THE PAJfOEAMA FROM POINT SUBLIME. 
143 
bab. Still the Grand Canon is the sublimest thing on earth. It is so not 
alone by virtue of its magnitudes, but by virtue of the whole — its ensemble. 
The common notion of a canon is that of a deep, narrow gash in the 
earth, with nearly vertical walls, like a great and neatly cut trench. There 
are hundreds of chasms in the Plateau Country'- which answer very well to 
this notion. Many of them are sunk to frightful depths and are fifty to a 
hundred miles in length. Some are exceedingly narrow, as the canons of 
the forks of the Vii-gen, where the ovei'hanging walls shut out the sky. 
Some are intricately sculptured, and illuminated with brilliant colors; others 
are picturesque by reason of their bold and striking sculpture. A few of 
them are most solemn and impressive by reason of their profundity and the 
majesty of their walls. But, as a rule, the common canons are neither 
grand nor even attractive. Upon first acquaintance they are curious and 
awaken interest as a new sensation, but they soon grow tiresome for want 
of diversity, and become at last mere bores. The impressions they produce 
are very transient, because of their great simplicity and the limited range 
of ideas they present. But there are some which are highly diversified, pre- 
senting many attractive features. These seldom grow stale or wearisome, 
and their presence is generally greeted with pleasure. 
It is perhaps in some respects unfortunate that the stupendous path- 
way of the Colorado River through the Kaibabs was ever called a canon, 
for the name identifies it with the baser conception. But the name presents 
as wide a range of signification as the word house. The log cabin of the 
rancher, the painted and vine-clad cottage of the mechanic, the home of the 
millionaire, the places where parliaments assemble, and the grandest tem- 
ples of worship, are all houses. Yet the contrast between Saint Marc’s and 
the riMe dwelling of the frontiersman is not greater than that between the 
chasm of the Colorado and the trenches in the rocks which answer to the 
ordinary conception of a canon. And as a great cathedral is an immense 
development of the rudimentary idea involved in the four walls and roof of 
a cabin, so is the chasm an expansion of the simple type of drainage chan- 
nels peculiar to the Plateau Country. To the conception of its vast propor- 
tions must be added some notion of its intricate plan, the nobility of its 
architecture, its colossal buttes, its wealth of ornamentation, the splendor of 
