CHAPTER I. 
GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 
Subdivisions of the Plateau Province. — The boundaries of the Grand Canon district. — The western 
boundary at the Grand Wash.— Its northern border along the terraces. — The southern and south- 
western margin at the Aubrey Cliffs. — The Sheavwits Plateau. — The Uinkaret. — The Kanab 
Plateau. — The Kaibab. — The Paria Plateau and Marble Cation platform. — The Kaiparowits. — 
The Colorado Plateau south of the river. — The San Francisco Mountains. — The terraces forming 
the border region descending from the High Plateaus to the Grand Canon platform. — The Eocene 
and Mesozoic strata of these terraces and their terminal cliffs. — The Vermilion Cliffs. — The Per- 
mian terrace. — Eastern boundary of the district along the Echo Cliffs and terminations of the 
Mesozoic strata of the central mesas of the province. — The displacements. — General inclination 
of the great Carboniferous platform of the district. — The systematic character of the faults. — 
The Grand Wash fault. — Hurricane fault. — Toroweap fault. — Southern termination of the Sevier 
fault. — Western and Eastern Kaibab displacements. — Echo Cliff monocline. — General arrange- 
ment of the faults. — The drainage system of the region. — Course of the Colorado through the 
district in the Marble and Grand Canons. — Divisions of the Grand Canon. — Its length and dimen- 
sions.— Its general characteristics in the several plateaus which it traverses. — The rivers of the 
terraces. — The Virgen. — Kanab River. — Paria River. — Paucity of tributaries to the Giand Canon. 
In numerous works upon western geolog}^ those features which give 
the Plateau Province its distinct character have been the subjects of ex- 
tended description; and its boundaries, so far as they have been discovered, 
have been indicated. They are gradually becoming familiar to students of 
geology, and no general account of them is deemed necessary here. The 
province is capable of subdivision into component districts, each of which, 
while preserving the plateau features, has peculiarities of its own. Three 
of these have already been the subjects of special monographs;* viz, the 
Uinta Mountains, the Henry Mountains and the High Plateaus. The in- 
terest in this remarkable province no doubt culminates in that portion of 
it which drains into the Grand Canon of the Colorado. This is the western- 
most — perhaps we may say the southwesternmost — portion of the Plateau 
* These three monographs are the published Reports of the Geographical and Geological Survey 
of the Rocky Mountain Region, J. W. Powell in charge. The first of them, ‘‘The Geology of the Uinta 
Mountains,” is the work of J. W. Powell; the second, “The Henry Mountains,” is by G. K. Gilbert; the 
third, “Geology of the High Plateaus of Utah,” is by C. E. Dutton. They were all originally contem- 
plated as subsidiary to a more general treatise upon the geology of the Plateau couutry at large. 
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