overhead. The rounded, basin-shaped bottom is filled with
water to the foot of the walls. There is no shelf by which we can pass
around the foot. If we swim across we meet with a face of rock hundreds
of feet high, over which a little rill glides, and it will be impossible
to climb. So we can go no farther up this canyon. Then we turn back and
examine the walls on either side carefully, to discover, if possible,
some way of climbing out. In this search every man takes his own course,
and we are scattered. I almost abandon the idea of getting out and am
engaged in searching for fossils, when I discover, on the north, a
broken place lip which it may be possible to climb. The way for a
distance is up a slide of rocks; then up an irregular amphitheater, on
points that form steps and give handhold; and then I reach a little
shelf, along which I walk, and discover a vertical fissure parallel to
the face of the wall and reaching to a higher shelf. This fissure is
narrow and I try to climb up to the bench, which is about 40 feet
overhead. I have a barometer on my back, which rather impedes my
climbing. The walls of the fissure are of smooth limestone, offering
neither foothold nor handhold. So I support myself by pressing my back
against one wall and my knees against the other, and in this way lift my
body, in a shuffling manner, a few inches at a time, until I have made
perhaps 25 feet of the distance, when the crevice widens a little and I
cannot press my knees against the rock in front with sufficient power to
give me support in lifting my body; so I try to go back. This I cannot
do without falling. So I struggle along sidewise farther into the
crevice, where it narrows. But by this time my muscles are exhausted,
and I cannot climb longer; so I move still a little farther into the
crevice, where it is so narrow and wedging that I can lie in it, and
there I rest. Five or ten minutes of this relief, and up once more I go,
and reach the bench above. On this I can walk for a quarter of a mile,
till I come to a place where the wall is again broken down, so I can
climb up still farther; and in an hour I reach the summit. I hang up my
barometer to give it a few minutes' time to settle, and occupy myself in
collecting resin from the pinon pines, which are found in great
abundance. One of the principal objects in making this climb was to get
this resin for the purpose of smearing our boats; but I have with me no
means of carrying it do