dottoh.] GRAND CANON AT THE TOEOWEAP. 115 



enters St. Peter's Church at Rome. He expected to be profoundly awe. 

 struck by the unexampled dimensions, and to feel exalted by the beauty 

 of its proportions and decoration. lie forgets that the human mind itself 

 is of small capacity and receives its impressions slowly, by labored pro- 

 cesses of comparison. So, too, at the brink of the chasm, there comes 

 at first a feeling of disappointment ; it does not seem so grand as we 

 expected. At length we strive to make comparisons. The river is 

 clearly defined below, but it looks about large enough to turn a village 

 grist-mill; yet we know it is a stream three or four hundred feet wide 

 Its surface looks as motionless as a lake seen from a distant mountain- 

 top. We know it is a rushing torrent, The ear is strained to hear the 

 roar of its waters and catches it faintly at intervals as the eddying 

 breezes waft it upwards; but the sound seems exhausted by the distance. 

 We perceive dimly a mottling of light and shadow upon the surface of 

 the stream, and the flecks move with a barely perceptible eloud-like 

 motion. They are the fields of white foam lashed up at the foot of some 

 cataract and sailing swiftly onward. 



Perhaps the first notion of the reality is gained when we look across 

 the abyss to the opposite crest-line. It seems as if a strong, nervous 

 arm could hurl a stone against the opposing wall-face; but in a moment 

 we catch sight of vegetation growing upon the very brink. There are 

 trees in scattered groves which we might at first have mistaken for sage 

 or desert furze. Here at length we have a stadium or standard of com- 

 parison which serves for the mind much the same purpose as a man 

 standing at the base of one of the sequoias of the Mariposa grove. And 

 now the real magnitudes begin to unfold themselves, and as the atten- 

 tion is held firmly the mind grows restive under the increasing burden. 

 Every time the eye ranges up or down its face it seems more distant 

 and more vast. At length we recoil, overburdened with the perceptions 

 already attained and yet half vexed at the inadequacy of our faculties 

 to comprehend more. 



The magnitude of the chasm, however, is by no means the most im- 

 pressive element of its character ; nor is the inner gorge the most im- 

 pressive of its constituent parts. The thoughtful mind is far more deeply 

 moved by the splendor and grace of Nature's architecture. Forms so 

 new to the culture of civilized races and so strongly contrasted with those 

 which have been the ideals of thirty generations of white men cannot 

 indeed be appreciated after the study of a single hour or day. The first 

 conception of them may not be a pleasing one. They may seem merely 

 abnormal, curious, and even grotesque. But he who fancies that Nature 

 has exhausted her wealth of beauty in other lands strangely underesti- 

 mates her versatility and power. In tin's far-off desert are forms which 

 surprise us by their unaccustomed character. We find at first no place 

 for them in the range of our conventional notions. But as they become 

 familiar we find them appealing to the aesthetic sense as powerfully as 

 any scenery that ever invited the pencil of Claude or of Turner. 



