CAPE PINAL— VISHIS'U’S TEMPLE. 
177 
is at once caught by an object which seems to surpass in beauty anything 
we have yet seen. It is a gigantic butte, so admirably designed and so 
exquisitely decorated that the sight of it must call forth an expression of 
wonder and delight from the most apathetic beholder. Its summit is more 
than 5,000 feet above the river. Mr. Holmes’ picture will convey a much 
more accurate idea of it than any verbal description can possibly do. We 
named it Vishnu’s Temple. 
No point in the canon presents so much matter of interest to the geolo- 
gist as Cape Final. It is upon the crest of the East Kaibab monocline, 
and the local aspects of that displacement are remarkably clear. Looking 
southward across the river to the main wall, the strata are seen to possess 
a strong dip to the eastward, amounting to five or six degrees. This dip 
prevails through a distance of about six miles, and gradually increases the 
height of the southern wall by a corresponding amount. Or, conversely, 
the descent of the strata towards the east lowers the entire platform; for 
the same upper stratum everywhere in these parts forms the surface of the 
country. The monocline beyond the river gradually dies out. But on the 
north side of the river, and directly in front of us as we face the eastward, 
its dip is seen to be much greater, amounting to ten or twelve degrees, and 
as we follow it northward along the eastern Kaibab front we shall find the 
dip still increasing at a slow rate. But as it smooths out south of the river 
we may observe that the locus of displacement is transferred to the west- 
ward, for we can very plainly discern an abrupt upward turn in the flexure 
exposed in the canon wall away to the westward. The dip for a short dis- 
tance is as great as 25° or more, and after it has brought u^i all the beds 
to the westward five hundred feet the strata flex back to horizontality. 
This sharp flexure manifests itself far south of the river and away from it 
by a long hillside facing the east. As the eye follows it along its strike it 
perceives it growing in altitude and becoming more and more abrupt until 
it presents a tall cliff, which, ten miles south of the river, seems to be nearly 
or quite a thousand feet high. At that distance the East Kaibab monocline 
has wholly disappeared. This cliff’, which undoubtedly has a fault at its 
base, has taken up the displacement and carried it on to the southward as 
far as the eye can follow it. To this extent we may, with perfect confi- 
12 G c 
