ange to White River and wintered there near the camp of Chief Douglass
and his band of Utes. When spring came in 1869 he went out to Granger,
on the Union Pacific Railway, and there disposed of his mules and
outfit, proceeding immediately to Washington, where he induced Congress
to pass a joint resolution endorsed by General Grant authorising him
to draw rations from Western army posts for a party of twelve men
while engaged in making collections for public institutions. Never was
assistance better deserved. Then he returned to Illinois and obtained
from the trustees of the Normal University permission to again divert
his salary and the other funds to Western work. The trustees of the
Illinois Industrial University allotted him five hundred dollars, and
the Chicago Academy of Sciences, through the influence of Dr. Andrews,
the curator, also contributed two hundred and fifty or five hundred
dollars. In addition some personal friends contributed small sums.

The object proposed was to make collections in natural history to be
shared accordingly with the contributing institutions. While these
collections were one of Powell's objects, others were the examination
of the geology, and particularly the solution of the greatest remaining
geographical problem of the United States, the canyons of the Green and
Colorado rivers. The Green, as has been explained in preceding pages,
was known as far as the Uinta Mountains, and here and there at widely
separated points on down to about Gunnison Valley. But there were long
gaps, and below Gunnison Crossing as far as the Grand Wash the knowledge
of the canyons as already pointed out was vague in the extreme. The
altitude of Green River Station, Wyoming, was known to be about six
thousand feet above sea level, and that of the mouth of the Virgen
less than one thousand. How the river made up this difference was
not understood and this problem was what Powell now confronted. His
fortitude, nerve, courage, and war experience served him well in this
endeavour upon which he started, as previously described, in the spring
of 1869. The War Department and perhaps the Smithsonian Institution,
furnished some instruments. This expedition met with so many disasters
that Powell deemed a second descent in the interest of science
desirable, and for a continuation of his explorations, Congress voted
in 1870 an appropriation of ten thousand dollars. This second expedition
was successful, performing its wor