116 GRAND CANON DISTRICT. 



The inner gorge, as we sit upon its brink, is indeed a mighty spectacle ; 

 but as we withdraw a little, it fades out of view, and, strangely enough, 

 the sublimity of the scene is not very greatly impaired. It is, after all, 

 a mere detail, and the outer chasm is the all-engrossing feature. On 

 either side its palisades stretch away to the horizon. Their fronts wander 

 in and out, here throwing out a gable, there receding into a chamber, or 

 gaping widely to admit the entrance of a lateral chasm. The profile is 

 ever the same. It has nothing in common with the formless, chaotic; 

 crags, which are only big and rough, but is definite, graceful, architect- 

 ural, and systematic. The width of the space inclosed between the 

 upper walls is one of the most essential elements of the grandeur. It 

 varies from five to six miles. If it were narrower the effect would be 

 impaired; nor could it be much wider without diluting and weakening 

 the general effect. This proportion seems quite just. It is a common 

 notion that the distinctive and overruling feature of the great chasm is 

 its narrowness relatively to its depth. ]STo greater mistake could be 

 made. Our highest conceptions of grandeur are most fully realized 

 when we can see the greatest mass. We must have amplitude in all of 

 the three dimensions, distance, breadth, and depth, and that spectacle is 

 in point of magnitude the grandest which has the threedimcnsions so pro- 

 portioned and combined as to make the most of them. Another common 

 and mistaken idea is that the chasm is pervaded by a deep, solemn gloom. 

 The truth is almost the reverse. In the depths of the inner gorge there 

 is a suggestion of gloom, but even in the narrower portions there is 

 seldom less than sixty degrees of sky from crest to crest, and a hundred 

 and sixty along the track of the river. In the outer chasm the scene is 

 unusually bright. The upper half of the palisades have a pale, ashy, 

 or pearl-gray color, which is very lustrous, and this sometimes gives place 

 to a creamy or Naples yellow tint in the frieze of cross-bedded sand- 

 stone. The Lower Aubrey sandstones are bright red, but they are in 

 great part masked by the talus shot down from the pale gray limestones 

 above, and peep out in lustrous spots where the curtain of the talus is 

 drawn aside. There is nothing gloomy about such colors. Under a 

 burning sun that is rarely clouded they have a brilliancy seldom seen 

 in any rocks, and only surpassed by the sugary whiteness of the Jurassic 

 sandstone or the brilliant red of the Vermilion Cliffs. 



Directly in the southward prolongation of the axis of the Toroweap 

 Valley there stands a basaltic cinder-cone immediately upon the brink 

 of the inner gorge. Its altitude above the surrounding plain is 580 

 feet. The summit is readily gained, and it is an admirable stand-point 

 from which the entire panorama may be viewed. We named it Vulcan's 

 Throne. To the eastward about forty miles of the. main chasm are 

 well in view. The altitude of the cone, though small in comparison 

 with surrounding objects, is sufficient to bring into view about twelve 

 miles of the opening of the inner gorge, while in the foreground its 

 depths are seen. To the westward the scenery is much more broken and 



