10G GRAND CANON DISTRICT. 



the infrequent showers, and after the surface waters have ceased to run, 

 the bed of the stream will still retain pools of water, provided the bottom 

 of it is of a consistency which will prevent it from filtering away. To 

 these pools the people of the west have given the name of " water-pock- 

 ets." They are very common in the stream-beds which bear away the 

 wash from the Permian and lower Triassic shales. These shales yield a 

 very line impervious clay, which forms an excellent "puddling "for water 

 holes and basins. The Wild Hand Pockets have received their name 

 from the fact that they are the resort of bands of wild horses that roam 

 over these deserts, far from human haunts, ranging from spring to spring, 

 which they visit by stealth Only at night, and never so long as they can 

 i'ind chance water in these and other pockets. Beyond the Wild Band 

 Valley there is a slight ascent to a rocky platform, consisting of the 

 summit beds of the Carboniferous. In the course of 20 miles we have 

 crossed the entire Permian series, which now lies to the north of us. A 

 few stunted cedars, most of which are dead or dying of drought, art- 

 scattered over this platform and give us until nightfall some slight 

 shelter from the sun. It is as good a camping place as we are likely 

 to find, and if we are fortunate enough to reach it after a copious shower, 

 the hollows and basins in the flat rocks may contain a scanty supply of 

 clear rain-water. It is a good locality, also, from which we may over- 

 look the outspreading desert, which is not without charms, however 

 repulsive in most respects. 



To the northward rises the low escarpment of the Permian, forming a 

 color picture which is somewhat indistinct through distance, but weird 

 because of its strange colors and still stranger forms. Beyond and in 

 the far distance rise the towering fronts of the Vermilion Cliffs, ablaze 

 with red light from the sinking sun. To the eastward they stretch into 

 illimitable distance, growing paler but more refined in color until the 

 last visible promontory seems to merge its purple into the azure of the 

 evening sky. Across the whole eastern quarter of the horizon stretches 

 the long level summit of the Kaibab as straight and unbroken as the 

 rim of the ocean. To the southwest ward rises the basaltic plateau of 

 Mount Trumbull, now presenting itself with somewhat imposing propor- 

 tions. Around it a great multitude of basaltic cinder cones toss up 

 their ominous black waves almost as high as Trumbull itself. Their 

 tumultuous profiles and gloomy shades form a strong contrast with the 

 rectilinear outlines and vivid colors of the region roundabout. 



At dawn we move onward, reaching soon the summit of a hill which 

 descends two or three hundred feet to a broad fiat depression called the 

 Wonsits Plain. It is a smooth and very barren expanse, dotted with a 

 few moldering buttes of Upper Carboniferous rocks, now wasted to 

 their foundations. The plain is about seven miles in width, and on the 

 further side rises a low mesa of great extent capped with basalt. It is 

 the Uinkaret. Beyond the nearer throng of basaltic cones Mount Trum- 

 bull rises with a striking aspect dominating strongly the entire western 



