The Western United States | Page 4

wonderful fertility of the Colorado delta is just beginning to be appreciated. Canals have been dug to take the water from the river and distribute it over the land. Year by year the cultivated lands are being extended. The change which irrigation is making upon the surface of one of the worst deserts in the country is indeed remarkable.
The Colorado River is working on quietly and steadily. We may think, and truly, that it has already done a great at work in excavating the mighty ca?ons along its course, but, in reality, the work already accomplished is small in comparison with that which remains to be done.
In time, if the land is not disturbed by the forces which build mountains, the plateaus through which the river now flows in such deep ca?ons will be carried away in the form of sand and mud. Broad valleys will replace the ca?ons, and the Gulf of California will become a fertile plain. As the highlands wear away the process will go on more and more slowly, for there will be less rainfall. The river will become smaller and its basin more arid. All these changes will be brought about through the crumbling of the rocks, and the removal of the waste matter by the running water.

A TRIP INTO THE GRAND CA?ON OF THE COLORADO
We may read of the Colorado plateau, and of the Grand Ca?on with its precipitous walls of variously colored rock, but unless we actually visit this wonderland, it is hard to realize the height and extent of the plateau and the depth of the gashes made in its surface by running water, gashes so deep that they seem to expose the very heart of the earth.
Nature has chosen a remote and half-desert region for the location of this, the most picturesque ca?on in the world, as if she wished to keep it as long as possible from the eyes of men. Once a traveller could not view the ca?on without making a long and weary journey across hundreds of miles of desert; now it is quite different, for one can almost look into its depths from the windows of a palace car. But to appreciate and understand fully the stupendous work that nature has done throughout this region we must leave the cars at a somewhat distant point, and before reaching the ca?on become acquainted with the country in which it lies through the old-fashioned ways of travelling on horseback or wagon.
Flagstaff was formerly the starting-point for travellers to the ca?on, and we will choose it now, for the old stage road offers an interesting ride. The road first winds around that lofty snow-clad peak, the San Francisco Mountain, which can be seen from all northern Arizona. Leaving the mountain behind, we strike out directly across the high plateau. The country is nearly level, and the open park-like forest extends in every direction as far as one can see.
It is difficult for us to believe that we are seven thousand feet above the sea, a height greater than that of the highest mountains in the United States east of the Mississippi Valley. It is this elevation, however, which brings the summer showers and makes the air cool and pleasant, for the lowlands of this portion of the United States are barren deserts, upon which the sun beats with almost savage heat.
After the rainy season green grass and an abundance of flowers appear in the open meadows scattered through the forest. But, as a rule, the entire absence of water strikes one as being very strange. Where are the springs and running streams which usually abound in mountainous regions? Throughout the whole distance of seventy miles from Flagstaff to the ca?on, there are but one or two spots where water is to be found. These places are known as "water-holes"; they are simply hollows in the surface of the ground where the water collects after the showers.
There is another strange feature about the plateau over which the road leads; instead of sloping down toward the Colorado River and the Grand Ca?on, the surface slowly rises, so that the little streams which are formed after the heavy rains flow away from the river.
Our journey draws to an end, but there is nothing to indicate the presence of the ca?on until we get glimpses through the trees of an apparently bottomless gulf. The gulf widens upon a closer view, we reach the edge, and all its wonderful proportions burst upon us. Does the Grand Ca?on look as you thought it would? Probably not, for it is unlike any other in the world. The ca?on is very deep. The river has worn its way for more than a mile down into the plateau, which once stretched unbroken from the cliffs upon which we stand,