16 
THE GRAND CAS^ON DISTRICT. 
belt of terraces which descend from the High Plateaus on the north through 
a succession of steps to the four plateaus first mentioned. 
If we proceed southward from the district of the High Plateaus of 
Utah, we shall gradually descend from an altitude of more than 10,000 feet 
to one of less than 5,000 feet. The country thus traversed is ten-aced off 
in a succession of steps, each teirace being terminated by a sinuous line of 
cliffs or abrupt slopes. Each cliff is the limiting border of a great series 
of strata, no member of which is encountered again for an indefinite dis- 
tance to the southward. As we descend each cliff we find ourselves at its 
base upon the summit of a lower series. From the crest of each escarp- 
ment the stratum on which we stand constitutes the surface of the country 
to the northward as far as the foot of the next terrace above us, and it has a 
very gentle and hardly perceptible dip in that direction. The whole series 
in fact has a slight dip to the northward. The uppermost series is the 
Eocene, which forms the summits of the southern members of the High 
Plateaus. Only the lower members of the Eocene are there present, and 
these appear by their fossils to be certainly equivalent in age to those beds 
in the Green River Basin and upon the slopes of the Uinta Mountains to 
which Powell gave the local name of Bitter Creek beds, and which King 
called Vermilion Creek. At the southern boundaries of the Markdgunt and 
Pauns4gunt plateaus the vertical edges of these strata have received the 
name of the Pink Cliffs. They are exceedingly picturesque and beautiful 
on account of their marvellous sculpture and delicate pale red color. 
Beneath them and extending farther southward is the great Cretaceous 
series, which in these parts does not give rise to cliffs, though farther east 
in the Upper Paria amphitheater it presents palisades of grand proportions 
and magnificent aspect. Here its strata are beveled off on their edges in 
such manner, that while their dip is gently towards the north the planes of 
denudation incline strongly towards the south, and the edges form long- 
slopes of disintegrated shale with low crumbling- ledges of sandstone. From 
beneath the Cretaceous project southward two divisions of the Jurassic, the 
upper consisting of red shaly beds which disintegrate easily and do not 
ordinarily form cliffs ; and the lower, a massive sandstone, a thousand feet 
thick and of commanding- aspect. It is very light gray — almost white — 
