82 GRAND CAftON DISTRICT. 



gather the greater part of the drainage. There are many canons in the 

 terraces, and they all have the same relation to the cliffs and to the dips 

 of the strata. They cut into the terraces and emerge from them at the 

 bases of their several cliffs. All except the three first mentioned are 

 dry, carrying no streams except spasmodic floods during heavy rains and 

 the melting of the snows. Many of them are actually filling up, the 

 floods being unable to carry away all the sand and clay which the in- 

 frequent rains wash into them. 



It is through the dry and partially refilled chasms that we may easily 

 descend from the High Plateaus to the Carboniferous platform of the 

 Grand Canon district. To study the Trias, we may best go to the little 

 village of Kanab and prepare for a journey along the base of the Ver- 

 milion Cliffs. 



THE TRIAS. 



Kanab village is situated under the eaves of the Vermilion Cliffs, 

 in the jaws of the canon of Kanab Creek. It has for several years been 

 the base of operations of the surveying parties working in the Grand 

 Canon district, and is well located for the purpose. After due prepara- 

 tion, we may leave the village, proceeding about twenty miles south- 

 westward to the southernmost promontory of the Triassic escarpment. 

 Here is Pipe Spring, famous in this far-off region as a watering place. 

 The reader would do well to find the locality on the map, for it is a nota- 

 ble point. The Vermilion Cliffs here change their trend to the north- 

 westward, and we shall presently follow them to admire their beauty 

 and magnitude; but before doing so it is well to take a brief view of 

 their geological relations. 



The Trias is in most places separated from the Jura by a purely pro- 

 visional horizon which marks a change in the lithological aspect of the 

 strata, and in the grouping and habit of the series. Sometimes the pas- 

 sage from one to the other is obscured, but more frequently it is abrupt. 

 The Jurassic sandstone is without a likeness in any other formation, 

 and the sandstones of the Trias can ordinarily be distinguished from it 

 miles away. One of the most conspicuous distinctions is the color, and 

 it is a never- failing distinction. The Jurassic is white; the Trias is flam- 

 ing red. Equally conspicuous is the difference in bedding and in 1 lie 

 architecture. The Jura is a solid indivisible mass of 8U0 to 1,000 feet 

 in thickness; the Trias is composed of a very great number of beds, 

 most of which are only a few feet in thickness. One bed, however, 

 attains vast proportions. The majority of the layers are common sand- 

 stones, and they predominate most in the upper portion of the series. 

 In the middle part the sandstones still predominate but are individually 

 thinner, and are more often separated by shaly layers and by bands of 

 gypsum. In the lower portions, sandy and argillaceous shales of won- 



