DISTANCES AND HEIGHTS. 21 
below. I can do this now, but it has taken several years of mountain climb 
ing to cool iny nerves, so that I can sit, with my feet over the edge, and 
calmly look down a precipice 2,000 feet. And yet I cannot look on and 
see another do the same. I must either bid him come away, or turn my 
head. 
The canon walls are buttressed on a grand scale, with deep alcoves 
intervening; columned crags crown the cliffs, and the river is rolling below. 
When we return to camp, at noon, the sun shines in splendor on ver 
milion walls, shaded into green and gray, where the rocks are lichened over ; 
the river fills the channel from wall to wall, and the canon opens, like a 
beautiful portal, to a region of glory. 
This evening, as I write, the sun is going down, and the shadows are 
settling in the canon. The vermilion gleams and roseate hues, blending 
with the green and gray tints, are slowly changing to somber brown above, 
and black shadows are creeping over them below; and now it is a dark 
portal to a region of gloom the gateway through which we are to enter 
on our voyage of exploration to-morrow. What shall we find? 
The distance from Flaming Gorge to Beehive Point is nine and two- 
thirds miles. Besides, passing through the gorge, the river runs through 
Horseshoe and Kingfisher Canons, separated by short valleys. The high 
est point on the walls, at Flaming Gorge, is 1,300 feet above the river. The 
east wall, at the apex of Horseshoe Canon, is about 1,600 feet above the 
water's edge, and, from this point, the walls slope both to the head and foot 
of the canon. 
Kingfisher Canon, starting at the water's edge above, steadily increases 
in altitude to 1,200 feet at the foot. 
Red Canon is twenty-five and two-thirds miles long, and the highest 
walls are about 2,500 feet. 
Brown's Park is a valley, bounded on either side by a mountain range, 
really an expansion of the canon. The river, through the park, is thirty five 
and a half miles long, but passes through two short canons, on its way, 
where spurs, from the mountains on the south, are thrust across its course. 
