CHAPTER VIII. 
THE PANORAMA FROM POINT SUBLIME. 
Abrupt disclosure of the spectacle. — Point Sublime. — ^The Grand Canon an innovation in modern ideas. 
Familiarity required for a just appreciation. — Erroneous nature of preconceived notions. — Width 
of the chasm. — Extent of the panorama. — Vastness of its component objects.— Their multitude. — 
The infinity of details. — The grandeur and splendor of the buttes. — Lateral amphitheaters or 
side gorges. — Architectural styles of decoration. — The Cloisters.— Shiva’s Temple.— Profusion of 
grand objects. — Color effects. — Atmospheric effects. — Sensitiveness of the picture to variations of 
light and shadow. — Effects of shadows and optical delusions. — The western haze. — Modulations 
of the picture through the day. — Sunset in the chasm. — The climax of the day. — Twilight. 
Wherever we reach the Grrand Canon in the Kaibab it bursts upon the 
vision in a moment. Seldom is any warning given that we ai’e near the 
brink. At the Toroweap it is quite otherwise. There we are notified that 
we are near it a day before we reach it. As the final march to that portion 
of the chasm is made the scene gradually develops, growing by insensible 
degrees more grand until at last we stand upon the brink of the inner gorge, 
where all is before us. In the Kaibab the forest reaches to the sharp edge 
of the cliff and the pine trees shed their cones into the fathomless depths 
below. 
If the approach is made at random, with no idea of reaching any par- 
ticular point by a known route, the probabilities are that it is first seen from 
the rim of one of the vast amphitheaters which set back from the main chasm 
far into the mass of the plateau. It is such a point to which the reader has 
been brought in the preceding chapter. Of course there are degrees in the 
magnitude and power of the pictures presented, but the smallest and least 
powerful is tremendous and too great for comprehension. The scenery of 
the amphitheaters far surpasses in grandeur and nobility anything else of 
the kind in any other region, but it is mere by-play in comparison with the 
panorama displayed in the heart of the canon. The supreme views are to be 
obtained at the extremities of the long promontories, which jut out between 
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