beginning of the long series of close canyons. The river enters
suddenly from Green River Valley, repeating on a smaller scale the
conditions at the entrance to Lodore. From here on up to the Wind
River Range the stream is flanked by occasional cliffs and buttes,
but the country is comparatively open, and the many tributaries often
have fine grassy bottoms. This was the locality of the great
rendezvous of the period from 1825 to 1835, and even later.

Green River Valley is an elevated region, from six thousand to seven
thousand feet above sea. It stretches from the Wind River Mountains
on the north to the Uintas on the south, and is bounded westwardly by
the Wyoming Range, and on the east merges into the Laramie Plains.
The drainage exit is through the Uintas, as noted, by means of the
canyons heading at Flaming Gorge. There are here opportunities for
extensive farming by irrigation. The only other chance for
agriculture on the river, except Wonsits Valley, Brown's Park, and a
few minor places, is below Black Canyon, in the stretches I have
called the alluvial and the canyon-valley divisions. In the latter
short canyons separate extensive valleys with wide alluvial bottoms
capable of high cultivation, though often subject to overflow. Almost
anything will grow there. Vast groves of cottonwood and mesquite
exist. In the alluvial division, the last stretch of the river, from
the Gila down, cotton and sugar cane would probably grow. This is the
only division where the water of the river can be extensively
diverted. At the mouth of the Gila an old emigrant road to California
crossed, and another here in this Green River Valley. A third route
of travel was by way of Gunnison's Crossing; and a fourth, though
this was seldom traversed, was by the Crossing of the Fathers, some
thirty-five miles above the present Lee's Ferry. In Green River
Valley, Bonneville built his Fort Nonsense, and the region was for