a2 RECONNAISSANCE FROM CARROLL, MONTANA, 
and almost at the water’s edge, where the eye could plunge into the vast chasm below the fall, 
known as the Grand Cafion. I had not time to think of it then, but was afterward not a little 
amused to remember that we passed on the way one of the men who, seated on the bank, was pen- 
sively watching for a trout to seize his grasshopper. He had evidently wearied of too much bacon 
and scenery, and proposed a change at least of diet. 
The view of the Grand Cafion from the point where we stood is perhaps the finest piece of scenery 
in the world. I can conceive of no combination of pictorial splendors which could unite more 
potently the two requisites of majesty and beauty. 
Close at hand, the river narrowed in its bed to a width of some 70 feet and with a depth of 4 
Lower Fall, height OF 5 feet, through the pure deep green of which the hardly wavering outlines of 
310 feet. the brown bowlders beneath are distinctly visible, springs to the crest with an 
intensity of motion that makes its clear depths fairly seem to quiver. Just before making the plunge, 
the stream is again contracted, and the waters are thrown in from both sides toward the center, so 
that two bold rounded prominences or buttresses, as it were, are formed where green and white com- 
mingle. lying prostrate, and looking down into the depth, with the cold breath of the cafion fan- 
ning the face, one can see that these ribs continue downward, the whole mass of the fall gradually 
breaking into spray against the air, until lost in the vast cloud of vapor that hides its lowest third, 
and out of which comes up a mighty roar that shakes the hills and communicates a strange vibra- 
Lower Fall and tion to the nerves. From far below this cloud emerges a narrow, green ribbon, 
Grand Canon. winding and twisting, in which the river is hardly recognizable, so dwarfed is it, 
and creeping with so oily and sluggish a current, as though its fall had stunned it. On either hand, 
the walls of the cafion curve back from the plunging torrent, and rise weltering with moisture to 
the level of the fall, again ascending 500 or 600 feet to the pine-fringed margin of the cation; pinna- 
cles and towers projecting far into the space between, and seeming to overhang their bases. 
These details are comparatively easy to give, but how find words which shall suggest the mar- 
velous picture asa whole! The sun had come out after a brief shower, and, shining nearly from the 
meridian straight into the cafion, flooded it with light, and illuminated it with a wealth and lux- 
uriance of color almost supernatural. 
The walls appeared to glow with a cold, inward radiance of their own, and gave back tints of 
orange, pink, yellow, red, white, and brown, of a vividness and massiveness hopeless to describe, 
and which would overtax the powers of the greatest artist to portray. The lower slopes, wet with 
spray, were decorated with the rich hue of vegetation, while through the midst the river, of a still 
more brilliant green, far below pursued its tortuous course, and the eye followed it down through 
this ocean of color until two or three miles away a curve in the cafion hid it from view and formed 
its own appropriate background. 
The height of the fall, as ascertained by attaching a heavy weight to the measured cord, and 
Measurement ot lowering it down, is 310 feet. The first attempt to get the height was made from 
the Lower Fall. the little plateau by the side of the crest, but the spray soon hid the weight from 
view, and the water so tore at it that it was impossible to tell when the bottom had been reached, 
A point was found, however, to the left and in advance of the crest and some eighty feet above it, 
from which the weight fell nearly vertically, and by aid of the colored tags which marked the in- 
tervals of the cord could be followed with the eye until it reached the brink of the stream below. 
From this same point, a sort of perch upon the very border of the precipice, can be had a most 
comprehensive view at once of fall and cation. 
After making the measurement, we ascended the side of the cajion, and climbed out to one of 
the projecting piunacles, half a mile farther down stream, whence a full view of the fall was 
obtained. It was remarkable to note how small a portion of the view was actually filled by the fall 
itself. Tremendous as it is, it seems but a minor incident in the picture constructed on the huge 
scale of the cation. 
From the projecting point, the width of the chasm across the top was estimated from the range 
Lower Fall ana Of a carefully-sighted rifle at 700 yards. This, however, is greater than the aver- 
Grand Cation. age width, the caiion just below narrowing considerably and gaining at the same 
time in depth, which is about 300 yards. The corresponding cross-section would be similar to that 
