dotiok.] THE CHASM IN THE KAIBAB. 151 



abyss, over a succession of ledges as impracticable as the face of Bunker 

 Hill Monument. All around it are side gorges sunk to a depth nearly 

 as profound as that of the main channel. It stands in the midst of a 

 great throng of cloister-like buttes, with the same noble profiles and 

 strong lineaments as those immediately before us, with a plexus of awful 

 chasms between them. In such a stupendous scene of wreck it seemed 

 as if the fabled "Destroyer" might find an abode not wholly uncongenial. 



In ail the vast space beneath and around us there is very little upon 

 which the mind can linger restfully. It is completely filled with objects 

 of gigantic size and amazing form, and as the mind wanders over them 

 it is hopelessly bewildered and lost. It is useless to select special points 

 of contemplation. The instant the attention lays hold of them it is drawn 

 to something else, and if it seeks to recur to them it cannot find them. 

 Everything is superlative, transcending the power of the intelligence 

 to comprehend it. There is no central point or object around which the 

 other elements are grouped and to which they are tributary. The grand- 

 est objects are merged in a congregation of others equally grand. Hun- 

 dreds of these mighty structures, miles in length, and thousands of feet 

 in height, rear their majestic heads out of the abyss, displaying their 

 richly-molded plinths and friezes, thrusting out their gables, wing-walls, 

 buttresses, and pilasters, and recessed with alcoves and panels. If any 

 one of these stupendous creations had been planted upon the plains of 

 Central Europe it would have influenced modern art as profoundly as 

 Fusiyama has influenced the decorative art of Japan. Yet here they are 

 all swallowed up in the confusion of multitude. It is not alone the mag- 

 nitude of the individual objects that makes this spectacle so portentous, 

 but it is still more the extravagant profusion with which they arc ax 

 rayed along the whole visible extent of the broad chasm. 



The color effects are rich and wonderful. They are due to the inherent 

 colors of the rocks, modified by the atmosphere. Like any other great 

 series of strata in the Plateau Province, the Carboniferous has its own 

 range of characteristic colors, which might serve to distinguish it even 

 if we had no other criterion. The summit strata are pale gray, with a, 

 faint yellowish cast. Benealh them the cross-bedded sandstone appears 

 showing a mottled surface of pale pinkish hue. Underneath this member 

 are nearly 1,000 feet of the lower Aubrey sandstones, displaying an in- 

 tensely brilliant red, which is somewhat masked by the talus shot down 

 from the grey, cherty limestones at the summit, Beneath the lower 

 Aubrey is the face of the Red Wall limestone, from 2,000 to 3,000 feet 

 high. It has a strong red color, but a very peculiar one. Most of the 

 red strata of the west have the brownish or vermilion tones, but these 

 are rather purplish-red, as if the pigment had been treated to a dash 

 of blue. It is not quite certain that this may not arise in part from 

 the intervention of the blue haze, and probably it is rendered more con- 

 spicuous by this cause; but, on the whole, the purplish cast seems to 

 be inherent. This is the dominant color-mass of the canon, for the ex- 



