ate of the original exploration. Mr. Garfield was
chairman of the committee, and after listening to my account of the
progress of the geographic and geologic work, he asked me why no history
of the original exploration of the canyons had been published. I
informed him that I had no interest in that work as an adventure, but
was interested only in the scientific results, and that these results
had in part been published and in part were in course of publication.
Thereupon Mr. Garfield, in a pleasant manner, insisted that the history
of the exploration should be published by the government, and that I
must understand that my scientific work would be continued by additional
appropriations only upon my promise that I would publish an account of
the exploration. I made the promise, and the task was immediately
undertaken.

My daily journal had been kept on long and narrow strips of brown paper,
which were gathered into little volumes that were bound in sole leather
in camp as they were completed. After some deliberation I decided to
publish this journal, with only such emendations and corrections as its
hasty writing in camp necessitated. It chanced that the journal was
written in the present tense, so that the first account of my trip
appeared in that tense. The journal thus published was not a lengthy
paper, constituting but a part of a report entitled "Exploration of the
Colorado River of the West and its Tributaries. Explored in 1869, 1870,
1871, and 1872, under the direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution." The other papers published with it relate to the
geography, geology, and natural history of the country. And here again I
supposed all account of the exploration ended. But from that time until
the present I have received many letters urging that a popular account
of the exploration and a description of that wonderful land should be
published by me. This call has been voiced occasionally in the daily
press and sometimes in the magazines, until at last I have concluded to
publish a fuller account in popular form. In doing this I have revised
and enlarged the original journal of exploration, and have added several
new chapters descriptive of the region and of the people who inhabit it.
Realizing the difficulty of painting in word colors a land so strange,
so wonderful, and so vast in its features, in the weakness of my
descriptive powers I have sought refuge in graphic illustration, and for
this purpos