CHAPTER XIV.
A Railway Proposed through the Canyons--The Brown Party, 1889, Undertakes the Survey--Frail Boats and Disasters--The Dragon Claims Three--Collapse of the Expedition--Stanton Tries the Feat Again, 1889-90--A Fall and a Broken Leg--Success of Stanton--The Dragon Still Untrammelled.
The topographic, geologic, and geodetic work of the survey did not cease with our departure from the river, but was continued in the remarkable country shown in the relief map opposite page 41, till the relationships and distances of the various features were established and reduced to black and white.

That autumn, while we were engaged in these labours, Wheeler, with an elaborate outfit, entered the region, pursuing his desultory operations; and, drifting along the north side of the Grand Canyon for a little distance, he proceeded to the neighbourhood of St.
George.

The following year, for some unknown purpose, he crossed the Colorado at the Paria, though he knew that Powell's parties had previously mapped this area.

When the winter of 1872-73 had fairly set in we established a permanent camp at Kanab, where, under Thompson's always efficient direction, our triangulations and topographic notes were plotted on paper, making the first preliminary map of that country.
When this was ready, Hillers and I took it, and crossing the southern end of the High Plateaus, then deep with snow, we rode by way of the Sevier Valley to Salt Lake, where the map was sent on by express to Washington, whither Powell had already gone.
Seventeen years passed away before any one again tried to navigate the Colorado.

The settling of the country, the knowledge of it Powell had published, the completion of the Southern Pacific Railway to Yuma in 1877, and of the Atlantic and Pacific from Isleta to The Needles, in 1880-83, and of the Rio Grande Western across the Green at Gunnison Valley, simplified travel in the Basin of the Colorado.