our boats, four and one-half feet beam, and twenty-two inches deep, and each weighed 850 pounds.  They were built of half-inch oak, on plans furnished by Stanton, with ribs one-and-one-half by three-quarters of an inch, placed four inches apart, all copper fastened.  Each boat had ten separate air-tight galvanised-iron compartments running around the sides, and they were so arranged that the canned goods could be put under the foot-boards for ballast.  There was a deck fore and aft, and there were life-lines along the sides.  They were certainly excellent boats, and while in some respects I think our model was better, especially because the two transverse bulkheads amidships in ours tended to make their sides very strong and stiff, yet these boats of Stanton’s were so good that the men would be safe as long as they handled them correctly.  Cork life-preservers of the best quality were provided, and the order was for each man to wear his whenever in rough or uncertain water.  All stores and provisions were packed in water-tight rubber bags, made like ocean mail-sacks, expressly for the purpose.  The expedition was thus well provided.

From the railway* the boats were hauled on waggons to the mouth of Crescent Creek near Fremont River, so as to avoid doing Cataract Canyon over again.  There were twelve men, of whom four had been with the Brown party.  They were R. B. Stanton, Langdon Gibson, Harry McDonald, and Elmer Kane, in boat No. 1, called the Bonnie Jean, John Hislop F. A. Nims, Reginald Travers, and W. H. Edwards in boat No. 2, called the Lillie; and A. B. Twining, H. G. Ballard, L. G. Brown, and James Hogue, the cook, in the Marie, boat No. 3.  Christmas dinner was eaten at Lee’s Ferry, with wild flowers picked that day for decoration.  On the 28th they started into the great canyon, passed the old wreck of a boat and part of a miner’s outfit, and on the 3ist reached the rapid where Brown was lost.  It was now the season of low water, and the rapid appeared less formidable, though on entering it the place was seen to be in general the same, yet the water was nine feet lower.  The next day Nims, the photographer, fell from a ledge a distance of twenty-two feet, receiving a severe jar and breaking one of his legs just above the ankle.  The break was bandaged, and one of the boats being so loaded that there was a level bed for the injured man to lie on, they ran down about two miles to a side canyon coming in from the north.  By means of this Stanton climbed out, walked thirty-five miles to Lee’s Ferry, and brought a waggon back to the edge.  Nims was placed on an improvised stretcher, and carried up the cliffs, four miles in distance and seventeen hundred feet in altitude.  At half-past three in the afternoon the surface was reached.  Twice the stretcher had to be swung along by ropes where there was no footing, and twice had to be perpendicularly lifted ten or fifteen feet.  No one was injured.  Nims was taken to Lee’s Ferry and left with W. M. Johnson, who had been a member of our land parties during the winter of 1871-72, and who had come with the Canonita party through Glen Canyon.  Nims was in good hands.  After this accident Stanton was obliged to assume the duties of photographer and took some seven hundred and fifty views without previous experience.