When the Civil War was finally over, the wilds of the Far West again called in seductive voice to the adventurous and the scientific.  The fur-trade as an absorbing industry was dead, but mining, prospecting, ranching, and scientific exploring took its place.  Among the naturalists who crossed the Rocky Mountains for purposes of investigation, fascinated by the broad, inviting field, was a one-armed soldier, a former officer of volunteers in the Union Army.  His right forearm had remained on the battlefield of Shiloh, but when a strong head is on the shoulders a missing arm makes little difference, and so it was with Major Powell.  In the summer of 1867, when he was examining Middle Park, Colorado, with a small party, he happened to explore a moderate canyon on Grand River just below what was known as Middle Park Hot Springs, and became enthused with a desire to fathom the Great Mystery.  Consequently, he returned the next year, made his way to the banks of White River, about 120 miles above its mouth, and there erected cabins, with the intention of remaining through the snow season till the following spring should once again unlock the frost-gates of the range.  There being now no bison trails hard-beaten into the snow, it was a more difficult undertaking to cross, except in summer.  Mrs. Powell was with the party.

During this winter of 1868-69, Powell made “several important journeys in connection with his purpose of exploring the great walled river; one was down toward the south as far as Grand River; a second followed White River to its junction with the Green, and a third went northward around the eastern base of the Uinta Mountains, skirting the gorges afterward named Lodore, Whirlpool, Red Canyon, etc.  In these travels he formed his plans for an attempt to fully explore, by means of a boat voyage, the remarkable string of chasms which for more than three centuries had defied examination.  He decided that the starting point must be where the Union Pacific Railway had just been thrown across Green River, and that the only chance for success was to continue on the torrential flood till either he should arrive at the end of the great canyons near the mouth of the Rio Virgen or should himself be vanquished in the endeavour.  It was to be a match of human skill and muscle against rocks and cataracts, shut in from the outer world, always face to face with the Shadow of Death.  It was to be a duel to the finish between the mysterious torrent on the one side and a little group of valiant men on the other.  Never had plumed knight of old a more dreadful antagonist.  Like the Sleeping Beauty, this strange Problem lay in the midst of an enchanted land guarded by the wizard Aridity and those wonderful water-gods Erosion and Corrasion, waiting for the knight-errant brave, who should break the spell and vanquish the demon in his lair.  No ordinary man was equal to this difficult task, which demanded not alone courage of the highest order, but combined