CHAPTER III 
The Grand Canyon—Character of the Colorado River—The Water-Gods ; Erosion 
and Corrasion—The Natives and their Highways—The “ Green River 
Valley” of the Old 'I'rappers—The Strange Vegetation and Some Singular 
Animals. 
HE stupendous chasm known as the Grand Canyon, dis- 
1 covered by Cardenas in the autumn of 1540, is the most 
remarkable feature of this extraordinary river, and at the same 
time is one of the marvels of the world. Though discovered 
so long ago that we make friends with the conquistadores when 
we approach its history, it remained, with the other canyons of 
the river, a problem for 329 years thereafter, that is, till 1869. 
Discovery does not mean knowledge, and knowledge does not 
mean publicity. In the case of this gorge, with its immense 
length and countless tributary chasms, the view Cardenas ob¬ 
tained was akin to a dog’s discovery of the moon. It has prac¬ 
tically been several times re-discovered. Indeed, each person 
who first looks into the abyss has a sensation of being a dis¬ 
coverer, for the scene is so weird and lonely and so incompre¬ 
hensible in its novelty that one feels that it could never have 
been viewed before. And it is rather a discovery for each 
individual, because no amount of verbal or pictorial description 
can ever fully prepare the spectator for the sublime reality. 
Even when one becomes familiar with the incomparable spec¬ 
tacle it never ceases to astonish. A recent writer has well said : 
“The sublimity of the Pyramids is endurable, but at the rim of 
the Grand Canyon we feel outdone.” ‘ Outdone is exactly 
the right word. Nowhere else can man’s insignificance be so 
‘ Harriet Monroe, Atlantic Monthly^ June, IQ02. 
36 
