Button — Triii'inj History <>f G ,•<>/,<! C<th<>n Dixtr'n-t. >:i 



white sandstone, conspicuous for its cliffs and its massive 

 architectural projections with few horizontal lines, a marked 

 feature in thelandscape along the Virgen. Below the " White 

 Cliffs"' come the " Vermilion Cliffs" of the Trias, mostly 1200 

 to over 2000 feet in height, generally thin-bedded, often pre- 

 senting southward "a majestic front richly sculptured and 

 blazing with gorgeous colors." The Paria plateau consists of 

 the Trias at top. "Below the Trias, and in some parts making 

 the lower step of the grout stairway, lies the Permian, consist- 

 ing of evenly bedded sandy shales with thin layers of lime- 

 stone, of deep and rich coloring — often chocolate, purple, 

 red-brown between horizontal patches of violet, lavender and 

 white. 



Below all these, lies the Carboniferous. It is the floor of 

 all the plateaus above enumerated except the two eastern, the 

 Paria and Kaiparowits ; and covers also a wide region south 

 of the Colorado at the same level. 



The thickness of rock passed over in descending from the 

 top of the Eocene of the High Plateaus to the Carboniferous is 

 5000 to 6000 feet. But the Eocene thickens toward the Uinta 

 Mountains to 4000 and 5000 feet, making the whole thickness of 

 the formations overlying the Carboniferous about 10,-000 feet. 

 The Carboniferous has a small dip to the northward. The 

 overlying beds partake of this dip in some degree, especially 

 at their free southern borders. The beds thin somewhat to the 

 eastward and most markedlv so the Triassie in contrast with 

 the Tertiary which thicken in that direction. 



The Grand Canon, 5000 to 6000 feet in depth, is cut out of 

 the Carboniferous and lower formations, the Carboniferous 

 making 4000 to 4500 feet of the whole, and the Archaean, 

 with in some parts Silurian and Devonian strata, constituting 

 the rest. The higher beds of the Carboniferous for 700 to 

 750 feet are of limestone; next below are red and gray sand- 

 stones and shales for 1000 to 1500 feet ; and again below, for 

 1800 feet, mostly limestones, with other sandstones under- 



The channel of the canon has (1) an upper portion or story 

 which is 4 to 5 miles wide, and about 2000 feet deep, and (2) 

 an inner chasm cut through the floor of the upper to a depth 

 of 3000 feet or more. The lofty walls of the upper portion, 

 set back 2 to 3 miles from the prof ..under chasm and stretch- 

 ing along interminably (more than 100 miles), up and down 

 the stream from east to west, are wonderful in arc 

 features, and add immensely to the grandeur of the land-cape-. 

 The so-called inner chasm is not a narrow cleft with perpen- 

 dicular walls, and a slender strip of water half hid away in the 

 dark depths. It has nowhere a< ts depth and 



