an expanse seems at first wholly in 

 compatible with the splendid forests of 

 stately pines, with some aspens and 

 scrubby oaks interspersed, and the 

 luxuriant grass and innumerable flowers. 



They are kept alive by the moisture 

 of the heavy snows of winter, and the 

 coolness of the nights in the warmer 

 months, checking the evaporation, and 

 by occasional rains in summer, mostly 

 in July and August. 



We are promised a branch railroad 

 in the near future from the main line of 

 the Santa Fe to the Canon. 



All previous observations of canons 

 fail utterly to give any adequate ideas . 

 of the immensity and the splendor of 

 this, "the sublimest spectacleon earth." 

 No narrow crack in the earth's crust is 

 this canon, but a vast chasm 217 miles 

 long, from five to twelve miles wide 

 and from 5,000 to 6,000 feet deep, with a 

 great river rolling tumultuously along 

 its bottom, miles away from us as 

 the crow flies, and nearly a mile below 

 us vertically. 



As there are very few places where it 

 is possible to climb down to the river, 

 one might perish from thirst while wan 

 dering along the brink of this canon, 

 and having in plain view at many 

 points one of the greatest rivers of the 

 west coast of America. 



It is the only canon on earth vast 

 enough to have scores of mountains 

 within it. 



It is a double canon, i. e. a canon 

 within a canon. 



The outer canon is from 2,000 to 

 3,000 feet deep, and from five to twelve 

 miles wide. 



Its general direction is east and west, 

 but the mighty river, which in ancient 

 geologic ages eroded this vast abyss, 

 curved, like all rivers, now this way and 

 now that, so that each wall is recessed 

 in mighty amphitheaters, between 

 which comparatively narrow promon 

 tories or points run out from one to six 

 miles into the canon. 



From the base of the mighty palisade 

 which forms the walls of the outer 

 canon stretches a plateau 5, 8, 10, or 12 

 miles wide, to the equally lofty palisade 

 which forms the opposite wall of the 

 outer canon, and somewhere near the 

 middle of this plateau is sunk the inner 



121 



canon, another 2,000 to 3,000 feet deep, 

 with a width at the top varying from 

 one-half to three-fourths of a mile, and 

 in its somber depths rolls the ever tur 

 bid Colorado, ceaselessly at its endless 

 labor of cutting down the mountains 

 and sweeping their ruins to the sea. 



Scattered all over this plateau are 

 the remains of what were once long 

 promontories like the points on which 

 we now walk or ride far out towards 

 the middle of the canon, but which 

 have weathered so that they are now 

 lines of hills and mountains. 



Real mountains many of them are, for 

 from their bases on the plateau, 2,000 

 to 3,000 feet above the bottom of the 

 inner canon, they rise 1,500 to 2,500 

 feet, nearly or quite to the level of the 

 tops of the cliffs bounding the outer 

 canon, 



Nearly all the length of the canon is 

 through sandstones, and limestones, 

 and shales, resplendent with the colors 

 which add so much to the beauty of 

 Rocky Mountain scenery. 



The almost uniform horizontality of 

 stratification of these rocks demon 

 strates that the erosion of the canon 

 was little aided or affected by any vio 

 lent upheavals or disturbances of the 

 rocks. 



We see clearly about twenty-five 

 miles each way along the canon, and 

 somewhat indistinctly probably another 

 twenty-five or thirty miles each way, 

 and everywhere is the same indescriba 

 ble splendor of color and of beauty of 

 form. 



It is a new "Holy City," and whether 

 viewed from above, by a ride or walk 

 along the edge of the canon, or from 

 the multitudinous turns and loops of 

 the trail by which one can descend on 

 horseback to the plateau and ride 

 across to the edge of the inner canon, 

 whence a path enables us to safely 

 climb on foot down to the river's edge, 

 everywhere we seem to be gazing on 

 the ruins of cities, palaces, towers, and 

 temples, such as might have been 

 builded by the gnomes and genii of 

 the "Arabian Nights." 



Speakingof these weather-sculptured 

 buttes or mountains of bare and splen- 

 didlv colored rock which stand within 

 the outer canon, Button says: 



