36 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



supreme is it above all the other canons in our 

 fire-moulded, earthquake-shaken, rain-washed, 

 wave-washed, river and glacier sculptured world. 

 It is about six thousand feet deep where you 

 first see it, and from rim to rim ten to fifteen 

 miles wide. Instead of being dependent for 

 interest upon waterfalls, depth, wall sculpture, 

 and beauty of parklike floor, like most other 

 great canons, it has no waterfalls in sight, and 

 no appreciable floor spaces. The big river has 

 just room enough to flow and roar obscurely, 

 here and there groping its way as best it can, 

 like a weary, murmuring, overladen traveler try- 

 ing to escape from the tremendous, bewildering 

 labyrinthic abyss, while its roar serves only to 

 deepen the silence. Instead of being filled with 

 air, the vast space between the walls is crowded 

 with Nature's grandest buildings, — a sublime 

 city of them, painted in every color, and adorned 

 with richly fretted cornice and battlement spire 

 and tower in endless variety of style and archi- 

 tecture. Every architectural invention of man 

 has been anticipated, and far more, in this 

 grandest of God's terrestrial cities. 



