DAVIS: THE TLATEAU PROVINCE OF UTAH AND ARIZONA. 21 
Camping on the Esplanade. 
GENERAL FEATURES OF THE ESPLANADE. — The experience of camping 
in the esplanade was mentally impressive rather than physically enjoy- 
able. The noon hours were oppressively hot, and even the nights were 
too sultry for refreshing sleep, but the latter discomfort was probably 
only a temporary element associated with the haze brought by the 
enervating southwest wind. The scenery is marvellous. The views 
from the salient corner of the esplanade next to the fault, and from the 
ash cone, Vulcan’s throne, well repaid the discomfort that they cost. 
The floor of the esplanade is rather even when taken all together, but 
it possesses a considerable relief in detail. It consists in about equal 
parts of clean-swept, cross-bedded, red sandstone —the ‘ esplanade 
sandstone,” or uppermost member of the red-wall group — and of stony, 
dusty waste in which an interesting desert flora finds root. Small rock 
basins or water-pockets are plentiful: many of them contained an inch 
or so of lukewarm, unsavory water at the time of our visit. A light 
thunder-shower — one of many that started down from the clouds — 
reached the esplanade at noon, July 22, making the bare rocks glisten 
for some distance up the canyon ; but there was “not enough water to 
run,” as the local phrase has it. Distances are not easily estimated 
because the dimensions of the enclosing cliffs are so much greater than 
those of the hills that one is accustomed to in regions of moderate relief. 
A point that at first sight seems wituin reach of an easy stroll demands 
a long walk before it is reached. The terrace of bright red sandstone — 
the “ basal Aubrey sandstone ” overlying the “ esplanade sandstone ” — 
that skirts the eighteen hundred foot Aubrey cliffs as a small detail of 
their imposing slope grows to a high bench when one comes to climb it. 
The general floor of the esplanade declines gently to the rim of the 
inner canyon ; one must walk along the very edge of the great bench to 
see down to the river, nearly three thousand feet below. ‘Truly this 
enormous gorge is only half as deep as the whole canyon in the Kaibab ; 
but there the eye wanders bewildered over the superabundant elabora- 
tion of gigantic lateral spurs and ravines, while here the impressive 
simplicity of form, as shown in Plate 4 A, lends great dignity to the 
prospect. It is certainly an unforgettable experience to stroll at leisure 
along the rim of the canyon, now looking across the esplanade to the 
great cliffs that rise to the plateaus, now looking down to the tawny 
