down to the river. But thirty miles above its mouth this canyon
ends, and a narrow valley with a flood plain is found. Still farther up
the stream the river comes down through another canyon, and beyond
that a narrow valley is found, and its upper course is now through a
canyon and now through a valley. All these canyons are alike
changeable in their topographic characteristics.
The longest canyon through which the Colorado runs is that between
the mouth of the Colorado Chiquito and the Grand Wash, a distance of
217 1/2 miles. But this is separated from another above, 65 1/2 miles in
length, only by the narrow canyon valley of the Colorado Chiquito.
All the scenic features of this canyon land are on a giant scale, strange
and weird. The streams run at depths almost inaccessible, lashing the
rocks which beset their channels, rolling in rapids and plunging in falls,
and making a wild music which but adds to the gloom of the solitude.
The little valleys nestling along the streams are diversified by bordering
willows, clumps of box elder, and small groves of cottonwood.
Low mesas, dry, treeless, stretch back from the brink of the canyon,
often showing smooth surfaces of naked, solid rock. In some places the
country rock is composed of marls, and here the surface is a bed of
loose, disintegrated material through which one walks as in a bed of
ashes. Often these marls are richly colored and variegated. In other
places the country rock is a loose sandstone, the disintegration of which
has left broad stretches of drifting sand, white, golden, and vermilion.
Where this sandstone is a conglomerate, a paving of pebbles has been
left,--a mosaic of many colors, polished by the drifting sands and
glistening in the sunlight.
After the canyons, the most remarkable features of the country are the
long lines of cliffs. These are bold escarpments scores or hundreds of
miles in length,--great geographic steps, often hundreds or thousands of
feet in altitude, presenting steep faces of rock, often vertical. Having
climbed one of these steps, you may descend by a gentle, sometimes
imperceptible, slope to the foot of another. They thus present a series of
terraces, the steps of which are well-defined escarpments of rock. The
lateral extension of such a line of cliffs is usually very irregular; sharp
salients are projected on the plains below, and deep recesses are cut
into the terraces above. Intermittent streams coming down the cliffs
have cut many canyons or canyon valleys, by which the traveler may
pass from the plain below to the terrace above. By these gigantic
stairways he may ascend to high plateaus, covered with forests of pine
and fir.
The region is further diversified by short ranges of eruptive mountains.
A vast system of fissures--huge cracks in the rocks to the depths
below--extends across the country. From these crevices floods of lava
have poured, covering mesas and table-lands with sheets of black basalt.
The expiring energies of these volcanic agencies have piled up huge
cinder cones that stand along the fissures, red, brown, and black, naked
of vegetation, and conspicuous landmarks, set as they are in contrast to
the bright, variegated rocks of sedimentary origin.
These canyon gorges, obstructing cliffs, and desert wastes have
prevented the traveler from penetrating the country, so that until the
Colorado River Exploring Expedition was organized it was almost
unknown. In the early history of the country Spanish adventurers
penetrated the region and told marvelous stories of its wonders. It was
also traversed by priests who sought to convert the Indian tribes to
Christianity. In later days, since the region has been under the control
of the United States, various government expeditions have penetrated
the land. Yet enough had been seen in the earlier days to foment rumor,
and many wonderful stories were told in the hunter's cabin and the
prospector's camp--stories of parties entering the gorge in boats and
being carried down with fearful velocity into whirlpools where all were
overwhelmed in the abyss of waters, and stories of underground
passages for the great river into which boats had passed never to be
seen again. It was currently believed that the river was lost under the
rocks for several hundred miles. There were other accounts of great
falls whose roaring music could be heard on the distant mountain
summits; and there were stories current of parties wandering on the
brink of the canyon and vainly endeavoring to reach the waters below,
and perishing with thirst at last in sight of the river which was roaring
its mockery into their dying ears.
The Indians, too, have woven the mysteries of the canyons into the
myths of their religion. Long ago there was a great and wise chief who
mourned the death of his
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