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A few plants are growing in the joints between the rocks, and all are lichened over to a greater or less extent, giving evidence that the pile was built a long time ago. This line of peaks, the eastern extension of the Uinta Mountains, has received the name of Sierra Escalante, in honor of a Spanish priest who traveled in this region of country nearly a century ago.
And we went spinning away at a round rate too. We left the snowy Wind River Mountains and Uinta Mountains behind, and sped away, always through splendid scenery but occasionally through long ranks of white skeletons of mules and oxen monuments of the huge emigration of other days and here and there were up-ended boards or small piles of stones which the driver said marked the resting-place of more precious remains.
The course of the Colorado and its tributary, Green River, presents some interesting problems. The latter has cut its channel directly across the Uinta Mountains, and the Colorado has sawed its channel to the base level of a series of plateaus, sometimes called the Sierra Abajo. And the interesting problem is how was the sawing process accomplished?
During this winter of 1868-69, Powell made several important journeys in connection with his purpose of exploring the great walled river; one was down toward the south as far as Grand River; a second followed White River to its junction with the Green, and a third went northward around the eastern base of the Uinta Mountains, skirting the gorges afterward named Lodore, Whirlpool, Red Canyon, etc.
The Uinta Mountains, stretching their picturesque and mighty barrier across the determined course of the river, produce the first series of superb canyons on the threshold of which Powell and his daring band were now setting foot.
A great pueblo once existed in the Uinta Valley on the south side of the mountains. This is the most northern pueblo which has yet been discovered. But the pueblo-building tribes extended beyond the area drained by the Colorado. On the west there was a pueblo in the Great Basin at the site now occupied by Salt Lake City, and several more to the southward, all on waters flowing into the desert.
Yellow pines, nut pines, firs, and cedars stand in extensive forests on the Uinta Mountains, and, clinging to the rocks and growing in the crevices, come down the walls to the water's edge from Flaming Gorge to Echo Park. The red sandstones are lichened over; delicate mosses grow in the moist places, and ferns festoon the walls. The Yampa enters the Green from the east.
A little above the mouth of the Uinta, on the west side of the Green, there is a lake of several thousand acres. We carry our boat across the divide between this and the river, have a row on its quiet waters, and succeed in shooting several ducks. June 29. A mile and three quarters from here is the junction of the White River with the Green.
Along the course of the Green, however, from the foot of Split Mountain Canyon to a point some distance below the mouth of the Uinta, there are many groves of cottonwood, natural meadows, and rich lands. This arable belt extends some distance up the White River on the east and the Uinta on the west, and the time must soon come when settlers will penetrate this country and make homes. June 30.
* In connection with the subject of erosion and corrasion the reader is advised to study the following works, which are the standards: The Exploration of the Colorado of the West, and the Geology of the Uinta Mountains, by J. W. Powell; The Henry Mountains, by G. K. Gilbert; The Geology of the High Plateaus of Utah, and The Tertiary History of the Grand Canyon District, by C. E. Dutton.
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