THE TWO GREAT SCULPTORS. 
could not see him without a telescope ; while the open- 
ing at the top between the two walls would seem so 
narrow at such an immense distance that the sky 
above would have the appearance of nothing more 
than a narrow streak of blue. Yet these huge chasms 
have not been made by any violent breaking apart 
of the rocks or convulsion of an earthquake. No, 
they have been gradually, silently, and steadily cut 
through by the river which now glides quietly in the 
wider chasms, or rushes rapidly through the narrow 
gorges at their feet. 
" No description," says Lieutenant Ives, one of the 
first explorers of this river, " can convey the idea of 
the varied and majestic grandeur of this peerless water- 
way. Wherever the river turns, the entire panorama 
changes. Stately facades, august cathedrals, amphi- 
theatres, rotundas, castellated walls, and rows of time- 
stained ruins, surmounted by every form of tower, 
minaret, dome and spire, have been moulded from the 
cyclopean masses of rock that form the mighty de- 
file." Who will say, after this, that water is not the 
grandest of all sculptors, as it cuts through hundreds 
of miles of rock, forming such magnificent granite 
groups, not only unsurpassed but unequalled by any 
of the works of man? 
But we must not look upon water only as a cutting 
instrument, for it does more than merely carve out 
land in one place, it also carries it away and lays it 
down elsewhere ; and in this it is most like a modeller 
in clay, who smooths off the material from one part of 
his figure to put it upon another. 
