the rest of the day.  The approach of darkness compelled a halt for the night on some rocks where they had barely room enough to lie down.  Three much-needed oars had been lost with the capsize of the Dean.  These were sadly missed in the rough water that surrounded them the following day, so at the first large pile of driftwood they made a landing and secured a cottonwood log for oar-timber.  While the oars were making, Powell and his brother climbed up to where some pinyon trees were seen growing, and collected a quantity of gum with which to calk the leaky boats.  They needed all the preparation possible, for the rapids now came ever thicker, ever faster, and more violent.  The walls also grew in altitude from the thirteen hundred feet of the Junction to fifteen hundred feet, then to eighteen hundred feet, nearly vertical in places.

An examination of the barometric record was now made to see how much they had by this time descended toward sea-level, and, by comparison, about what might be expected in the river below.  The conclusion was that though great descents were still ahead, if the fall should be distributed in rapids and short drops, as it had been above, and not concentrated great plunges, they would meet with success.  But there in always remained the possibility of arriving on the brink of some high fall where no footing on either side could be obtained, and where a fierce current would prohibit a return.  In such a case the exploration would have ended then and there.  The newspapers before this time had printed a story of the expedition’s collapse.  The outer world supposed that Powell and all his men but one had been destroyed, though A. H. Thompson wrote to the Chicago Inter-Ocean, which first published it, showing its absurdity.  Mrs. Powell heard the story at her father’s home in Detroit and she pronounced it a fabrication, for she had received a letter subsequent to the date given for the destruction of the party.  She also had faith in her husband’s judgment, caution, and good sense, so she refused to accept the tale at all, which was circulated by a man who had started from Green River Station, and who, by “pitching” this picturesque yarn, secured the sympathy and the purses of the passengers on an east-bound Union Pacific train.  He told how Powell and all the men but himself had been suddenly swallowed up in an awful place, dark and gloomy and full of fearful whirlpools, called Brown’s Hole.  From the shore, where he alone had remained, he had despairingly witnessed the party disappear in a mighty whirlpool never to rise again.  But he made a mistake, so far as Mrs. Powell was concerned, in naming the spot.  She knew very well that there was no danger whatever in Brown’s Hole, and that the river in this pretty park was the quietest on the whole course.  But for its inventor the yarn had fulfilled its purpose, and he found himself east of the Mississippi, where he wanted to be, with a pocket full of dollars.  A week or two after the story appeared letters were received from Powell via the Uinta Agency.  These positively proved the falsity of the tale.