CHAPTER III. 



THE TERRACES. 



In describing those subdivisions of the Grand Canon district which 

 are of greatest moment to the present discussion, I shall begin with the 

 terraces terminating the High Plateaus. 



Before the observer who stands upon a southern salient of the Mai 

 kagunt Plateau is spread out a magnificent spectacle. The altitude is 

 nearly 11000 feet above the sea, and the radius of vision reaches to the 

 southward nearly a hundred miles. In the extreme distance is the calm 

 of the desert platform, its surface mottled with indistinct lights and 

 shades, too remote to disclose their meaning. Against the southeastern 

 horizon is projected the pale-blue escarpment of the Kaibab, which 

 stretches away to the south until the curvature of the earth carries it 

 out of sight. To the southward rise in merest outline, and devoid of 

 all visible details, the dark mass of Mount Trumbull and the waving 

 cones of the Uinkaret. Between these and the Kaibab the limit of the 

 prospect is a horizontal line, like that which separates the sea from the 

 sky. To the southwestward are the Sierras of the Basin Province, and 

 quite near to us there rises a short but quite lofty range of veritable 

 mountains, contrasting powerfully with the flat crestlines and mesas 

 which lie to the south and east. It is the Pine Valley range, and 

 though its absolute altitude above the sea is smaller than many other 

 ranges of the West, yet since their bases are comparatively low (3,000 

 to 3,500 feet above the sea), the mountain masses themselves are very 

 high. 



THE EOCENE. 



The foreground of the picture is full of strength and animation. At 

 our feet is the brink of a precipice where the profiles descend 800 feet 

 upon rugged slopes which shelve away downwards and mingle with 

 the inequalities of a broad platform deeply indented with picturesque 

 valleys. The cliff on which we stand is of marvelous sculpture and color. 

 The rains have carved out of it rows of square obelisks and pilasters of 

 uniform pattern and dimensions, which decorate the front for many miles, 

 giving the effect of a giantic colonnade from which the entablature 

 has been removed or has fallen in ruins. The Plateau Country abounds 

 in these close resemblances of natural carving to human architecture, 

 and nowhere are these more conspicuous or more perfect than in the 



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