STEEP TRAILS 



so simple; rain striking light hammer-blows 

 or heavier in streams, with many rest Smx- 

 days; soft air and light, gentle sappers and 

 miners, toiling forever; the big river sawing 

 the plateau asunder, carrying away the eroded 

 and ground waste, and exposing the edges of 

 the strata to the weather; rain torrents saw- 

 ing cross-streets and alleys, exposing the strata 

 in the same way in hundreds of sections, the 

 softer, less resisting beds weathering and re- 

 ceding faster, thus undermining the harder 

 beds, which fall, not only in small weathered 

 particles, but in heavy sheer-cleaving masses, 

 assisted down from time to time by kindly 

 earthquakes, rain torrents rushing the fallen 

 material to the river, keeping the wall rocks 

 constantly exposed. Thus the canon grows 

 wider and deeper. So also do the side-canons 

 and amphitheaters, while secondary gorges 

 and cirques gradually isolate masses of the 

 promontories, forming new buildings, all of 

 which are being weathered and piilled and 

 shaken down while being buUt, showing de- 

 struction and creation as one. We see the 

 proudest temples and palaces in stateliest 

 attitudes, wearing their sheets of detritus as 

 royal robes, shedding off showers of red and 

 yellow stones like trees in autumn shedding 

 their leaves, going to dust like beautiful days 



380 



