174 EXPLOBATION OF THE CANONS OF THE COLOEADO. 
hasty trip made through that country, it is believed that they are cut 
off by a system of monoclinal folds. To the west they are known to 
gradually run out in plateaus and mountains, which have another oro- 
graphic origin. 
Climb the cliff at the end of Labyrinth Canon, and look over the plain 
below, and you see vast numbers of buttes scattered about over scores of 
miles, and every butte so regular and beautiful that you can hardly cast 
aside the belief that they are works of Titanic art. It seems as if a thou 
sand battles had been fought on the plains below, and on every field the 
giant heroes had built a monument, compared with which the pillar on 
Bunker Hill is but a mile stone. But no human hand has placed a block in 
all those wonderful structures. 'The rain drops of unreckoned ages have 
cut them all from the solid rock. 
Between the foot of Gray Canon and the head of Labyrinth Caiion we 
descend through many hundred feet of soft shales, sandstones, marls, and 
gyp^iferous rocks of a texture so friable that no canon appears along the 
course of the Green, but along the southern border of the terrace above the 
Orange Cliffs, buttes of gypsum are seen. Sometimes the faces of these 
buttes are as white as the heart of the alabaster from which they are carved, 
while in other places they are stained and mottled red and brown. 
As we come near to the Book Cliffs the buttes are seen to be composed 
of the same beds as those seen in the escarpment, and we see the same light 
blue buttresses and terraced summits. 
On the terrace above the Book Cliffs, the buttes are less numerous, but 
the few seen have the angular, irregular appearance of the Brown Cliffs. 
The summit of the high plateau through which the Caiion of Desola 
tion is cut, is fretted into pine clad hills, with nestling valleys and meadow 
bordered lakes, for now we are in that upper region where the clouds yield 
their moisture to the soil. In these meadows herds of deer carry aloft with 
pride their branching antlers, and sweep the country with their sharp out 
look, or test the air with their delicate nostrils for the- faintest evidence of an 
approaching Indian hunter. Huge elk, with heads bowed by the weight of 
ragged horns, feed among the pines, or trot with headlong speed through 
the undergrowth, frightened at the report of the red man's rifle. Eagles 
