THE Colorado River is preeminently "The River of Canyons." Formed in eastern Utah by the junction of the Green River, rising in northwest Wyoming, and the Grand, which has its sources in the mountain rim which walls in the Middle Park of the State of Colorado, not a mile of the Colorado River is in the state of Colorado.

About two-fifths of its nearly 2,000 miles, reckoning from the sources of the Green, which is the main stream, flows through canyons, the series culminating in magnitude and grandeur in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado in Arizona. In 1875, the Government Printing Office at Washington printed in a finely illustrated quarto volume Of 291 pages, under the modest and unpretentious title of "Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries, Explored in 1869, 1870, 1871, and 1872 Under the Direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution," the fascinating and graphic story of one of the most perilous explorations ever undertaken by man, and one whose origin and successful outcome were due to the scientific enthusiasm, the great endurance, the fertility of resources and the dauntless courage of Maj. J. W. Powell. Few men with two arms would have dared to enter upon, or could successfully have completed the task, and he had left his good right arm on a battle-field of our civil war.

In 1882, the United States Geological Survey, of which Maj. Powell was then director, printed Vol. 11 of its Monographs, being the "Tertiary History of the Grand Canyon District, by Capt. C. E. Dutton, U. S. A.," a sumptuous quarto of 264 pages, with maps and splendid illustrations.

These two books are, and must ever remain the great authorities on "The River of Canyons," and I shall only write briefly of the route to and scenic splendors of the Grand Canyon.

It is accessible from various points along the Santa Fe Railway, but most easily at present by a stage ride of seventy-three miles, at an elevation above the sea varying from 6,866 to nearly 9,000 feet, from Flagstaff, Arizona — a beautifully situated mountain town at the southern base of the San Francisco Peaks, a cluster of volcanic mountains, the loftiest of which rises nearly 13,000 feet above the sea; and some 6,000 feet above Flagstaff.

At Flagstaff is the famous Lowell Astronomical Observatory, and about it are many points of much interest, especially Walnut Creek Canyon, with its extensive ruins of the cliff dwellers' houses built midway up the face of the almost vertical cliffs.

The first and last thirds of the stage ride to the Canyon are through the great Conconino Forest of long-leaved pines — much scattered and with no underbrush — but commonly with splendid grass and unnumbered wild flowers covering all the open spaces between them.

The middle third is over a more desert region, but not destitute of grass, and with stunted pines and cedars growing on most of the ridges and hills along the way.

For the past two years there has been little rain and the route last July was much more dusty than when I went over it first in 1895, and deemed it one of the most enjoyable stage rides I bad ever taken; but rains late in July made it much pleasanter when I returned in August, this year, for a third visit.

Along the whole seventy-three miles there is no lake, pond, river, creek, brook, rivulet, or rill, no running water except springs at two points many miles apart which have been piped into troughs for stock.

This absence of water over so wide an expanse seems at first wholly incompatible with the splendid forests, of stately pines, with some aspens and scrubby oaks interspersed, and the luxuriant grass and innumerable flowers.