134 GRAND CANON DISTRICT. 



streams is by DO moans rare, but is generally exceptional. On the Kaibab 

 it is the rule. Upon all its broad expanse there is nothing which can 

 be properly called a brook or a living stream. About a dozen springs 

 arc known, but their waters in every instance sink in the earth within a 

 few hundred yards of their sources. And the "Big Spring" in Stewart's 

 CaTion yields several times as much water as all the others put togother. 

 With this foreknowledge the prospects of water supply upon the Kaibab 

 might seem discharging; but we shall not suffer for the want of it. 



Although the sun is still high when the Big Spring is reached nothing 

 will be gained by prolonging the day's inarch, and it is well to take a look 

 at the surroundings. In some way, without knowing exactly when and 

 where, we seem to have gotten into the Kaibab; for around us is the 

 sylvan scenery and a rolling country traversed by many valleys and 

 ravines. True they are not the finest types, but when we recall the 

 desert we have just left this place looks like a paradise. The barometer 

 shows' a considerable altitude, 7,850 feet, and the air though warm is not 

 oppressive. As we approached the plateau from the desert and saw its 

 battlements towering grandly in the distance and becoming hourly more 

 grand, its level parapet retreating into indefinite distance in either direc- 

 tion, it never occured to us that we might be spared the arduous strug- 

 gle of scaling the wall, or, as a still more arduous alternative, the forcing 

 of a rough passage through some narrow ravine for many miles. Yet 

 we have reached this spot by a route as easy as an old-fashioned turn- 

 pike. In truth, the configuration of the southern part of the Kaibab 

 could not be discerned as we approached it from the north. But putting 

 together the observations of the journey it now becomes apparent that 

 the surface of the Kanab Plateau rises quite rapidly towards the south, 

 while the Kaibab gains in altitude much more slowly. Opposite our 

 last camp the difference in the altitudes of the two plateaus is about 

 2,300 feet. Here it has greatly diminished, and the passage from one to 

 the other is new partly by a very gentle inclined plane and partly by a 

 fault. Fifteen miles further south the fault vanishes or becomes insig- 

 nificant, and the passage is by a long slope.* 



Resuming in the morning the route up Stewart's Cafion, a half-hour's 

 ride brings us to an abandoned saw-mill. Here the trail leaves the val- 

 ley which we have followed for ten miles and turns up into a large ravine 

 coming from the east or southeast, It is much narrower than Stewart's 

 Canon, with very abrupt and almost precipitous walls about 000 feet 



*It may bo remarked here that every fault in the district is accompanied with a 

 corresponding break in the topography. A cliff or steep slope is produced by it, I do 

 not recall an instance where the lifted beds are planed off by erosion, so as to make 

 a continuous level with the thrown beds. The cliffs generated by displacement have 

 a character of their own which the experienced observer distinguishes quickly and 

 confidently from cliffs of erosion. These characteristic breaks iu the topography often 

 betray a fault in localities where it would otherwise have been passed over unnoticed 

 and unsuspected. 



