Audiobook · read by volunteers
Canyons of the Colorado
John Wesley Powell (1834–1902)
Read by Joan Freeman, J. M. Smallheer, Bryan Ness, Kirsten Ferreri, Kevin McAsh, Robin Cotter, Sibella Denton, geofred, Michelle Crandall, Sarah Jennings · 16 chapters · 8 h 07
About the book
In the spring of 1869 a one-armed Civil War veteran named John Wesley Powell pushed off from Green River, Wyoming, with nine men, four boats and food for ten months, bound for a stretch of the American West that no explorer had mapped. Ahead lay roaring rapids, towering canyon walls and the great unknown of the Grand Canyon. Canyons of the Colorado is Powell’s own account of that expedition and of the land it crossed. He writes as geologist, ethnologist and adventurer at once, describing river, rock, weather and people with the curiosity of a man who wants to understand what he sees. The result is a firsthand record of one of the great journeys of American exploration, full of danger, wonder and hard-won knowledge. It is a true story of courage and curiosity, told by the man who led it.
Introduction
John Wesley Powell (1834–1902) was a pioneering American explorer, geologist and ethnologist. He led the 1869 expedition down the Green and Colorado rivers, and the knowledge it gained helped fix the shape of the region on the map. The book was published in 1895 and gathers his narrative with descriptions of the surrounding country, its geology and its landforms. It is both a travel account and an early work of popular science.
The sixteen recordings move from a preface and a portrait of the Colorado valley through mesas and buttes, mountains and plateaus, and onward along the river itself. Powell explains how water carves stone, how erosion has laid bare the history of the earth in the canyon walls, and what the plateau country looks like to someone seeing it for the first time. Listeners who like landscape, geology or the literature of exploration will find it a rewarding companion, and the sense of discovery has not faded with the years.
It is worth remembering that Powell was writing for a general audience, so the prose is direct and vivid rather than technical. He pauses over the colours of the rock, the sound of the water and the hazards of the passage, and these touches turn a scientific report into a gripping narrative of endurance.
Sixteen recordings, about 8.1 hours in all, carry you from the preface to the final chapter on the Grand Canyon. The volunteer readers change along the way, so the long river journey is shared among many voices, and the book is easily taken in over a week of walks or evenings.
Public domain
John Wesley Powell died in 1902: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text