Down the Great Unknown: John Wesley Powell's 1869 Journey of Discovery and Tragedy Through the Grand Canyon

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Edward Dolnick's Down the Great Unknown depicts the "last epic journey on American soil," John Wesley Powell's exploration of the Grand Canyon and the fulminating, carnivorous Colorado River. The book, a model of precision, clarity, and serene passion, outshines, arguably, its bestselling brother-volume, Stephen Ambrose's Undaunted Courage.

On May 24, 1869, Powell, an ambitious, autocratic, one-armed Civil War veteran and amateur scientist, and a casually recruited crew of nine--without a lick of white water experience--embarked from an obscure railroad stop in the Wyoming Territory to travel through a region "scarcely better known than Atlantis." Ninety-nine days, 1,000 miles and nearly 500 rapids later, six of the men came ashore in Arizona--the first humans to run the waters of the Grand Canyon. Dolnick tells this story of courage, naiveté, hardship, and petty squabbling simply and authoritatively using entries from the men's journals, deft overviews (we always know where we are), and short science, history, and psychology lessons, as well as the prodigious knowledge of present-day river runners and his own first-hand observations. His prose carries the day: Powell looks like a "stick of beef jerky adorned with whiskers," the boats are "walnut shells," which in rapids are little better than "ladybugs caught in a hose's blast" or "drunks trying to negotiate a revolving door," while the river is a "taunting bully," a "colossal mugger," a "sumo wrestler smothering a kitten," and a notable rock formation looks like what might happen if "Edward Gorey had designed the Bat Cave."

Down the Great Unknown brushes against perfection. This is history written as it should be--and too rarely is: enthusiastic, rigorous, painterly, gloriously free of both pedantry and hyperbole. --H. O'Billovitch

Book Description

0n May 24, 1869, a one-armed Civil War veteran named John Wesley Powell and a ragtag band of nine mountain men embarked on the last great quest in the American West. No one had ever explored the fabled Grand Canyon; to adventurers of that era it was a region almost as mysterious as Atlantis -- and as perilous.

The ten men set out down the mighty Colorado River in wooden rowboats. Six survived. Drawing on rarely examined diaries and journals, Down the Great Unknown is the first book to tell the full, true story.

Customer Reviews:

To Be The First Through The Then Unknown Colorado...........2007-08-27

I've "rafted" the upper Colorado.

Of course that was in a motorized raft, led by experienced pilots, with a map and they did all the cooking and if something really bad happened the ranger service could chopper in and get me (Hey, I *did* hike out from Phantom Ranch)

I can't conceive of doing it in an ungainly rowboat, without a steering oar, having little provisions, without a map or even knowledge of the river (what happens if you hit a 100 ft fall and nowhere to portage?), and where a broken ankle would have meant an almost certain death -- and with one arm.

Truthfully, its amazing this exposition survived.

Dolnick weaves in Powell's embellished account with the other expedition journals to craft a balanced account of the expedition, along with correlating the trip with known features of the canyon. Dolnick describes the tensions within the team -- categorizes their moves, good and bad and tracks their trailblazing passage.

Excellent read.

Too many digressions ..........2007-08-20

This is a pretty decent book for the newcomer who has never read anything about Powell. I found it less entertaining than my fellow reviewers though, as it follows the tedium of the daily journals a little too closely. I also found the narrative to be interspersed with too many digressions. These range from opinions of the Green/Colorado river by modern rafting experts to accounts of other early rafting expeditions, and a lengthy 2-chapter segment on the American Civil war and Battle of Shiloh. This latter exercise contributes nothing to the book, by the way! The reader is also left in the dark about the Native American peoples, Mormon settlers, and miners who inhabited this area at the same point in time ... Really, it is as if the expedition were done in a vacuum. Even worse was the lack of information on 9 of the 10 men who took part in the expedition. While there is more than enough about John Wesley Powell, readers get only sketchy details about the lives of the other 9 men. Even the simplest details like where these men were born is left out, nor are we given much about the kinds of lives they lived (careers, families, etc.) prior to the expedition (and precious little afterwards as well). Although 6 of these 9 men were, like Powell, fellow Union veterans of the Civil War, but we get nothing about their wartime experiences! We also have no clue what motivated them to join this expedition. This oversight would not doubt have suited the egotistical Powell, but is a serious oversight for a modern historian.

Excellent read.......2007-08-04

I enjoyed this book very much. So much that I have loaned it to family and friends to enjoy.

