The Colorado River From The Mountains To The Sea
Perhaps no river in the world has so remarkable a life-history as has the Colorado. It is formed of two great streams, the Green and the Grand. Both have their rise in the far-away mountains, in banks of virgin and purest snow. Hence the waters of the Colorado at their source are pure and sweet. Yet such is the vehement force of this river, such its haste to reach the ocean, that it cuts down and carries with it millions of tons annually of sand and silt, rock debris and dirt until, when it reaches the desert, through which it flows as a lazy dragon, reddish-yellow, tawny, it is the dirtiest stream in the world. For not only does it carry the sand of its own grinding, as it passes through the hundred miles of canyon of its waterway, but it accepts the sweepings of vast areas made by its tributaries. Some of these extend through barren and desolate areas,--great stretches of the most forsaken desert lands, where the rains occasionally pour down with deluge-like force. Cloudbursts and floods are common; for the whole country is high in altitude, with rising peaks, where electric storms play and rage, and the clouds drop, with a sudden sweep, their whole burden of water to the earth beneath. At other times, the waters are allowed to pour down in torrential rains which quickly deluge the land, and as there are no barriers to hinder or detain, they sweep down the inhospitable slopes to the stream beds, carrying with them all the sand, silt, rock debris, vegetable mould and animal matter that have accumulated since the last storm. So that while at its source it is the purest river in the world, at its mouth it is the dirtiest and most repulsive. The Mississippi, with many more miles of length, the Nile, the Amazon, the Yangste-Kiang, the Hoang-Ho, are all far cleaner at their mouths than is this insatiable dragon of the Canyon.