96 EXPLORING EXPEDITION FROM SAXXA Eft 



Feet. 



1 1 . Liver-colored sandstone - 15 



12. Gray limestone 2 



13. Brick-red sandstone, like No. 10 25 



14. Chocolate sandstone, like Nos. 8 and 11 — 12 



15. Blue limestone, containing Athyris subtilita, Spirifer cameratus, &c, and other 



Carboniferous fossils. 



Descending the canon till night came upon us, we made our camp under the over- 

 hanging cliffs on the north side, where some pot-holes in the rocky bottom promised 

 us a supply of water. 



A itfjust 23, Cam}) 29 to Grand .Hirer. — Leaving servants and packs in cam)), we to- 

 day descended the Canon of Labyrinth Creek, to its junction with Grand River. Until 

 within a mile of the junction, the character of the canon remains the same; a narrow gorge, 

 with vertical sides, from 150 to 300 feet in height, its bottom thickly grown with bushes 

 and obstructed with fallen rocks and timber, passable but with infinite difficulty. At 

 the place mentioned above, however, our progress was arrested by a perpendicular tall, 

 some 200 feet in height, occupying the whole breadth of the canon, and to reach Grand 

 River it was necessary to scale the walls which shut us in. This we accomplished 

 with some difficult)' on the south side, to find ourselves upon the level of the rock\ 

 plain into which we sunk when entering the canon. The view we here obtained was 

 most interesting, yet too limited to satisfy us. Looking down into the canon we had 

 been following, we could see it deepening by successive falls until, a mile below, it 

 opened into the greater Canon of Grand River, a dark yawning chasm, with vertical 

 sides, in which we caught glimpses of the river 1,500 feet below where we stood. On 

 every side we were surrounded by columns, pinnacles, and castles of fantastic shapes, 

 which limited our view, and by impassable canons, which restricted our movements. 

 South of us, about a mile distant, rose one of the castle-like buttes, which I have 

 already mentioned, and to which, though with difficult}', we made our way. 1 nis 

 butte was composed of alternate layers of chocolate-colored sandstone and shale, 

 about 1,000 feet in height; its sides nearly perpendicular, but most curiously orna- 

 mented with columns and pilasters, porticos and colonnades, cornices and battlements, 

 flanked here and there with tall outstanding towers, and crowned with spires so slender 

 that it seemed as though a breath of air would suffice to topple them from their foun- 

 dations. To accomplish the object for which we had come so far, it seemed necessary 

 that we should ascend this butte. The day was perfectly clear and intensely hot; the 

 mercury standing at 92° in the shade, and the red sandstone, out of which the land- 

 scape was carved, glowed in the heat of the burning sunshine. Stripping off nearly 

 all our clothing, we made the attempt, and after two hours of most arduous labor 

 succeeded in reaching the summit. The view which there burst upon us was such as 

 amply repaid us for all our toil. It baffles description, however, and I can only hope 

 that our sketches will give some faint idea of its strange and unearthly character. 



The great canon of the Lower Colorado, with its cliffs a mile in height, affords 

 grander and more impressive scenes, but those having far less variety and beauty of 

 detail than this. From the pinnacle on which we stood the eye swept over an area 

 some fifty miles in diameter, everywhere marked by features of more than ordinary 



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