t. No
measurement was made in the middle of the river channel. The current
here between two small rapids flows at five and three-fourths miles
per hour. The width of the stream is close to 250 feet. The high-water
mark here is forty-five feet above the low-water stage, then the river
spreads to five hundred feet in width, running with a swiftness and
strength of current and whirlpool that is tremendous. The highest
authentic measurement in a narrow channel, of which we know, is one
made by Julius F. Stone in Marble Canyon. He recorded one spot where
the high-water mark was 115 feet above the low-water mark. These
figures might look large at first, but if they are compared with some
of the floods on the Ohio River, for instance, and that stream were
boxed in a two hundred foot channel the difference would not be great,
we imagine.

One of the young men who greeted us when we landed came down with a
companion to see us embark. On the plateau 1300 feet above, looking
like small insects against the sky-line, was a trail party, equally
interested. They did not stand on the point usually visited by such
parties but had gone to a point about a mile to the west, where they
had a good view of a short, rough rapid, the little rapid below the
trail, while it was no place that one would care to swim in, had no
comparison with this other rapid in violence. We had promised the
party that we would run this rapid that afternoon, so we spent little
time in packing systematically, but hurriedly threw the stuff in and
embarked. Less than an hour later we had made the two-mile run and the
dash through the short rapid, to the entire satisfaction of all
concerned.

We camped a short distance below the rapid, just opposite a grave of a
man whose skeleton had been found halfway up the granite, five years
before. Judging by his clothes and hob-nailed shoes he was a
prospector. He was lying in a natural position, with his head resting
on a rock. An overcoat was buttoned tightly about him. No large bones
were broken, but he might have had a fall and been injured internally.
More likely he became sick and died. The small bones of the hands and
feet had been taken away by field-mice, and no doubt the
turkey-buzzards had stripped the flesh. His pockets contained Los
Angeles newspapers of 1900; he was found in 1906. The pockets also
contained a pipe and a pocket-knife, but nothing by which he could be
identified. The coroner's jury--of which my br