PARiA AMPHITHEATER. 255 



forgotten by him who has once beheld it. This is one of the grand pano- 

 ramas of the Plateau Country and typical in all respects. To the eye which 

 is not trained to it and to the mind which is not inured to its strangeness, 

 its desolation and grotesqueness may be repulsive rather than attractive, 

 but to the mind which has grown into sympathy with such scenes it con- 

 veys a sense of power and grandeur and a fullness of meaning which lay 

 hold of the sensibilities more forcibly than tropical verdure or snow-clad 

 Alps or Arcadian valleys. 



The Amphitheater or Upper Valley of the Pdria seems from the sum- 

 mit of the Pink Cliffs to be a slightly rugged basin, but like most of the 

 Plateau Country it is found to be a difficult field to traverse. A network of 

 sharp canons several hundred feet in depth ramifies through it, and the 

 traveler is apt to become entangled in their mazes, and find himself con- 

 fronted every few miles with an impassable chasm, never seen until he is 

 almost upon the point of driving his mule into it. A few tortuous traits 

 wind deftly among them, leading by break-neck paths into their depths 

 and out again, and finally into the broad and grotesquely picturesque bot- 

 tom of the PAria River. 



The Paunsdgunt is the southernmost extension of the system of the 

 High Plateaus, and is a promontory thrust out into the terraces which step 

 by step drop down to the Kaibab district. In this series of terraces are 

 exposed the edges, almost always cliffvvise, of the entire Mesozoic system 

 of the region. Just here the Cretaceous does not form such conspicuous 

 cliffs as it presents farther east, but the Jurassic and Triassic series are seen 

 to the southward in their most typical forms. The exposures are truly 

 magnificent. While the cliffs front southward, presenting in naked walls 

 their entire thickness and disclosing every line, they are also cut from north 

 to south and sometimes diagonally by canons, which reveal their dip and 

 stnicture. But as these terraces are more properly a part of the Kaibab 

 system, no detailed description will be given of them here. The Paunsd- 

 gunt itself is a simple tabular block of Lower Eocene beds, of which a 

 section has just been given. It is exceedingly simple in^its structure, and, 

 further than has been already described, presents very little matter for 

 special remark. It is destitute of eruptive rocks, except at its northern 



