"What started as a scientific expedition turned into a harrowing adventure through some of the roughest and most beautiful country in America. It was May of 1869 when a Civil War veteran and nine other men descended with four boats into a branch of the Colorado River for what they believed would be a ten-month excursion through the last unmapped territory of the continental United States. Three months and one thousand miles later, six emaciated men in two boats emerged in the open waters of the Virgin River. They had survived famine, attacks, mutiny, and some of the most dangerous rapids known to man. Their story, recounted by John Wesley Powell in his journals, remains as fresh and exciting today as it did in 1874 when it first appeared in serial form in Scribner's magazine. Book jacket."--BOOK JACKET.