aims
Three--Collapse of the Expedition--Stanton Tries the Feat Again,
1889-90--A Fall and a Broken Leg--Success of Stanton--The Dragon Still
Untrammelled.

The topographic, geologic, and geodetic work of the survey did not cease
with our departure from the river, but was continued in the remarkable
country shown in the relief map opposite page 41, till the relationships
and distances of the various features were established and reduced to
black and white. That autumn, while we were engaged in these labours,
Wheeler, with an elaborate outfit, entered the region, pursuing his
desultory operations; and, drifting along the north side of the Grand
Canyon for a little distance, he proceeded to the neighbourhood of St.
George. The following year, for some unknown purpose, he crossed
the Colorado at the Paria, though he knew that Powell's parties had
previously mapped this area. When the winter of 1872-73 had fairly set
in we established a permanent camp at Kanab, where, under Thompson's
always efficient direction, our triangulations and topographic notes
were plotted on paper, making the first preliminary map of that country.
When this was ready, Hillers and I took it, and crossing the southern
end of the High Plateaus, then deep with snow, we rode by way of the
Sevier Valley to Salt Lake, where the map was sent on by express to
Washington, whither Powell had already gone.

Seventeen years passed away before any one again tried to navigate the
Colorado. The settling of the country, the knowledge of it Powell had
published, the completion of the Southern Pacific Railway to Yuma in
1877, and of the Atlantic and Pacific from Isleta to The Needles, in
1880-83, and of the Rio Grande Western across the Green at Gunnison
Valley, simplified travel in the Basin of the Colorado. A new railway
was then proposed from Grand Junction, Colorado, down the Colorado
River, through the Canyons to the Gulf of California, a distance of
twelve hundred miles. At that time coal was a difficult article to
procure on the Pacific Coast, and it was thought that this "water-level"
road, crossing no mountains, would be profitable in bringing the coal of
Colorado to the Golden Gate. At present coal in abundance is to be had
in the Puget Sound region, and this reason for constructing a Grand
Canyon railway is done away with. There is nothing to support a railway
through the three hundred miles of the great gorge (or through the other
two hundred miles of c