Down the Colorado; Diary of the First Trip Through the Grand Canyon

New York: Arrowood Press, 1988. Presumed First Edition, First printing thus. Hardcover. Very good/Good. Eliot Porter (Photograph). The format is approximately 10.25 inches by 14 inches. 168 pages. Maps. Illustrations (48 in color). Index. Foreword and Notes by Don D. Fowler. The DJ has some edge wear, tears, and soiling. The contents include From Green River City to Flaming Gorge, From Flaming Gorge to the Gate of Lodore, The Canyon of Lodore, From Echo Park to the Mouth of the Uinta River. From the Mouth of the Uinta River to the Junction of the grand and Green, From the Junction of the Grand and Green to the Mouth of the Little Colorado, and The Grand Canyon of the Colorado. Eric Porter contributed The Canyons of the Colorado--Past and Present. John Wesley Powell (March 24, 1834 - September 23, 1902) was an American geologist, U.S. Army soldier, explorer of the American West, professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions. He is famous for his 1869 geographic expedition, a three-month river trip down the Green and Colorado rivers, including the first official U.S. government-sponsored passage through the Grand Canyon. Powell was appointed by US President James A. Garfield to serve as the second director of the U.S. Geological Survey (1881-1894) and proposed, for development of the arid West, policies that were prescient for his accurate evaluation of conditions. Two years prior to his service as director of the U.S. Geological Survey, Major Powell had become the first director of the Bureau of Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution where he supported linguistic and sociological research and publications. In 1869, he set out to explore the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. Gathering ten men, four boats and food for 10 months, he set out from Green River, Wyoming, on May 24. Passing through dangerous rapids, the group passed down the Green River to its confluence with the Colorado River (then also known as the Grand River upriver from the junction), near present-day Moab, Utah, and completed the journey on August 30, 1869. The expedition's route traveled through the Utah canyons of the Colorado River, which Powell described in his published diary as having ... wonderful features—carved walls, royal arches, glens, alcove gulches, mounds and monuments. From which of these features shall we select a name? We decide to call it Glen Canyon. In 1875, Powell published a book based on his explorations of the Colorado, originally titled Report of the Exploration of the Columbia River of the West and Its Tributaries. It was revised and reissued in 1895 as The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons. Eliot Furness Porter (December 6, 1901 - November 2, 1990) was an American photographer best known for his color photographs of nature. Fairfield Porter introduced his older brother to photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz in about 1930. Stieglitz, after seeing Porter's work, encouraged Porter to work harder. Finally, in 1938, Stieglitz presented Porter's work, taken with a Linhof view camera, in his New York City gallery, An American Place. The exhibit's success prompted Porter to pursue photography full-time. Porter began working with a new color film, Kodachrome, introduced in 1935, but it presented considerable technical challenges, especially for capturing fast-moving birds. Drawing on his chemical engineering and research background Porter experimented extensively until he was able to produce satisfactory images. His bird photographs were exhibited in 1943, the first ever exhibition of color photographs at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. His solo exhibition at Limelight Gallery, NYC., March 21-April 17 1955 was effectively a retrospective of this work. He served as a director of the Sierra Club from 1965 to 1971.