130 
THE GRAND CASON DISTRICT. 
yards of their sources. And the “Big Spring” in Stewart’s Canon yields 
several times as much water as all the others put together. With this fore- 
knowledge the prospects of water supply upon the Kaibab might seem dis- 
couraging, but we shall not suffer for the want of it. 
Although the sun is still high when the Big Spring is reached, nothing 
will be gained by prolonging the day’s march, and it is well to take a look 
at the surroundings. In some way, without knowing exactly when and 
where, we seem to have gotten into the Kaibab; for around us is the sylvan 
scenery and a rolling country traversed by many valleys and ravines. 
True, they are not the finest types, but when we recall the desert we have 
just left, this place looks like a paradise. The barometer shows a consider- 
able altitude, 7,850 feet, and the air though warm is not oppressive. As Ave 
approached the plateau from the desert and saw its battlements towering 
grandly in the distance and becoming hourly more grand, its level parapet 
retreating into indefinite distance in either direction, it never occurred to 
us that we might be spared the arduous struggle of scaling the wall, or, as 
a still more arduous alternative, the forcing of a rough passage through 
some narrow ravine for many miles. Yet we have reached this spot by a 
route as easy as an old fashioned turnpike. In truth, the configuration of 
the southern part of the Kaibab could not be discerned as we approached 
it from the north But, putting together the observations of the journey, it 
noAv becomes apparent that the platform of the Kanab Plateau rises quite 
rapidly towards the south, while the Kaibab gains in altitude much more 
sloAvly. Opposite our last camp the difference in the altitudes of the two 
plateaus is about 2,300 feet. Here it has greatly diminished, and the pas- 
sage from one to the other is now partly by a very gentle inclined plane 
and partly by a fault. Fifteen miles further south the fault vanishes or be- 
comes insignificant, and the passage is by a long slope.* 
Resuming in the morning the route up Stewart’s Canon, a half-liour’s 
*It may be remarted here that every fault in the district is accompanied with a corresponding 
break in the topography. A cliff or steep slope is produced by it. I do not recall an instance where 
the lifted beds are planed off by erosion, so as to make a continuons level with the thrown beds. The 
cliffs generated by displacement have a character of their own which the experienced observer distin- 
guishes quickly and confidently from cliffs of erosion. These characteristic breaks in the topography 
often betray a fault in localities where it would otherwise have been passed over unnoticed and unsus- 
pected. 
