Drawing on rarely examined diaries and journals, Down the Great Unknown is the first book to tell the full, dramatic story of the Powell expedition. On May 24, 1869 a one-armed Civil War veteran, John Wesley Powell and a ragtag band of nine mountain men embarked on the last great quest in the American West. The Grand Canyon, not explored before, was as mysterious as Atlantis—and as perilous. The ten men set out from Green River Station, Wyoming Territory down the Colorado in four wooden rowboats. Ninety-nine days later, six half-starved wretches came ashore near Callville, Arizona. Lewis and Clark opened the West in 1803, six decades later Powell and his scruffy band aimed to resolve the West’s last mystery. A brilliant narrative, a thrilling journey, a cast of memorable heroes—all these mark Down the Great Unknown, the true story of the last epic adventure on American soil.

This work charts the epic adventures of the first white men to explore the Grand Canyon, the last unmapped region of the United States. By 1869, the map of the United States had long since been filled in. Only one mystery remained - an immense area of the south-west, larger than any state in the union and any country in Europe, remained unexplored. On May 24th 1869, a one-armed Civil War veteran named John Wesley Powell and a ragtag band of nine men set out down the river to resolve the mystery. Three months later, defying premature reports of their deaths, six of the men emerged to tell the tale. Their expedition was the last epic adventure on the American continent. They were the first white men to explore the Grand Canyon, the first of any race to brave the Colorado's ferocious and deadly rapids, and the first to map and measure the area, the ultimate American landscape. Powell instantly became a national hero and a star of the lecture circuit, enthralling audiences with vividly painted stories of a hostile and alien environment.

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.

The epic story of the fastest boat ride in history, on a hand-built dory named the "Emerald Mile," through the heart of the Grand Canyon on the Colorado river.

This text is a magisterial account of John Wesley Powell, the great American explorer and environmental pioneer. It tells the true story of undaunted courage in the American West.

“An engaging voyage into some of the great mysteries and wonders of our world." --Alan Lightman, author of Einstein’s Dream and The Accidental Universe “No one is better at making the recondite accessible and exciting.” —Bill Bryson Brain Pickings and Kirkus Best Science Book of the Year Every week seems to throw up a new discovery, shaking the foundations of what we know. But are there questions we will never be able to answer—mysteries that lie beyond the predictive powers of science? In this captivating exploration of our most tantalizing unknowns, Marcus du Sautoy invites us to consider the problems in cosmology, quantum physics, mathematics, and neuroscience that continue to bedevil scientists and creative thinkers who are at the forefront of their fields. At once exhilarating, mind-bending, and compulsively readable, The Great Unknown challenges us to consider big questions—about the nature of consciousness, what came before the big bang, and what lies beyond our horizons—while taking us on a virtuoso tour of the great breakthroughs of the past and celebrating the men and women who dared to tackle the seemingly impossible and had the imagination to come up with new ways of seeing the world.

One hundred years ago John Wesley Powell set out to explore the Grand Canyon of the Colorado - something no man had attempted before. His official report of the voyage remains one of the great adventure stories in all the literature of the American West.