Down the Great Unknown.......2006-03-19

This book was informative but not a real "page turner". The author went off on tangents often that took away from the story at hand. It was not a bad book, but it was not full of the adventure that you would have expected the trip to have been.

I would much rather read this than John Wesley Powell's actual book........2005-09-29

"Down the Great Unknown" is a terrific retelling of John Wesley Powell's 1869 expedition down the Colorado River. The book's author brings to life all of the expedition's more minor (and usually overlooked) characters, and gives the reader a great sense of the danger of the river and the grandeur of the canyons.
The author has an excellent sense of history, and does a wonderful job of tying all his sources together. The book also includes a detailed look at how John Wesley Powell lost his arm, and an examination of all the possibilities of what could have happened to the three men who abandoned the expedition.
If I had any objections to this book, it would be that the author dismisses too quickly the real possibility that a man named James White may have gone down the Colorado through the Grand Canyon alone two years before Powell did. (I hope the author has since read "Hell or High Water," a well-researched book on that subject.)
Overall though, this is a great read, and is much better written and much more interesting than even Powell's account. I would recommend it to any fan of adventure writing, and to any fan of the West.

Down the Great Unknown : John Wesley Powell's 1869 Journey of Discovery and Tragedy Through the Grand Canyon

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Down the Great Unknown : John Wesley Powell's 1869 Journey of Discovery and Tragedy Through the Grand Canyon
Edward Dolnick
Manufacturer: HarperAudio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OEHP2I

Customer Reviews:

Guide made trip to WDW the trip of a lifetime.......1997-10-29

The book is easy to read and understand. Without it we would have floundered around like everyone else. Each day had a plan and then we altered it to suit our specific needs and desires. We found all of his recommendations to be right on target. The maps are a god send used inconjunction with the hand out maps. The book gave me the confidence to know when and where to make reservations for meals, when the best time to show up for shows. . . just everything!! We made our trip with 2 school aged children (middle and elementary)during the 2nd week of Sepember. While I don't promote taking children out of school for vacation, once in a lifetime is worth it. Moving through Epcot and MGM were easier than the Magic Kingdom which had an overabundance of children in strollers. For anyone using the guide. . . don't be intimidated by the sheer volume. There are really that many places to sleep, eat and things to see and do. Do clip out the appropriate maps in the back of the book and take them with you each day and ALWAYS get there early and move quickly early in the day and kick back as the day moves on. Thanks again for writting the book Bob. I felt like you were my best friend by the time we came home

very good.......1997-06-21

Some great ideas especially on dealing with children. Some information is not complete you can check in early (well before 3:00p.m.) the desk will store your bags and give you your pass, I am usually in the park of my choice before lunch. Just return later (one year not til 10:30 p.m.), collect your bags and key, and you have not lost your first day on you length of stay pass

Book Description

Trained as a printer when still a boy, and thrilled throughout his life by the automation of printing and the headlong expansion of American publishing, Mark Twain wrote about the consequences of this revolution for culture and for personal identity. Printer's Devil is the first book to explore these themes in some of Mark Twain's best-known literary works, and in his most daring speculations--on American society, the modern condition, and the nature of the self. Playfully and anxiously, Mark Twain often thought about typeset words and published images as powerful forces--for political and moral change, personal riches and ruin, and epistemological turmoil. In his later years, Mark Twain wrote about the printing press as a center of metaphysical power, a force that could alter the fabric of reality. Studying these themes in Mark Twain's writings, Bruce Michelson also provides a fascinating overview of technological changes that transformed the American printing and publishing industries during Twain's lifetime, changes that opened new possibilities for content, for speed of production, for the size and diversity of a potential audience, and for international fame. The story of Mark Twain's life and art, amid this media revolution, is a story with powerful implications for our own time, as we ride another wave of radical change: for printed texts, authors, truth, and consciousness.

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A story with secrets
Brilliant!!!!
A Fun Read, Even For Adults!
A Waste of Time
Wonderful and Charming

The Printer's Devil
Paul Bajoria
Manufacturer: Little, Brown Young Readers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0316010901

Customer Reviews:

A story with secrets.......2007-03-27

Reviewed by Ian McCurley (age 13) for Reader Views (3/07)

Mog Winter is an orphan. He is also the printer's devil, or the youngest apprentice of Mr. Cramplock, the printer. "The Printer's Devil" is set amid 19th century England when the East India Company is the biggest around and London's dockyards are bustling with sailors, foreigners, thieves and criminals of all types. One night when Mog and his dog Lash are delivering a handbill to a customer, Flethick, he comes into Flethick's house and finds him and his friends in a room full of mysterious, intoxicating smoke babbling about Calcutta and India. He knew his mother had died giving birth to him on a ship to Calcutta. Leaving the house, he ran home, and on the way, he nearly bumped into a man with dark skin and wild, white eyes. Running faster, he reached his home, the apartment above Mr. Cramplock's shop and secures the door. At a local tavern he hears a notorious con man talking about the ship, Son of Calcutta, recently docked at the London Docks. Realizing that this could point to the identity of his father, he travels to the dock and finds papers that would incriminate the infamous Coben and a mysterious list of well-known thieves.

