CANON ON RED RIYEE. 113 



work of erosion. For when have faults been known to take the ramified form of 

 the tributaries to a river ? 



Lt. J. W. Abert, in his Report to the Government (p. 22), describes the Grand 

 Canon on the Canadian as an immense gulf, several hundred feet deep, with almost 

 perpendicular walls. Mr. Stanley says, "we travelled fifty miles, the whole of 

 which distance is bounded in by cliffs several hundred feet high, in many places 

 perpendicular." Lt. Peck found the walls to be about 250 feet high, but he does 

 not mention the length of the cut. The rock is described as shale. 



9. Canons on the Pecos River, in New Mexico. — These are thus described by Capt. 

 S. G. French, in his Eeport to the Government, of a route over which he passed 

 from San Antonio, in Texas, to El Paso del Norte, p. 45. "The Pecos is a 

 remarkable stream, narrow and deep, extremely crooked in its course, and rapid in 

 its current. Its banks are steep, and in a course of 240 miles, there are but few 

 places where an animal can approach them for water in safety. Not a tree or bush 

 marks its course; and one may stand on its banks and not know that the stream 

 is near." 



10. Canon of Chelly, in New Mexico. — On the Map of Lt. James H. Simpson, in 

 his Report to the Government, of an expedition among the NaVajos Indians, west 

 of the Rio Grande, we find no less than four Canons laid down and noticed. But 

 the most remarkable is that of Chelly, on the Rio de Chelly of Simpson, but the 

 Red River of Monk's Map, in long. 109 i° and N. lat. 36°. It is cut through red 

 sandstone: its width at bottom varies from 150 to 300 or 400 feet: the height of 

 its perpendicular wall is from 200 to 800 feet: and its whole length not less than 

 25 miles. This is certainly one of the most remarkable defiles that have ever 

 been described. A view of this canon, eight miles from its mouth, as given by 

 Lt. Simpson, has been copied and accompanies this paper. See Plate XII. fig. 9. 



11. A canon still more remarkable, certainly for length, has been described 

 by Capt. R. B. Marcy, of the United States Army, in a lecture before the Ame- 

 rican Geographical and Statistical Society, in New York, March 22, 1853, giv- 

 ing an account of his exploration of the head branches of Red river, in Texas. 

 This river takes its rise in the desert table land, called Llano Estacado, which is 

 elevated above the sea 3650 feet, and which extends from the Canadian river 

 southerly for 400 miles, between 101° and 104° W. long., and 32° 30' N. lat. to 

 36° 20'. The gorge on Red river, as it comes out from the sandstone of this 

 mesa, says Capt. Marcy, "is 70 miles long, and the escarpments from 500 to 800 feet 

 high on each side, and in many places they approach so near the water's edge, that 

 there is not room for a man to pass ; and occasionally it is necessary to travel for 

 miles in the bed of the river, before a spot is found where a horse can clamber up 

 the precipitous sides of the chasm." Near the upper part of the chasm, he says, 

 "the gigantic walls of sandstone, rising to the enormous height of 800 feet on 

 each side, gradually closed in, until they were only a few yards apart, and at last 

 united above us, leaving a long narrow corridor beneath, at the base of which the 

 head spring of the principal branch of Red river takes its rise." " The magnifi- 

 cence of the views that presented themselves, as we approached the head of the 

 river, exceeded anything I had ever beheld. It is impossible for me to describe 



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