In this way we passed over two small rapids. After
that one experience we never tried it in a large rapid. As Smith had
said a few days before the boat bucked like a broncho, and Emery had a
great deal of difficulty to stay with the boat, to say nothing of
taking a picture. Once or twice he was nearly unseated but pluckily
hung on and kept turning away at the crank when it looked as if he and
the camera would be dumped into the river.
At one point in the lower end of Cataract Canyon we saw the name and
date A.G. Turner, '07. Below this, close to the end of the canyon,
were some ruins of cliff dwellings, and a ladder made by white men,
placed against the walls below the ruins.
On reaching a very deep, narrow canyon entering from the south,
locally known as Dark Canyon, we knew that we were nearing the end of
the rapids in Cataract Canyon. Dark Canyon extends a great distance
back into the country, heading in the mountains we had seen to the
south, when we climbed out at the junction of the Green and the Grand.
Pine cones and other growths entirely foreign to the growth of the
desert region were found near its mouth. A flood had recently filled
the bottom of this narrow canyon to a depth of several feet, but the
water had settled down again and left a little stream of clear water
running through the boulders. The rapid at the end of this canyon was
one of the worst of the entire series, and had been the scene of more
than one fatality, we had been told.
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