58 
THE GRAND QAI^ON DISTRICT. 
700 feet in depth, and here of considerable width. Its bottom is for the 
most part unseen, but in one place is disclosed by a turn in its course, show- 
ing the vivid green of vegetation. Across the canon, and rather more than 
a mile and a half beyond it, stands the central and commanding- object of 
the picture, the western temple, rising 4,000 feet above the river. Its 
glorious summit was the object we had seen an hour before, and now the 
matchless beauty and majesty of its vast mass is all before us. Yet it 
is only the central object of a mighty throng of structures wrought up to 
the same exalted style, and filling up the entire panorama. Right opposite 
us are the two principal forks of the Virgen, the Paruuuweap coming from 
the right or east, and the Mukuntuweap or Little Zion Valley, descending 
towards us from the north. The Parunuweap is seen emerging on the 
extreme right through a stupendous gateway and chasm in the Triassic 
terrace, nearly 3,000 feet in depth. The further wall of this canon, at the 
opening of the gateway, quickly swings northward at a right angle and 
becomes the eastern wall of Little Zion Valley. As it sweeps down the 
Parunuweap it breaks into great pediments, covered all over with the richest 
carving. The effect is much like that which the architect of the Milan 
Cathedral appears to have designed, though here it is vividly suggested 
rather than fully realized — as an artist painting in the “broad style” sug-- 
gests many things without actually drawing them. The sumptuous, bewil- 
dering, mazy effect is all there, but when we attempt to analyze it in detail 
it eludes iis. The flank of the wall receding up the Mukuntuweap is for a 
mile or two similarly decorated, but soon breaks into new forms much more 
impressive and wonderful. A row of towers half a mile high is quarried 
out of the palisade, and stands well advanced from its face. There is an 
eloquence to their forms which stirs the imagination with a singular power, 
and kindles in the mind of the dullest observer a glowing response. Just 
behind them, rising a thousand feet higher, is the eastern temple, crowned 
with a cylindric dome of white sandstone ; but since it is, in many respects, 
a repetition of the nearer western temple, we may turn our attention to the 
latter. Directly in front of us a complex group of wliite towers, springing 
from a central pile, mounts upwards to the clouds. Out of their midst, 
and high over all, rises a dome-like mass, which dominates the entire laud- 
