108 GRAND CANON DISTRICT. 



with any one of the innumerable shallow-water courses which oecui 

 round about; only when we look beyond we see it growing broader and 

 much deeper. It is the head of the Toroweap. Upon its smooth bottom 

 is a soft clayey soil, in which desert shrubs and stunted sage-brush grow 

 in some abundance. Here and there a cedar, dwarfed indeed, but yet 

 alive, displays a welcome green, and upon the valley slopes are a few 

 sprays of grass. The valley bottom descends at a noticeable rate to the 

 southward* and as we put the miles behind us we find the banks on 

 either side rising in height, becoming steeper, and at last displaying 

 rocky ledges. In the course of six or seven miles the left side has be- 

 come a wall 700 feet high, while the other side, somewhat lower, is much 

 broken and craggy. Huge piles of basalt lie upon'the mesa beyond, 

 sheet upon sheet, culminating in a cluster of large cones. At length 

 the course of the valley slightly deflects to the left, and as we clear a 

 shoulder of the eastern wall, which has hitherto masked its continuation, 

 a grand vista breaks upon the sight. The valley stretches away to the 

 southward, ever expanding in width ; the walls on either side increase 

 in altitude, and assume profiles of wonderful grace and nobility. Far 

 in the distance they betoken a majesty and grandeur quite unlike any- 

 thing hitherto seen. With vast proportions are combined simplicity, 

 symmetry, and grace, and an architectural eilect as precise and definite 

 as any to be found in the terraces. And yet these walls differ in style 

 from the Trias and Jura as much as the Trias and Jura differ from each 

 other. In the background the vista terminates at a mighty palisade, 

 st retching directly across the axis of vision. Though more than 20 miles 

 distant it reveals to us suggestions of grandeur which awaken feelings . 

 of awe. We know instinctively that it is a portion of the wall of the 

 Grand Canon. 



The western side of the valley is here broken down into a long slope 

 descending from the cones clustered around the base of Mount Trum- 

 bull, and covered with broad flows of basalt. Turning out of tin' 

 valley we ascend the lava bed, which has a very moderate slope, and 

 about a mile from the valley we find the Witches' W r ater Pocket. In 

 every desert the watering places are memorable, and this one is no ex- 

 ception. It is a weird spot. Around it are the desolate Phlegnean 

 fields, where jagged masses of black lava still protrude through rusty, 

 decaying cinders. Patches of soil, thin and coarse, sustain groves of 

 cedar and pinon. Beyond and above are groups of cones, looking as 

 if they might at any day break forth in renewed eruption, and over all 

 rises the tabular mass of Mount Trumbull. Upon its summit are seen 

 the yellow pines (P. ponderosa), betokening a cooler and a moister 

 clime. The pool itself might well be deemed the abode of witches. A 

 channel half-a-dozen yards deep and twice as wide, has been scoured in 

 the basalt by spasmodic streams, which run during the vernal rains. 

 Such a stream cascading into it has worn out of the solid lava a pool 

 twenty feet long, nearly as wide, and live or six feet deep. Every flood 



