THE GRANB CANON 



along the great walls in and out around all 

 the intricate system of side-canons, amphi- 

 theaters, cirques, and scallops into which they 

 are sculptured. From one point hundreds 

 of miles of this fairy embroidery may be 

 traced. It is aU so fine and orderly that it 

 would seem that not only had the clouds and 

 streams been kept harmoniously busy in the 

 making of it, but that every raindrop sent 

 like a bullet to a mark had been the sub- 

 ject of a separate thought, so siu-e is the out- 

 come of beauty through the stormy centuries. 

 Surely nowhere else are there illustrations so 

 striking of the natural beauty of desolation 

 and death, so many of nature's own moimtain 

 buildings wasting in glory of high desert air 

 — going to dust. See how steadfast in beauty 

 they aU are in their going. Look again and 

 again how the rough, dusty boulders and sand 

 of disintegration from the upper ledges wreathe 

 in beauty the next and next below with these 

 wonderful taluses, and how the colors are finer 

 the faster the waste. We oftentimes see Nature 

 giving beauty for ashes — as in the flowers of a 

 prairie after fire — but here the very dust and 

 ashes are beautiful. 



Gazing across the mighty chasm, we at last 

 discover that it is not its great depth nor 

 length, nor yet these wonderful buildings, that 



357 



