THE GEEAT ESPLANADE. 
87 
walls 2,000 feet high and 5 miles apart is a plain, which in comparison with 
its limiting cliffs might be regarded as smooth, but which in reality is 
diversified by rocky hummocks and basins, and hillocks wliere patches of 
soil give life to scattered cedars and pifioiis. Of the inner chasm nothing 
as yet is to be seen. Moving outward into this platform we find its surface 
to be mostly bare rock, with broad shallow basins etched in them, which 
hold water after the showers. There are thousands of these pools, and 
when the showers have passed they gleam and glitter in, the sun like innu- 
merable mirrors. As we move outward towards the center of the grand 
avenue the immensity and beautiful proportions of the walls develop The 
vista towards the east lengthens out and vanishes against the blue ramp of 
the Kaibab, which lies as a cloud upon the horizon. To the west the view 
is less symmetric and regular, and the eye wanders vaguely among cliffs 
and buttes of stupendous magnitude, displaying everywhere the profile 
with which we have become of late finniliar. Much of the distance towards 
the west is obstructed by the crater, but the portions in view bewilder us 
by the great number of objects presented, and oppress us by their magni- 
tudes. At a distance of about two miles from the base of the northern wall 
we come suddenly upon the inner chasm. We are not conscious of its prox- 
imity until we are within a few yards of it. In less than a minute after we 
liave recognized the crest of the farther wall of this abyss we crane over 
its terrible briidc and gaze upon the water of the river full 3,000 feet below. 
The scene before us is a type of the Grand Canon tliroughout those 
portions which extend through the Kanab, Uinkaret, and Sheavwits Plat- 
eaus. The plan and section here presented are. cpiite simple. Tliey con- 
sist of a broad upper chasm from five to six miles in width witli walls vaiy- 
ing in altitude but little from 2,000 feet. Between these escaipments is a 
I’ocky plain, rough indeed, but in the overpowering presence of such walls 
seeming relatively smooth and uniform In this floor is cut the inner cliasm 
3,000 feet deep and from 3, .500 to 4,000 feet wide from crest to crest. The 
true profiles will be best understood by consulting the diagram (Fig. ) ), which 
is drawn to scale. The strata in which tlie chasm is excavated are all of Car- 
boniferous age excepting three or four hundred feet at the bottom of the 
gorge. The strata beneath the Carboniferous are at present believed to be 
