th of the
Virgen, Wheeler entered the canyon through the Virgen Mountains, and
this he named Virgin Canyon because, as he says, it was his "first
canyon on entirely new ground." I am at a loss to understand his
meaning. If he intended to convey the impression that he was the first
to traverse this portion, it is an unwarranted assumption, and must be
emphatically condemned. Powell had descended as far as the Virgen, and
thus Wheeler was simply following his course backwards.

Passing through another small unnamed canyon, to which he applied
the term Iceberg on account of the contour of its northern walls, he
finally, on October 3d, came to the Grand Wash. On the next day the
Ute Crossing near the beginning of the Grand Canyon was reached. Two or
three days before this he could see what seemed to be a high range of
mountains apparently perpendicular, which was, as he surmised, the
foot of the Grand Canyon. Progress was now very slow, for the river was
swifter than it had been below. Perceiving the impossibility of taking
such a craft farther, the barge was left behind at the Crossing, to form
a base of supplies in case the difficulties of ascending necessitated
falling back. Relief parties from the rendezvous at Truxton Springs
were to go, one to the mouth of the canyon and the other to the mouth of
Diamond Creek, about thirty-five miles distant from the Springs, but the
situation was complicated by these parties having no orders to wait at
these points. Putting all of his land force who were at the canyon mouth
on the south side of "this turbid, unmanageable stream," and picking
three crews of nine persons each, with rations for fifteen days, he
was ready to go ahead with this unwise enterprise, "imagining," as he
admits, "but few of the many difficulties that were to be met." It was
on October 7th that they entered the mouth of the great gorge. At length
"a full view, magnificent beyond description, of the walls of the Grand
Canyon" was had, and they were fairly on the road; as rough a road,
going down, as one can well imagine, but going up in the teeth of the
torrential rapids, hemmed in by close granite walls, it is about as near
the impossible as anything that is not absolutely so could be. Wheeler
certainly deserves credit for one thing in this haphazard affair, and
that is for a splendid courage and abundant nerve, in which he was well
supported by Gilbert's cool fortitude and indomitable spirit. Once, when
I was