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-I THE NATURE OF THE COLORADO RIVER BASIN . W -..J CD Ul In describing the magnitude and character of the Colorado River, Major John Wesley Powell poetically records some of the earliest ob- servations about water quality of the river in essentially its natural state, . unaffected by man. He wrote: "The Colorado River is formed by the junction of the Grand and Green. The Green River has its source in the Rocky Mountains, five or six miles west of Long's Peak. A group of little al- pine lakes, that receive their waters directly from perpetual snowbanks, discharge into a common reservoir known as Grand Lake, a beautiful sheet of water. Its quiet surface reflects towering cliffs and crags of gl'anite on its eastern shore, and stately pines and firs stand on its western mar- gin. The Green River heads near Fremont's Peak, in the Wind River Mountains. This river, like the Grand, has its sources in alpine lakes fed by everlasting snows. Thousands of these little lakes, with deep, cold emerald waters, are embossomed among the crags of the Rocky Mountains. These streams, born in the cold, gloomy solitudes of the upper mountain region, have a strange, eventful history as they pass down through gorges tumbling in cascades and cataracts, until they reach the hot, arid plains of the Lowe r Colorado, where the waters that were so clear above empty as turbid floods into the Gulf of California. " . . . . Since Powell's exploration of the Colorado River, development of . the arid southwestern United States has become increasingly dependent upon the water supplies 01 the river. Now, the "strange, eventful history" of the Colorado is largely one of control and regulation for the . use of man as the waters pass downstream, with the flow of the river being mostly diverted or consumed before reaching the Gulf of California. . 4 .