"Ah Well," as Major Powell said, "we may conjecture many things." Better to remember the canyons as they were; to remember that there was once a river beneath those cold, green waters. Ralf Woolley, a usually reserved engineer, was moved to write in 1922: "In places the solid rock walls are almost vertical and rise several hundred feet above the river. . . . The river winding its way between the walls form(s) a constantly changing panorama. . . . The river is like a placid lake, and the beautifully colored canyon walls with their green trees clinging to the slopes are perfectly reflected in the river as in a huge mirror."

Roy Webb