button.] THE PLATEAU PROVINCE. 53 



urc, the colors are characteristic of the geological formations, each series 

 having its own group and range of colors. They culminate in intensity 

 in the Permian and Lower Trias, where dark, brownish reds alternate 

 with bands of chocolate, purple, and lavender, so deep, rich, and re- 

 splendent that a painter would need to be a bold man to venture to 

 portray them as they are. 



The Plateau country is also the land of canons, in the strictest mean- 

 ing of that term. Gorges, ravines, cahadas are found and are more or 

 less impressive in every high region ; and in the vernacular of the West 

 all such features are termed canons, indiscriminately. But those long, 

 narrow, profound trenches in the rocks, with inaccessible walls, to which 

 the early Spaniards gave the name of cajon or canon, are seldom found 

 outside the plateaus. There they are innumerable and the almost 

 universal form of drainage channels. Large areas of the Plateau coun- 

 try are so minutely dissected by them that they are almost inaccessible, 

 and some limited though considerable tracts seem wholly so. Almost 

 everywhere the drainage channels are cut from 500 to 3,000 feet below 

 the general platform of the immediate country. They are abundantly 

 ramified and every branch is a canon. The explorer upon the mesas 

 above must take heed to his course in such a place, for once caught in 

 the labyrinth of interlacing side gorges, he must possess rare craft and 

 self-control to extricate himself. All these drainage channels lead down 

 to one great trunk channel cleft through the heart of the Plateau Prov- 

 ince for eight hundred miles — the chasm of the Colorado, and the can- 

 ons of its principal" fork, the Green River. By far the greater part of 

 these tributaries are dry during most of the year, and carry water only 

 at the melting of the snow and during the brief periods of autumnal 

 and vernal rains. A very few hold small, perennial streams, coming 

 from the highlands around the borders of thu province, and swelling to 

 mad torrents in times of spasmodic floods. 



The region is for the most part a desert of the barrenest kind. At 

 levels below 7,000 feet the heat is intense and the air is dry in the 

 extreme. The vegetation is very scanty, and even the ubiquitous sage 

 (Artemisia tridentata) is sparse and stunted. Here and there the cedar 

 (J 'unipervs occidcntalis)* is seen, the hardiest of arborescent plants, but 

 it is dwarfed and sickly and seeks the shadiest nooks. At higher levels 

 the vegetation becomes more abundant and varied. Above 8,000 feet 

 the plaieaus are forest-clad and the ground is carpeted with rank grass 

 and an exuberant growth of beautiful summer flowers. The summers 

 there are cool and moist; the winters severe and attended with heavy 

 snow-fall. 



* Botanists inform mo that tho predominant upland juniper of tho Plateau Province, 

 as tho species are now distributed according to Dr. Engelmann's revision published in 

 1877, would be Juniperus Californica, var. Vtahvnsis. rather than J. occidcntalis, some of 

 tho varieties of which may, however, occur there. Until that revision was made tho 

 western junipers were little known, and several distinct species were indiscriminately 

 classed as ./. occidentalix. 