Before he can make it home, he is captured by Coben and locked in a chest. In the chest, he cuts his finger on what he thinks is a large knife. Hours later, when a man opens the chest, Mog jumps out grabbing what he thought was a knife but was actually a sword covered in his blood. Seeing a blood-covered sword scared the man, and Mog escaped. On his way home, Mog spots a child his age and with a strikingly similar appearance peering up at him from a cellar. With the help of the child, Nick, he removes the barrel that is blocking the trap door to the cellar. Once Nick is freed, the boys steal a camel from Nick's father, the insidious Bosun, and Nick's caretaker, Mrs. Muggerage who is too terrible to describe. Though seemingly just a brass camel, they will learn that this is not so. The camel is filled a mysterious, flour-like white powder.

"The Printer's Devil" is a story about two kids, a mysterious brass camel and the criminal underworld of London. The author Paul Bajoria, has a very expressive writing style. This book is for ages 11 and up. If you enjoy adventurous mystery stories, "The Printer's Devil" is right up your alley. Be sure to read Paul Bajoria's second book, "The God of Mischief."

Brilliant!!!!.......2007-01-31

This is a brilliant book!!!! It was a school book at first but after the first chapter I decided that it was one of the best books I've ever read!!!! It was full of cool twist and turns. It has all sorts of different plots. This book is right up there with Joshua Mowll and Phillip Pulmann. I love this book so much!!!
I like this book because of the well-developed characters. Mog, Nick, and all of the good guys were so funny. And yet they were not your average heros. The bad guys on the other hand were so evil you just wanted to reach inside the book and strangle them. I liked it how the author gave us just enough background on the characters but not enough to tell all about their past. This book had so many different things going on at once that it made your head spin, but in a good way. And then when you finally think that the author can't have any more surprises, there pops up yet another surprise.

A Fun Read, Even For Adults!.......2006-10-02

I enjoyed Paul Bajoria's "The Printer's Devil." It may have been intended as a book for a juvenile audience, but this 54-year-old thought it was a blast.

I bought this book because I had been a "printer's devil" as a kid (which led to my career as a print production manager), and I was especially intrigued by the unusual use of display typography and the excellent pen-and-ink illustrations.

This book gives a vivid sense of Dickens-era London. The plot is compelling and moves at a fast clip.

If you enjoy revisiting the Hardy Boys and Tom Swift books that you read as a kid, give this a try. I look forward to more offerings in what evidently will be a series.

Most enjoyable!

A Waste of Time.......2006-09-10

In The Printer's Devil, Bajoria has strung together a confusing, unlikely and almost random sequence of events producing a "plot" that fails to provide either satisfaction or resolution. As for the sequel--I don't think so! Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Wonderful and Charming.......2006-08-16

This is my favorite book of all time. Anyone who doesn't like this book has the mental capacity of a three year old, judging by most of the bad review's spelling and grammar. However, it may not be appropriate for children under the age of nine...I'm twelve, as it does have some references to drugs, and the twists are a bit advanced.

Printer's Devil to Publisher: Adolph S. Ochs of the New York Times

Average customer rating:

Nice little book

Printer's Devil to Publisher: Adolph S. Ochs of the New York Times
Doris Faber
Manufacturer: Black Dome Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1883789095

Customer Reviews:

Nice little book.......2001-05-29

Printer's Devil to Publisher is a nice little book, easy to read, interesting primarily to those with Chattanooga connections (Ochs' adopted home city) or who are interested in the history of the NY Times. In the age of Hearst and Pulitzer, Ochs was a totally different kind of publisher, concerned with presenting the news accurately and fairly. He was also a civic legend, and did much for two very different cities. I recommend it for an evening's read.

