May It Be Again (8/1/1869)

BIRTHDAY CONGRATULATIONS TO JERRY GARCIA
AND THE PACK WHO WALKS LIKE A MAN

Grateful Dead: Winterland Ballroom ...10/17-19/74

We drop down two miles this morning, and go into camp again.
There is a low willow-covered strip of land along the walls on the east.
Across this we walk, to explore an alcove which we see from the river.
On entering, we find a little grove of box-elder and cottonwood trees;
and, turning to the right, we find ourselves in a vast chamber,
carved out of the rock. At the upper end
there is a clear, deep pool of water, bordered with verdure.
Standing by the side of this, we can see the grove at the entrance.
The chamber is more than two hundred feet high, five hundred feet long,
and two hundred feet wide. Through the ceiling, and on through the rocks
for a thousand feet above, there is a narrow winding skylight;
and this is all carved out by a little stream, which only runs
during the few showers that fall now and then in this arid country.
The waters from the bare rocks of the canyon,
gathering rapidly into a small channel, have eroded a deep side canyon,
through which they run, until they fall into the smaller end of this chamber.
The rock at the ceiling is hard, the rock below, very soft and friable;
and having cut through the upper harder portion down into the lower and softer, the stream has washed out these friable sandstones;
and thus the chamber has been excavated.

Here we bring our camp.
When Old Shady
sings us a song at night,
we are pleased to find
that this hollow
in the rock is filled
with sweet sounds.
It was doubtless made
for an academy of music
by its storm-born architect;
so we name it Music Temple.

--John Wesley Powell
journal entry for August 1, 1869