m;rr0N I CROSSING THE DESERT. 105 



thirty miles to the brink of the Grand Cafion. Thus the range of vision 

 is wide, for we overlook a gentle depression of great, extent. Though 

 the general impression conveyed is that of a smooth or slightly modu- 

 lated country, yet we command a far greater expanse than would be 

 possible among the prairies. To the southeastward the Kaibab looms 

 up, seemingly at no great distance, and to the southwestward the Hat 

 roof of Mount Trumbull is more than a blue cloud in the horizon. To- 

 wards this latter mountain we take a straight course. The first few 

 miles lie across drifting sands bare of all vegetation. The air is like a 

 furnace, but so long as the water holds out the heat is not enervating 

 aud brings no lassitude. Everything is calm and still, except here and 

 there a hot whirling blast which sends up a tall, slender column of dust 

 diffusing itself in the air. At a slow pace the sand-hills at length are 

 passed and we enter upon a hard, firm soil, over which we move more 

 rapidly. Just here, and for three or four miles in either direction, the 

 Permian terrace has been obliterated. It has been beveled oft' by erosion 

 and buried beneath the wash brought down from the foot of the Vermilion 

 Olitl's to the northward. But seven miles from Pipe Spring, the Per- 

 mian terrace springs up out of the earth, scarped by its characteristic 

 cliff. Stretching northwestward it increases in altitude, becoming at last 

 800 to 1,000 feet high. At its summit is seen the Shinarump conglom- 

 erate, of a pale brown color, and beneath are the gorgeous hues of the 

 shales. Nothing can surpass the dense, rich, and almost cloying splen- 

 dor of the red-brown seen in these shales. They suggest the color of old 

 mahogany, but are much more luminous and quite uniform. Under 

 them are belts of chocolate, slate, lavender, pale Indian red. and white. 

 Very wonderful, too, is the evenness of the bedding, which is brought 

 out in great clearness and sharpness by the etching of minute layers of 

 clays holding selenite. Between the shales ami overlying conglomerate 

 careful scrutiny enables us to detect an unconformity by erosion with- 

 out any unconformity of dip. As stated in a preceding chapter, Mr. 

 Wolcott fixed provisionally the separating horizon between the Permian 

 and Trias at this unconformable contact. 



Along the route the vegetation is scanty indeed. Several forms of 

 cactus are seen looking very diseased and mangy, and remnants of low 

 desert shrubs browsed to death by cattle. Yet strangely enough there 

 is one plant and one alone that seems to flourish. It is the common 

 sunflower [Eelianthus lenticulari.s), found anywhere from Maine to Ari 

 zona, and seeming indifferent to the vicissitudes of climate. 



About IS miles from Pipe Spring the trail leads gently down into a 

 broad shallow valley known as the Wild Baud Pockets. The drainage 

 from the fronts of the Permian cliffs now far to the northward here col- 

 lects into a gulch, which gradually deepens and becomes a tributary of 

 Kanab Canon. In every stream-bed may be found many depressions 

 which would hold water even though the sources of supply were cut oft'. 

 This is as true of wet-weather channels as of perennial streams. After 



