KAIBAB PLATEAU. 185 
fault, especially where -the throw is great and the rocks are indurated, pro 
duces precipitous cliffs, with a small talus below, made of the fragments 
which have fallen from above. Where the down-fallen rocks have caught 
and have been flexed, we usually find a long slope at the foot of the cliffs, 
and where the faults change into flexures gentle slopes are observed, stretch 
ing from the high lands to the lower country. 
The elevated district traversed by the Grand Canon is broken by a 
number of such faults, and portions of the country have fallen down, so 
that, although the general upper surface is formed, in chief part, of the same 
beds of cherty limestone, the canon is not cut through one great, unbroken 
plateau, but through a series of plateaus, or great geographic terraces and 
tables. 
The most elevated portion of the country is a central belt, about twenty 
five or thirty miles in width, and about eighty miles in length. This is 
called, by the Indians, Kaibab, or "mountain lying down," and we have 
adopted the name. It is well defined on the east and west by lines of cliffs 
and steep slopes, which have been formed by displacements, and on the 
south by the chasm of the Colorado, but on the north it abuts against" the 
Vermilion Cliffs. The lines of cliffs which form its eastern and western 
boundaries extend to the south beyond the Grand Canon, for the faults run 
far to the south, and they define there, in part, a companion, or twin plateau. 
Had there been no river running there, there would have been but 'one 
plateau. 
From this central belt the general surface of the country drops by steps 
to the east and west, and the edge of each step marks the line of a fault, or 
its equivalent fold. 
In the region under discussion there are six of these great displace 
ments, which give rise to important elements in the topography, and deserve 
special mention. I shall enumerate them in order, from east to west, omit 
ting mention of the faults and folds of minor importance. 
East of Marble Canon, and running in a general northerly and south 
erly course, so as to cross the Colorado at the mouth of the Paria, we have 
the Paria Fold, in which the down-fall of the rocky foundation is to the 
24 OOL 
