DEAINAGE OF THE TEREACES. 
49 
Zion River. It flows due south. East of this is the eastern fork, called the 
Pa-ru-nu-weap. Both branches have their sources at the base of the Pink 
Cliffs (Eocene), and at length unite to form the Virgen. Their channels 
are surely very wonderful freaks of nature. The Parunuweap, after col- 
lecting its several filaments on the slopes of the Cretaceous terrace, at length 
begins to burrow into the Jurassic, cutting a very deep and remarkably 
narrow gap in the white sandstone, and then into and through the Trias. 
For many miles it flows in a mere cleft barely 50 feet wide at the bottom 
and sometimes narrower, and attaining a depth of more than 2,500 feet. In 
scouring down its channel into the sandstones the stream did not cut always 
vertically, but swayed from side to side, so that now great bulges of the 
wall overhang the bottom of the abyss, and in some places shut out the sky 
overhead. The Makuntuweap, or Little Zion F ork, is even more remarka- 
ble. For a considerable distance this stream also runs in a profound and 
exceptionally narrow chasm, but it at length widens out, and just where it 
joins the Parunuweap is a scene which must ultimately become, when the 
knowledge of it is spi’ead, one of the most admired in the world. Of this 
hereafter. Below the junction of the forks the Virgen flows westward, and 
passes out of the terraces and out of the Plateau Province. At length it 
joins the Colorado. 
East of the drainage area of the Virgen is that of Kanab Creek. It 
heads in the broad valley of Upper Kanab, which occupies an indentation 
of the southern margin of the High Plateaus between the Markdgunt and 
Paunsdgunt. The bulk of the drainage passes through the upper canon of 
Kanab Creek, and at length emerges upon the desert to the southward. 
Further on it sinks another chasm in the Carboniferous, which becomes a 
mighty side gorge of the Colorado, and unites with the Grrand Canon in 
the middle of the Kanab division. 
Still eastward is the great amphitheater which gives rise to the branches 
of the Paria. This stream flows southeastward and ultimately enters the 
Colorado at the head of the Marble Canon. 
In these three subordinate drainage basins of the terraces it is well to 
notice some features of importance, common more or less to all, but most 
distinctly seen in Kanab Creek. They all run contrary to the dip of the 
4 a G 
