NATURAL BRIDGES OF UTAH 
225 
of a broad, hanging glacier. Its existence, however, it due to 
water action, aided by frost and wind. When seen from a dis¬ 
tance, its freshly eroded surfaces give the impression of a land¬ 
slide, hence the name “Breaks.” The amphitheatre is nearly ten 
miles across and all its streams converge to a point, about a thous¬ 
and feet below the rim, like the spokes of a badly “dished” half¬ 
wheel. Both from above and below this vast area is wholly in¬ 
accessible except to skilled climbers. 
Cedar Breaks is destined to become known throughout the 
world, chiefly because of two outstanding features — its wide 
variety of grotesque erosional forms and its incomparable color¬ 
ing. The formations composing it are soft argillaceous limestones 
of Tertic age. Rapid differential weathering has carved out liter¬ 
ally a myriad of shapely and shapeless figures, among which 
the observer can imagine any form toward which his fancy may 
turn. 
Any attempt to describe the coloring of Cedar Breaks leads one 
into the use of so many superlatives that the average reader feels 
justified in concluding that the matter has been greatly over¬ 
drawn. In the present connection it is sufficient to state that 
one day the writer and half a dozen friends sat on the rim of 
Cedar Breaks and successfully challenged each other to name any 
shade or tint of the spectrum that could not be seen in the banded 
formations before them. 
Right in the midst of this glorious spectacle of painted fantasies 
is the “Wall of Jericho” (plate xvi, B). This unusual structure 
is scarcely a typical bridge, and yet it possesses most of the essen¬ 
tial features. On the other hand, it more closely resembles an 
opening or gateway in an artificial wall. The residual mass 
of which it forms a part, is the result of differential weathering, 
chiefly wind, aided by frost and running water. Neither its 
height nor its span greatly exceeds 50 feet, yet its coloring, its 
irregularity of form and particularly its environment give it a 
peculiar distinction not present in the other bridges. 
