockdologer—A Difficult Portage, Rising Water, and a Trap—The Dean Upside Down—A Close Shave—Whirlpools and Fountains—The Kanab Canyon and the End of the Voyage.
By referring to the relief map opposite page 41, the mouth of the Paria is seen a trifle more than half-way up the right-hand side. The walls of Glen Canyon here recede from the river and become on the south the Echo Cliffs, taking the name from the Echo Peaks which form their beginning, and on the north the Vermilion Cliffs, so called by Powell because of their bright red colour. The latter, and the canyon of the Paria, make the edges of the great mesa called the Paria Plateau, and, running on north to the very head of the Kaibab uplift, strike off south-westerly to near Pipe Spring, where they turn and run in a north-west direction to the Virgen River. Between the receding lines of these cliffs, at the Paria, is practically the head of the Grand Canyon. The river at once begins an attack on the underlying strata, and the resulting canyon, while at first not more than two hundred feet deep, rapidly increases this depth, as the strata run up and the river runs down. The canyon is narrow, and seen from a height resembles, as previously mentioned, a dark serpent lying across a plain. As the formation down to the Little Colorado is mainly a fine-grained grey marble, Powell concluded to call this division by a separate name, and gave it the title it now bears, Marble Canyon. There is no separation between Marble Canyon and the following one, the Grand Canyon, except the narrow gorge of the Little Colorado, so that topographically the chasm which begins at the Paria, ends at the Grand Wash, a distance of 283 miles, as the river runs, the longest, deepest, and altogether most magnificent example of the canyon formation to be found on the globe. With an average depth of about four thousand feet, it reaches for long stretches between five thousand and six thousand. At the Paria (Lee’s Ferry) the altitude above the sea is 3170 feet, while at the end of the canyon, the Grand Wash, the elevation is only 840 feet. The declivity is thus very great (see the diagram on page 57, which gives from the Little Colorado down), the total fall being 2330 feet. Further comment on the character of the river within this wonderful gorge is unnecessary. Powell had been through it on his first expedition, and was now to make the passage again, to examine its geological and geographical features more in detail. Meanwhile, as recorded in the last chapter, Lieutenant Wheeler had made an effort, apparently to forestall this examination, and had precariously succeeded in reaching Diamond Creek, which is just at the south end of the Shewits Plateau, lower left-hand corner of the map facing page 41.