THE PANORAMA PROM POINT SUBLIME. 
149 
lines of bedding is most forcibly displayed in all the windings of the fa 9 ades, 
and these lines are crossed by the vertical scorings of numberless water- 
ways. Here, too, are distinctly seen those details which constitute the 
peculiar style of decoration prevailing throughout all the buttes and amphi- 
theaters of the Kaibab. The course of the walls is never for a moment 
straight, but extends as a series of cusps and re-entrant curves. Elsewhere 
the reverse is more frequently seen; the projections of the wall are rounded 
and are convex towards the front, while the re-entrant portions are cusp- 
like recesses. This latter style of decoration is common in the Permian 
buttes and is not rare in the Jurassic. It produces the effect of a thickly 
set row of pilasters. In the Grand Canon the reversal of this mode pro- 
duces the effect of panels and niches. In the western Cloister may be seen 
a succession of these niches, and though they are mere details among myriads, 
they are really vast in dimensions. Those seen in the Red Wall limestone 
are over 600 feet high, and are overhung by arched lintels with spandrels. 
As we contemplate these objects we find it quite impossible to realize 
their magnitude. Not only are we deceived, but we are conscious that we 
are deceived, and yet we cannot conquer the deception We cannot long 
study our surroundings without becoming aware of an enormous disparity 
in the effects produced upon the senses by objects which are immediate and 
equivalent ones which are more remote. The depth of the gulf which 
separates us from the Cloisters cannot be realized. We crane over the brink, 
and about 700 feet below is a talus, which ends at the summit of the cross- 
bedded sandstone. We may see the bottom of the gorge, which is about 
8,800 feet beneath us, and yet the talus seems at least half-way down. 
Looking across the side goi’ge the cross-bedded sandstone is seen as a mere 
band at the summit of the Cloister, forming but a very small portion of its 
vertical extent, and, whatever the reason may conclude, it is xiseless to 
attempt to persuade the imagination that the two edges of the sandstone lie 
in the same horizontal plane. The eastern Cloister is nearer than the west- 
ern, its distance being about a mile and a half. It seems incredible that it 
can be so much as one-third that distance. Its altitude is from 3,500 to 
4,000 feet, but any attempt to estimate the altitude by means of visual im- 
pressions is felt at once to be hopeless. There is no stadium. Dimensions 
