THE PANOEAMA PEOM POINT iSUBLIME. 
147 
limited ground of comparison between the two localities, for in style and 
effects their respective structures differ as decidedly as the works of any 
two well-developed and strongly contrasted styles of human architecture. 
Whatsoever is forcible, characteristic, and picturesque in the rock- 
forms of the Plateau Country is concentrated and intensified to the utter- 
most in the buttes. Wherever we find them, whether fringing the long 
escarpments of terraces or planted upon broad mesas, whether in canons 
or upon expansive plains, they are always bold and striking in outline and 
ornate in architecture. Upon their flanks and entablatures the decoration 
peculiar to the formation out of which they have been carved is most 
strongly portrayed and the profiles are most sharply cut. They command 
the attention with special force and quicken the imagination with a singular 
power. The secret of their impressiveness is doubtless obscure. Why one 
form should be beautiful and another unattractive ; why one should be 
powerful, animated, and suggestive, while another is meaningless, are ques- 
tions for the metaphysician rather than the geologist. Sufficient here is the 
fact. Yet there are some elements of impressiveness which are too patent 
to escape recognition. In nearly all buttes there is a certain definiteness of 
form which is peculiarly emphatic, and this is seen in their profiles. 
Their ground-plans are almost always indefinite and capricious, but the 
profiles are rarely so. These are usually composed of lines which have 
an approximate and sometimes a sensibly perfect g'eometrical defini- 
tion. They are usually few and simple in their ultimate analysis, 
though by combination they give rise to much variety. The ledges are 
vertical, the summits are horizontal, and the taluses are segments of hyper- 
bolas of long curvature and concave upwards. These lines greatly pre- 
ponderate in all cases, and though others sometimes intrude they seldom 
blemish greatly the effects produced by the normal ones. All this is in 
striking contrast with the ever- varying, indefinite profiles displayed in moun- 
tains and hills or on the slopes of valleys. The profiles generated by the 
combinations of these geometric lines persist along an indefinite extent of 
front. Such variations as occur arise not from changes in the nature of the 
lines, but in the modes of combination and proportions. These are never 
great in any front of moderate extent, but are just sufficient to relieve it 
