STEEP TRAILS 



and well deserved as is its fame, compared with 

 this it is only a bright rainbow ribbon at the 

 roots of the pines. Each of the series of level, 

 continuous beds of carboniferous rocks of the 

 canon has, as we have seen, its own charac- 

 teristic color. The summit limestone-beds are 

 pale yellow; next below these are the beauti- 

 ful rose-colored cross-bedded sandstones; next 

 there are a thousand feet of brilliant red sand- 

 stones; and below these the red wall limestones, 

 over two thousand feet thick, rich massy red, 

 the greatest and most influential of the series, 

 and forming the main color-fountain. Be- 

 tween these are many neutral-tinted beds. 

 ,The prevailing colors are wonderfully deep 

 and clear, changing and blending with vary- 

 ing intensity from hovu" to hour, day to day, 

 season to season; throbbing, wavering, glow- 

 ing, responding to every passing cloud or 

 storm, a world of color in itself, now burning 

 in separate rainbow bars streaked and blotched 

 with shade, now glowing in one smooth, all- 

 pervading ethereal radiance like the alpen- 

 glow, uniting the rocky world with the heavens. 

 The dawn, as in all the pure, dry desert 

 coimtry is ineffably beautiful; and when the 

 first level sunbeams stiag the domes and 

 spires, with what a burst of power the big, 

 wild days begin! The dead and the living, 



S62 



