Note 67 — COMMENCEMENT OF THE EXPEDITION (continued 3)

Pattie reaches at this point the fort of Black Cañon, and traverses the southern bank of the cañons of the Colorado for their entire length, a distance which he accurately estimates at three hundred miles. Apparently the beauty and wonder of the great chasm did not appeal to the weary traveller. The cañons of the Colorado were first visited by Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, of Coronado's party, in 1540. Again, in 1583, Antonio de Espejo reports his visit thither. It was two centuries before another white traveller is recorded as seeing the Grand Cañon of the Colorado; and Pattie is apparently the first known American to traverse its banks. In 1857 Lieutenant Ives ascended in a steamer as far as Black Cañon, and then proceeded overland to Grand Cañon; twelve years later Major J. W. Powell descended the entire gorge in boats; see Dellenbaugh, Romance of the Colorado River (New York, 1902). The cañons are now much frequented by tourists. See for example, Monroe, "Grand Cañon of the Colorado," in Atlantic Monthly, 1900.—Ed.