r banks, or in
waters deepened by their clever dams. Otter, too, were there. The larger
rivers are not favourable for fish on account of the vast amount of
sediment, but in the smaller, especially in the mountain streams, trout
were abundant. In Green River occurs a salmon-trout attaining a length
of at least four feet. This is also found in the Colorado proper, where
another fish, with a humpback, is to be caught. I do not know the name
of this, but imagine it the same as has in latter days been called
"squaw-fish."

All over the region the rocks are seamed by mineral veins. Some of these
have already poured forth millions of dollars, while others await a
discoverer. On the river itself gold is found in the sands; and the
small alluvial bottoms that occur in Glen Canyon, and a few gravel bars
in the Grand, have been somewhat profitably worked, though necessarily
on a small scale. The granite walls of the Grand Canyon bear innumerable
veins, but as prospecting is there so difficult it will be many a long
year before the best are found. The search for mineral veins has done
much to make the farther parts known, just as the earlier search for
beaver took white men for the first time into the fastnesses of the
great mountains, and earlier the effort to save the souls of the natives
marked their main trails into the wilderness.

This sketch of the Basin of the Colorado is most inadequate, but the
scope of this volume prevents amplification in this direction. These few
pages, however, will better enable the reader to comprehend the labours
of the padres, the trappers, and the explorers, some account of whose
doings is presented in the following chapters.*

* In connection with the subject of erosion and corrasion the reader
is advised to study the following works, which are the standards: The
Exploration of the Colorado of the West, and the Geology of the Uinta
Mountains, by J. W. Powell; The Henry Mountains, by G. K. Gilbert; The
Geology of the High Plateaus of Utah, and The Tertiary History of the
Grand Canyon District, by C. E. Dutton.

CHAPTER IV

Onate, 1604, Crosses Arizona to the Colorado--A Remarkable Ancient Ruin
Discovered by Padre Kino, 1694--Padre Garces Sees the Grand Canyon and
Visits Oraibi, 1776--The Great Entrada of Padre Escalante across Green
River to Utah Lake, 1776--Death of Garces Ends the Entrada Period, 1781.

In the historical development of the Basin of the Colorado four, chief
epoc