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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



single cliff of greenstone, marked by the slaty limestone that once 

 incased it, rears itself from a crumbled base of sandstones, like the 

 boldly chiseled rampart of an ancient city. At its northern extrem- 

 ity, on the brink of a deep ravine which has worn its way among the 

 ruins, there stands a solitary column or minaret tower, as sharply 

 finished as if it had been cast for the Place Vendome. Yet the 

 length of the shaft alone is four hundred and eighty feet, and it 

 rises on a plinth or pedestal itself two hundred and eighty." 



In some of the canons of the Great Walled River, the Colorado 

 of the West, turrets, pinnacles, and even natural arches stud the 



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THREE MOTHERS TUIWT.3 

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Fig. 6. — Three Brothers Turrets. 



walls with countless imitations of architectural forms, every bend 

 of the stream offering some fresh novelty. In parts of Marble Canon 

 the high walls are eroded into endless alcoves, caves, towers, weather- 

 beaten castles, and a thousand and one weird or fantastic forms. 

 One night, just below our camp, was a perfect semblance of a ruined 

 castle. Around the indentations which answered for crumbling 

 windows clung carelessly bunches of mosses and ferns, while at one 

 side from a mass of emerald verdure, rendered greener and sweeter 

 by contrast with the miles on miles of barren red cliff up and 

 down, gushed forth a clear spring whose waters, churned to silver, 

 dashed through the vines into the deep river a hundred feet below. 



In the Canon of Desolation, twenty-four hundred feet above the 

 surface of the river, surrounded by pine trees, is a formation that 

 seemed from below so exact a counterpart of a pioneer log cabin that 

 it was difficult to believe it was only a deception. The beetling wall 

 which it surmounted was named " Log Cabin Cliff." 



Another class of resemblances are those called " domes." The 

 Domes of the Yosemite are a well-known example, but the Five 

 Domes of the Virgin River in southern Utah are perhaps quite as 



