86 GRAND CANON DISTRICT. 



icebergs, rent from the front of a glacier and floating majestically out 

 to sea; only here it is the parent mass that recedes, melting away 

 through the ages, while its offspring stands still. Yet the analogy 

 would be a feeble one, for the buttes are grander, more definite in 

 form, and many times loftier. But the climax of this scenery is stilt 

 beyond. 



Late in the autumn of 1880 I rode along the base of the Vermilion 

 Cliffs, from Kanab to the Virgen, having the esteemed companionship of 

 Mr. Holmes. We had spent the summer and most of the autumn 

 among the cones of the Uinkaret, in the dreamy parks and forests of 

 the Kaibab, and in the solitudes of the intervening desert; and OUT sen- 

 sibilities had been somewhat overtasked by the scenery of the Grand 

 Canon. It seemed to us that all grandeur and beauty thereafter beheld 

 must be mentally projected against the recollection of those scenes, and 

 be dwarfed into commonplace by the comparison ; but as we moved 

 onward the walls increased in altitude, in animation, and in power. At 

 length the towers of Short Creek burst into view, and, beyond, the great 

 cliff in long perspective thrusting out into the desert plain its gables 

 and spurs. The day was a rare one for this region. The mild, sub- 

 tropical autumn was over, and just giving place to the first approaches 

 of winter. A sullen storm had been gathering from the southwest, and 

 the first rain for many months was falling, mingled with snow. Heavy 

 clouds rolled up against the battlements, spreading their fleeces over 

 turret and crest, and sending down curling flecks of white mist into the 

 nooks and recesses between towers and buttresses. The next day was 

 rarer still, with sunshine and storm battling for the mastery. Boiling 

 masses of cumuli rose up into the blue to incomprehensible heights, their 

 Hanks and summits gleaming with sunlight, their nether surfaces above 

 the desert as flat as a ceiling, and showing, not the dull neutral gray of 

 the east, but a rosy tinge caught from the reflected red of rocks and soil. 

 As they drifted rapidly against the great barrier, the currents from 

 below, flung upward to the summits, rolled the vaporous masses into 

 vast whorls, wrapping them around the towers and crest-lines, and 

 scattering torn shreds of mist along the rock-faces. As the day wore 

 on the sunshine gained the advantage. From overhead the cloud 

 masses stubbornly withdrew, leaving a few broken ranks to maintain a 

 feeble resistance. But far in the northwest, over the Colob, they rallied 

 their black forces for a more desperate struggle, and answered with 

 defiant flashes of lightning the incessant pour of sun-shafts. 



Superlative cloud effects, common enough in other countries, are 

 lamentably infrequent here; but, when they do come, their value is 

 beyond measure. During the long, hot summer days, when the sun is 

 high, the phenomenal features of the scenery are robbed of most of their 

 grandeur, and cannot or do not wholly reveal to the observer the reali- 

 ties which render them so instructive and interesting. There are few 

 middle tones of light and shade. The effects of foreshortening are 



