THE GRAND CANON 



In a dry, hot, monotonous forested plateau, 

 seemingly boundless, you come suddenly and 

 without warning upon the abrupt edge of a 

 gigantic sunken landscape of the wildest, most 

 multitudinous features, and those features, 

 sharp and angular, are made out of flat beds of 

 limestone and sandstone forming a spiry, jag- 

 ged, gloriously colored mountain-range coun- 

 tersunk in a level gray plain. It is a hard job 

 to sketch it even in scrawniest outline; and, 

 try as I may, not in the least sparing myself, 

 I cannot tell the hundredth part of the won- 

 ders of its features the side-canons, gorges, 

 alcoves, cloisters, and amphitheaters of vast 

 sweep and depth, carved in its magnificent 

 walls; the throng of great architectural rocks 

 it contains resembling castles, cathedrals, 

 temples, and palaces, towered and spired and 

 painted, some of them nearly a mile high, yet 

 beneath one's feet. All this, however, is less 

 difficult than to give any idea of the impres- 

 sion of wild, primeval beauty and power one 

 receives hi merely gazing from its brink. The 

 view down the gulf of color and over the run 

 of its wonderful wall, more than any other 

 view I know, leads us to think of our earth as 

 a star with stars swimming in light, every 

 radiant spire pointing the way to the heavens. 



But it is impossible to conceive what the 



349 



