Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 November 1879 — The Wonders of Colorado. [ARTICLE]

The Wonders of Colorado.

The Academy of Sciences held the regular monthly session on Monday night. After the presentation and explanation of donations, Major Powell, of the United States Geological Survey, was called upon for some remarks on his recent explorations and travels through the canyons of Colorado. Major Powell obligingly responded. The lower third of Colorado, he said, lies but little above the level of the sea, while the upper two-thirds has an elevation of from 4,000 to 8,000 feet. Out of this basin or plateau rise snow-clad mountains to an altitude of from 10,000 to 14,000 feet. Hardly any rain falls upon this upper basin of mountains. But in winter immense drifts of snow cover these eternal rocks. When in summer this snow commences to melt, ten thousand cascades and little streams are formed. They plunge down the rocky mountain-sides, cut their courses through the immense plateaus, and gradually run as swift rivers throdgh the silent region. They cut deep channels through the rocks, so that the beds of these rivers are variously from 600 to 7,000 feet below the general surface of the plateaus. For 200 miles the Green and Grand Rivers run in a channel cut to the depth of a mile. The whole upper two-thirds of Colorado is cut up by gorges and canyons, so that the country is almost impassable. There are no evidences that these canyons are formed by upheavals of huge masses of rocks, but they are all caused by the slow but perpetual action of the mountainstreams. If 150 mountains like Mt. Washington were plucked up by the root, they would not fill the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. The fall of this river is very great, and differs from 25 to 200 feet per mile; it is therefore not navigable. Moreover, for 1,000 miles along the Colorado River there is no place where a town or farm could be located, for the river is entirely un approachable for that whole distance. These canyons have carried away vast areas of sediment. The whole region has become one of naked rocks. Geological studies can here be made with certainty; every stratum can be measured. Nature lies before us like an open book. The amount of material carried away by this river is as laige as a rock 600 met in depth covering the States of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, or large as California and Nevada. This vast amount of rock the storms of ages have hurled off. The rivers of Colorado are older than the valleys and mountains. Gradually, as the mountains rose, the rivers cut their way through them. The stratification of these rocks is never sweeping, but always vertically broken, rising or falling abruptly from 100 to 20,000 feet. These strata are always horizontal, and sometimes there are found zones of rocks twenty miles in width broken into irregular fragments. The Colorado River carries about as much water as the Ohio at Louisville. Where the rock is soft, it forms a broad, wide river; but whqn it passes through basalt its channel is narrowed down to sixty or seventy feet, and through it this vast volume of water plunges and rushes in a mad, wild ana irresistible stream, that would carry anything before it. Sometimes, when a storm arises and heavy showers fall, this mile-deep channel of the river is filled in an incredibly short time to a height of hundreds of feet, and the torrent sweeps through it at a most terrific rate. There; are, However, no vertical falls of any magnitude in the Colorado. Most Interesting to the explorers are the thousands of ancient ruins found throughout the whole region. These habitations are built of stone, and often reach a height of seven stories, At the

heads of the streams forming the Colorado are the most ancient of these rains, while farther down in the deep cliffs and canyons they apparently belong to a later period. It seems that the people were driven from the beautiful valleys above to seek protection on these high cliffs, which were better adapted for defense. —San Francisco Chronicle.