in getting out the cargo, losing only two sacks of
provisions, but though they laboured till dark they
were not able to move the boat. Giving her up
for lost, they tried to secure a night’s rest
on the sharp rocks. Had a great rise in the river
occurred now the party would have been in a terrible
predicament, but though it rose a few days later it
spared them on this occasion. It came up only
two feet, and this was a kindness, for it lifted the
Marie so that they were able to pull her out of the
vise. When they saw her condition, however, they
were dismayed for one side was half gone, and the
other was smashed in. The keel remained whole.
By cutting four feet out of the centre and drawing
the ends together, five days’ hard work made
practically another boat. They were then able
to proceed, and, going past Bright Angel Creek, arrived
on February 6th at what Stanton describes as “the
most powerful and unmanageable rapid” on the
river. This, I believe, was the place where we
were capsized. Thompson at that time, before
we ran it, declared it looked to him like the worst
rapid we had encountered but at the stage of water
then prevailing we could not get near it. Stanton
wisely made a portage, of the supplies and let the
boats down by lines. His boat, the Bonnie Jean,
played all sorts of pranks, rushing out into the current,
ducking and diving under water, and finally floating
down sideways. Then they thought they would try
what Stanton calls Powell’s plan of shooting
a boat through and catching it below. Such a
harum-scarum method was never used on our expedition,
and I never heard Powell suggest that it was on the
first. Stanton cites as authority one of Powell’s
statements in the Report. At any rate in this
instance it was as disastrous as might have been expected.
The poor Marie was again the sufferer, and came out
below “in pieces about the size of toothpicks.”
The Lillie was then carried down and reached the river
beyond in safety. A day or two after this McDonald
decided to leave the party, and started up a little
creek coming in from the north, to climb out to the
plateau, and make his way to Kanab. This he succeeded
in doing after several days of hard work and tramping
through the heavy snow on the plateau. The other
ten men concluded to remain with Stanton and they
all went on in the two boats. Several days later
they passed the mouth of the Kanab. The terrible
First Granite Gorge was well behind them. But
now the river began to rise. Before reaching
the Kanab it rose four feet and continued to rise
for two days and nights, altogether some ten or twelve
feet. A little below the Kanab, where the canyon
is very narrow, they came upon a peculiar phenomenon.
They heard a loud roar and saw breakers ahead.
Thinking it a bad rapid, they landed immediately on
some rocks, and, going along these to examine the
place, the breakers had disappeared, but as they stood
in amazement there suddenly arose at their feet the
same huge waves, twelve or fifteen feet high and one


