MMTOH.J THE CHASM IN THE KAIBAB. 153 



The shadows thrown by the bold abrupt forms are exceedingly dark. 

 It is almost impossible at the distance of a very few miles to distinguish 

 even broad details in these shadows. They are like remnants of mid- 

 night unconquered by the blaze of noonday. The want of half tones 

 and gradations in the light and shade, which has already been noted in 

 the Vermilion Cliffs, is apparent here, and is far more conspicuous. Our 

 thoughts in this connection may suggest to us a still more extreme case 

 of a similar phenomenon presented by the half-illuminated moon when 

 viewed through a large telescope. The portions which catch the sunlight 

 shine with great luster but the shadows of mountains and cliffs are black 

 and impenetrable. But there is one feature in the canon which is cer- 

 tainly extraordinary. It is the appearance of the atmosphere against 

 the background of shadow. It has a metallic luster which must be seen to 

 be appreciated. The great wall across the chasm presents at noonday, 

 under a cloudless sky, a singularly weird and unearthly aspect. The 

 color is for the most part gone. In place of it comes this metallic glare 

 of the haze. The southern wall is never so poorly lighted as at noon. 

 Since its face consists of a series of promontories projecting towards the 

 north, these projections catch the sunlight on their eastern sides in the 

 forenoon, and upon their western sides in the afternoon; but near merid- 

 ian the rays fall upon a few points only, and even upon these with very 

 great obliquity. Thus at the hours of greatest general illumination the 

 wall is most obscure and the abnormal effects are then presented most 

 forcibly. They give rise to strange delusions. The rocks then look 

 nearly black, or very dark grey and covered with feebly shining spots. 

 The haze is strongly luminous, and so dense as to obscure the details 

 already enfeebled by shade as if a leaden or mercurial vapor intervened. 

 The shadows antagonize the perspective, and everything seems awry. 

 The lines of stratification, dimly seen in one place and wholly effaced in 

 another, are strangely belied and the strata are given apparent atti- 

 tudes which are sometimes grotesque and sometimes impossible. 



Those who are familiar with western scenery have, no doubt, been im 

 pressed with the peculiar character of its haze, or atmosphere in the ar- 

 tistic sense of the word, and have noted its more prominent qualities. 

 When the air is free from common smoke it has a pale blue color which 

 is quite unlike the neutral gray of the east. It is always appar- 

 ently more dense when we look towards the sun than when we look 

 away from it, and this difference in the two directions, respectively, is a 

 maximum near sunrise and sunset. This property is universal, but its 

 peculiarities in the Plateau Province become conspicuous when thestrong 

 rich colors of the rocks are seen through it. The very air is then visible. 

 We see it, palpably, as a tenuous fluid and the rocks beyond it do not ap- 

 pear to be colored blue as they do in other regions but reveal themselves 

 clothed in colors of their own. The Grand Canon is ever full of this 

 haze. It tills it to the brim. Its apparent density, as elsewhere, is va- 

 ried according to the direction in which it is viewed and the position of 



