. . . we pass each other alternately until we emerge from the fissure, out on the summit of a rock. And what a world of grandeur is spread before us! Below is the canyon through which the Colorado runs. We can trace its course for miles, and at points catch glimpses of the river. From the northwest comes the Green in a narrow winding gorge. From the northeast comes the Grand, through a canyon that seems bottomless from where we stand. Away to the west are lines of cliffs and ledges of rock—not such ledges as the reader may have seen where the quarryman splits his rocks, but ledges from which the gods might quarry mountains.

—JOHN WESLEY POWELL, ON FIRST SEEING THE GRAND CANYON, JULY 1869

 

 

At Pacific Springs, one of the crossroads of the western trail, a pile of gold-bearing quartz marked the road to California; the other road had a sign bearing the words “To Oregon.” Those who could read took the trail to Oregon.

—DOROTHY JOHANSEN, “A WORKING HYPOTHESIS FOR THE STUDY OF MIGRATIONS,” 1967