Couins Gem Home Emergency Guide (Collins Gem)

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Couins Gem Home Emergency Guide (Collins Gem)
Printer's Devil
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Health o Meter HDC100-01 "Grow with Me" Teddy Bear Scale for Babies and Toddlers

ASIN: 0004722884

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Aromatherapy (Collins Gems Series)
Lucinda Deacon-Davis
Manufacturer: HarperCollins (UK)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Accessories:

ASIN: 0007101465

Book Description

"Collins Gems" are smartly designed pocket reference guides, providing knowledge at a glance on a wide variety of popular and timely subjects. Packed with outstanding color photos and illustrations, and sporting durable flexi-bindings, these unique quick-reference books offer the minimum in size and the maximum in information.

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Crime and the Printer's Devil
David Rogers
Manufacturer: iUniverse, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0595330274

Book Description

The time is the Depression years of the 1930's, the dirty thirties as they were then called. The place is the town/village of Nelsonville, Dutchess County, New York. The characters, Leroy Andrew Bridges, the printer's devil and editorial assistant employed by the Nelsonville Times, a weekly newspaper published in the aforesaid town/village of Nelsonville. Guy S. Bailey, the editor and publishers of the Times, a disabled veteran of the Great War, presently undergoing treatment for his injuries in a hospital in Virginia, the linotype operator, Clayton F. Lewis or Lewis Clayton Funk, best known as Clay, the only man Leroy knows of with two different names, and Will, for Willard or William, Barnes, the printer-compositor of the paper and Mrs. Belle Bailey, wife of the editor and publisher Guy S. Bailey and who, in the absence of her husband, is carrying on the family printing and publishing business, and many others.

Those characters and many others play their parts in the story that ends up in a gory episode in the old abandoned quarry out on the Old Sharon Road.

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The time is the Depression years of the 1930

Dan T. Muse: From printer's devil to bishop (Emmanuel College Library series)

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Dan T. Muse: From printer's devil to bishop (Emmanuel College Library series)
Harold Paul
Manufacturer: Advocate Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006X0JAM

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The devil's printer
D. L Kent
Manufacturer: Tarantula Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: B00072JQV0

Devil's Tail, The: Adventures Of A Printer's Apprentice In Colonial Virginia

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Devil's Tail, The: Adventures Of A Printer's Apprentice In Colonial Virginia

Manufacturer: Doubleday & Company, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HVX5ZY

The devil's tail;: Adventures of a printer's apprentice in early Williamsburg

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The devil's tail;: Adventures of a printer's apprentice in early Williamsburg
Edith Thacher Hurd
Manufacturer: DoubleDay
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Book Description

We know that each biological organism has the potential for variation. This can be seen in domestic animals and wildlife. However, neither fossils nor other data available from molecular and developmental biology demonstrate sufficiently that this potential is the reason for emergence of new biological organisms.

This book presents a new theory which shows that biological organisms, despite variations, have a distinct basic form which is established through a process called "primordialization". Primordialization theory differs from traditional theories of biological diversity by suggesting that the ability of living organisms to evolve occurs only within the boundaries of their basic forms designs. Proteins that do not tolerate changes in their sequences determine these forms. Shifts in the arrangement of these proteins in some specific cells produce new design programs. A cell with a new design program becomes primordial cell, which can then develop into a new biological organism.

The book is written for scientists, students, and laymen who are interested in a new explanation of how biological evolution works. This work explains, for instance, why humans and apes are so different when so few differences among their protein molecules exist.

Customer Reviews:

Synopsis.......2001-09-22

Book Description

Copper and Silver Halates is the third in a series of four volumes on inorganic metal halates. This volume presents critical evaluations and compilations for halate solubilities of the Group II metals. The solubility data included in this volume are those for the five compounds, copper chlorate and iodate, and silver chlorate, bromate and iodate.

Book Description

This book consists of two parts. Firstly, the main notions of abstract convexity and their applications in the study of some classes of functions and sets are presented. Secondly, both theoretical and numerical aspects of global optimization based on abstract convexity are examined. Most of the book does not require knowledge of advanced mathematics.
Classical methods of nonconvex mathematical programming, being based on a local approximation, cannot be used to examine and solve many problems of global optimization, and so there is a clear need to develop special global tools for solving these problems. Some of these tools are based on abstract convexity, that is, on the representation of a function of a rather complicated nature as the upper envelope of a set of fairly simple functions.
Audience: The book will be of interest to specialists in global optimization, mathematical programming, and convex analysis, as well as engineers using mathematical tools and optimization techniques and specialists in mathematical modelling.

Customer Reviews:

Well worth the money!.......2003-01-26

Katy Gardner has done a wonderful job in packaging her research as a secular anthropologist into a format that is both entertaining to read and intensely informative. While living with a Muslim family in Bangladesh she gained valuable insights that should be read by any outsider who is serious about understanding Bangladeshi village culture.

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