OUR NATIONAL PARKS. 35 



AN UNPARALLELED SPECTACLE 



Today the Colorado flows through a series of self-dug canyons 

 hundreds of miles long, a mile deep, and in some places a score of miles 

 across the top. The sides of these canyons are carved and fretted 

 beyond description, almost beyond belief ; and the strata of rock and 

 soil exposed by the river's excavations are marvellously colored. 

 The blues and grays and mauves and reds are second in glory only 

 to the -canyon's size and sculpture. The colors change with every 

 changing hour. The morning and the evening shadows play magi- 

 cian's tricks. 



That portion of the canyon which affords the finest spectacle has 

 been set aside by Congress as a national monument. It is situated 

 in northeastern Arizona and is called the Grand Canyon of the Colo- 

 rado. It constitutes one of the most astonishing phenomena in 

 nature and one of the stupendous sights of the world. 



The Colorado River is formed, in southern Utah, by the confluence 

 of the Grand and the Green Rivers. The Grand drains the western 

 Rockies in Colorado. The Green rises in northern Utah, and drains 

 also a corner of Wyoming. Together they gather the waters of three 

 hundred thousand square miles of mountains. "Ten million cascade 

 brooks," writes J. W. Powell, "unite to form a hundred rivers beset 

 with cataracts; a hundred roaring rivers unite to form the Colorado, 

 a mad, turbid stream." 



Southwest from Utah, the Colorado passes through the noble 

 Marble Canyon and swings west between the mile-high walls of the 

 mighty Grand Canyon. Thence, emerging into more open country, 

 it skirts Nevada and California, cuts through Mexico and deposits 

 its vast burden of mud in the Gulf of California. 



MOSAIC OF DESCRIPTION 



Who can describe the Grand Canyon ? 



"More mysterious in its depth than the Himalayas in their height," 

 writes John C. Van Dyke, "the Grand Canyon remains not the eighth 

 but the first wonder of the world. There is nothing like it." 



"Looking down more than half a mile into this fifteen-by-two- 

 hundred-and-eighteen-mile paint pot," writes Joaquin Miller, "I con- 

 tinually ask: Is any fifty miles of Mother Earth that I have known 

 as fearful, or any part as fearful, as full of glory, as full of God?" 



"To the eye educated to any other," writes Charles Dudley Warner, 

 "it may be shocking, grotesque, incomprehensible; but those who 

 have long and carefully studied the Grand Canyon do not hesitate 

 to pronounce it by far the most sublime of all earthly spectacles." 



"The Grand Canyon of Arizona fills me with awe," writes Theodore 

 Roosevelt. "It is beyond comparison — beyond description; abso- 

 lutely unparalleled throughout the wide world." 



