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Show THE DEEPEST GORGE IN THE WORLD. In March last a party of prospectors, thirteen in number, procured the necessary papers from Gen. [General] Wilcox allowing them to visit the Indian village on Cataract Creek, inhabited by the Ava Supais, a tribe of Indians numbering all told 200 souls. The party was known as the Beckman and Young prospecting expedition. They went from Williamson Valley to the Bill Williams range, and thence to Pine Spring, a small watering place surrounded by a pine forest. Here they found every indication of an old sea bed, the gravel and rocks being round and smooth, similar to those in the ocean bed. From Pine Spring the party directed their course for the Ava Supai village, which is reached by descending from the table or mess land down one of the roughest trails ever traveled by man for a distance of fourteen miles, dropping 3,000 feet. At places along the trail we are told that it is not over twenty inches wide, and winds around the perpendicular walls of sandstone that loom above for hundreds of feet, while on the other side dark, deep canyons exist, hundreds upon hundreds of feet deep, where, by one false step or move, man or beast would be sent to eternity. With great care and good luck, ten of the party succeeded in reaching the village, three of their number returning rather than run the gauntlet in passing down into this awful yet marvelous crevice in the earth. The Ava Supais practice polygamy, each male having about three wives. They have 1,000 acres of farming land, which is described as being of a yellowish color and mostly composed of sand, however, it is said to produce good corn, pumpkins, melons and beans, with the aid of irrigating water, of which they have an abundance, and appropriate by means of a good ditch around their farm. They have a peach orchard of 230 [250] trees, which were on the 1st of April loaded with small peaches about the size of acorns. The party was well received by these red people, who stated that their greatest desire was to be left alone in the enjoyment of their land and other property. Their houses are built with poles in a rude manner and thatched over with bear grass and tule. The only stock they have are a few ponies. Cartaract [Cataract] Creek heads in the Bill Williams and San Francisco Mountains, the streams connecting some distance above the Indian village. This stream empties into the Big Colorado fifteen miles below the Ava Supai town and a short distance south of the junction of the Little and Big Colorado rivers. The party attempted to explore Cataract Creek to its confluence with the Colorado, but were unable to do so from the fact that they encountered precipice after precipice from 100 to 200 feet perpendicular, and it was in the foolhardy attempt of D.W. Mooney, of Williams Valley, to descend one of those perpendicular precipices, 100 feet down, that he was dashed to a sudden and rocky tomb, where he now rests as he fell, his companions being unable to rescue the body from that awful and abysmal grave. Mr. Mooney was persuaded by his companions not to attempt such an absurd undertaking. Their importunity availed not. He took a small rope, hardly half an inch in diameter, tied one end to a bank, suspended it over the brink, then taking hold of the rope was soon dangling between the bright heavens and the dark, dismal gorge below. Evidently cramp came in his arms or his mind gave way, and he fell from almost the top to his rocky and lonely grave below. The party remained nearly two days, devising means and plans to rescue the corpse, but with failures, as no one cared to risk a descent upon the weak rope. The Indians informed the party that no one man had ever passed through the canyon; that, in fact, a passage was only possible for the birds of the air or the spirits of the dead. The party retraced their steps and went around Cataract Creek to the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. They took in this peculiar freak of nature and describe the walls, which are about perpendicular, as being about two miles from the apex to the water. Where they beheld the Grand Canyon the water is described as being 100 yards across; still, from the elevated view of the explorers, the furious stream appeared, to be a silver thread of only a few inches in width. A canyon two miles deep is a grand wonder, which will, when the thirty-fifth parallel road is completed, draw thousands upon thousands of wonder-seekers annually to behold the deepest gorge in the world. In going to the Grand Canyon the party passed through Prospect Valley, near the Colorado, and had the pleasure of beholding Ridenour & Zimmerman's copper mine, which is found imbedded between two solid sandstone walls, a thing unknown elsewhere in the world. The ore from this mine is worth from 60 to 90 per cent and a chunk of almost pure copper weighing at least a ton is no uncommon thing to find. The death of Mr. Cooney, which took place April 1st, frustrated the plans of the party, and their original plan of exploring and prospecting was not carried out as at first intended. -Arizona Miner. |