high waiter she broke away from her moorings and drifted into a slough some sixty-five miles below Yuma. Finally her machinery was removed, but no attempt was made to salvage the hull. She was probably lost sometime before 1865. In 1873 the Sentinel reported that due to the changing course of the river she was then one hundred and fifty yards from the stream but could not be seen, owing to the height of the weeds surrounding her.*^ In 1929, a surveying party discovered and identified her patched hull, then more than a mile away from the river.^^
Thus, by 1859, tests carried on by the United States transport schooners had opened the ocean route to the mouth of the river, the experiments of Turnbull and Johnson had established the beginnings of steam navigation on the Colorado, and the explorations of Johnson and Ives had demonstrated the possibility of navigating the stream several hundred miles above Yuma. But the testing period was not over. Up to this time ocean-going vessels to the mouth of the river had been the smaller, wind-driven type, not exceeding two hundred tons capacity. The possibility of using fifteen-hundred to twothousand-ton steamers was next advanced. The chief question was whether these larger craft could enter the mouth of the river. The answer to the problem was sought in the much publicized voyage of the ocean steamer Uncle Sam, a. vessel of 1,438 tons, owned by Charles K. Garrison of San Francisco. She was chartered by the army to carry troops to establish a new post at Fort Mohave and left San Francisco on February 10, 1859, with five companies of troops numbering 350 men, 200 mules which were later discharged at San Diego, and 300 tons of freight. She arrived at the river on February 27 and anchored some twenty miles below the mouth.^^ The river must have presented a picture teeming with activity during her stay, for in addition to the two river steamers, the General Jesup and the Colorado^ assisting in the discharge of her cargo, there were the schooners Monterey, Flying Dart, Raymond, and the Mexican barque Carmelita all actively engaged in trade.^^
The experiment proved successful, and later that same year the 295-ton steamer Santa Cruz made a similar trip to the Colorado. In 1 866, the 103 1 -ton steamer Oregon made two trips. She left San Francisco for the Colorado on February 18 and returned on March 25 with 330 soldiers and 42 passengers. A second trip was made in May, when she returned with 307 soldiers and 23 passengers. After this time she was advertised to make regular sailings and the date for a third voyage was set, but for some unknown reason the plan did not materialize.^^ A third steamer, the Continental, left San Francisco in October 1869, transporting a command of three hundred troops to the mouth of the river.^*
Meanwhile development on the river kept pace with the expanding military and mining activities. Owing to the need of supplying two military forts and also because of the discovery of rich gold and silver deposits along
