canyon of similar depth
and character. This was Grand River. At last they had reached the
place where these two streams unite, thirteen hundred feet below the
surrounding country; the mysterious Junction which, so far as the
records go, Macomb and all white men before had failed to find.
Therefore when Powell and his band floated down till the waters of the
Green mingled with those of the Grand they were perhaps the first white
men ever to arrive at the spot. The Colorado proper was now before them.
It was the mystery of mysteries.

CHAPTER IX

A Canyon of Cataracts--The Imperial Chasm--Short Rations--A Split in
the Party--Separation--Fate of the Howlands and Dunn--The Monster
Vanquished.

Powell's winter of investigation had probably given him a good idea of
what kind of rapids might be expected in the formations composing the
canyons as far as the mouth of Grand River, but he now had confronting
him water which for aught he could tell might indulge in plunges of a
hundred feet or more at one time, between absolutely vertical walls.
And the aspect of the surroundings at the junction of the Green and
the Grand is not reassuring. It is a barren and dismal place, with no
footing but a few sand-banks that are being constantly cut away and
reformed by the whirling current, except on their higher levels where a
few scrawny hackberry trees and weeds find room to continue a precarious
existence. To get out of or into this locality either by climbing the
cliffs or by navigating the rivers is a difficult feat, and to trust
oneself to the current blindly rushing down toward the sea is even
worse, more especially so on the occasion of this first descent when all
beyond was a complete blank. But the party faced the future bravely and
cheerfully. They climbed out at two points on tours of inspection of the
country above, while some took the opportunity to overhaul the supply
of rations, which, having been so often wet, was seriously damaged.
The flour was musty and full of hard lumps. To eliminate the lumps,
therefore, they screened it with a piece of mosquito netting for a
sieve; at the same time they eliminated more than two hundred pounds of
the precious freight and threw this away, a foolish proceeding, for by
proper cooking it might have been utilised for food. Together with the
losses by the wreck of the No-Name and other mishaps, and with what
had been consumed, their food-supply was now reduced from the original
ten