Includes bibliographical references (pages 343-365) and index.
Contents:
Into the cauldron -- Osage Oranges and Pink Muckets -- Thinking bayonets -- First thoughts West -- Descent -- The canyon -- Encore -- Fighting the national surveys -- A radical idea -- Taking over Washington -- A tough opponent -- Last stand.
Summary:
John Wesley Powell's first descent of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in 1869 counts among the most dramatic chapters in American exploration history. When the Canyon spit out the surviving members of the expedition - starving, battered, and nearly naked - they had accomplished what others thought impossible and finished the exploration of continental America that Lewis and Clark had begun almost seventy years before. With "The promise of the Grand Canyon," John F. Ross tells how that perilous expedition launched the one-armed Civil War hero on the path to becoming the nation's foremost proponent of environmental sustainability and a powerful, if controversial, visionary for the development of the American West. So much of what he preached - most broadly about land and water stewardship - remains prophetically to the point today.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.