It was 1869. Ten men in four boats were about to embark on a journey that would cover almost 1,000 miles through uncharted canyons and change the west forever. Three months later only five of the original company plus their one-armed Civil War hero leader would emerge from the depths of the Grand Canyon at the mouth of the Virgin River.
Thirty five-year-old Major John Wesley Powell was that expedition's leader. From early childhood Powell manifested deep interest in all natural phenomena. Original and self-reliant to a remarkable degree, he early undertook collecting and exploring trips quite unusual for a youth of his age, and studied botany, zoology, and geology wholly without the aid of a teacher.
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“The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are taxed beyond their powers in attempting to portray its features. Language and illustration combined must fail.”
“We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls ride over the river, we know not. Ah, well! we may conjecture many things.”
Grand Canyon !
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