EXAMPLES OF GREAT CANONS. 6 1 



which with those of several of its confluents, render 

 the Colorado River system undoubtedly the most won- 

 derful of any in the world. 



Another good example of the rock-cutting capabi- 

 lities of water is to be found in the Grand Canon 

 of the Arkansas, in Southern Colorado, which is seen 

 from the train, on the Denver and Rio Grande Railway, 

 near Canon City " where the Arkansas cuts its way 

 for eight miles through mountain walls of solid granite, 

 in some places 3000 feet high, amid scenery of incon- 

 ceivable majesty and sublimity." * 



Then again, the Grand Canon of the Yellowstone 

 in the National Park (Wyoming), furnishes another, 

 and if possible still more wonderful instance of a 

 similar kind. Here the river, after plunging over 

 a precipice nearly 400 feet high, " flows for a distance 

 of some twenty [miles through a canon, 200 to 300 

 yards wide, between perpendicular walls 1200 to 1500 

 feet deep." Professor Hayden, in his report to Con- 

 gress on the Yellowstone region, in describing this 

 wonderful natural phenomenon, states that "no lan- 

 guage can do justice to the wonderful grandeur and 

 beauty of the canon below the lower falls: the very 

 nearly vertical walls sloping down to the water's edge 

 on either side, so that from J:he summit the river 

 appears like a silver thread foaming over its rocky 

 bottom, f 



Volumes might be, and indeed have been written upon 

 the marvels of the canon country, which until quite 

 recently had never been explored by civilized man, 



*Appleton's Guide Book to the United States and Canada, 1882, 

 P- 390. 



j- Ibid. p. 411. 



