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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:39:32 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:39:32 -0700 |
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diff --git a/12298-h/12298-h.htm b/12298-h/12298-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..be1a71b --- /dev/null +++ b/12298-h/12298-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,803 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Grand Cañon of the Colorado, by John Muir</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12298 ***</div> + +<h1>THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by John Muir</h2> + +<h3>1902</h3> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p> +Happy nowadays is the tourist, with earth’s wonders, new and old, spread +invitingly open before him, and a host of able workers as his slaves making +everything easy, padding plush about him, grading roads for him, boring +tunnels, moving hills out of his way, eager, like the devil, to show him all +the kingdoms of the world and their glory and foolishness, spiritualizing +travel for him with lightning and steam, abolishing space and time and almost +everything else. Little children and tender, pulpy people, as well as +storm-seasoned explorers, may now go almost everywhere in smooth comfort, cross +oceans and deserts scarce accessible to fishes and birds, and, dragged by steel +horses, go up high mountains, riding gloriously beneath starry showers of +sparks, ascending like Elijah in a whirlwind and chariot of fire. +</p> + +<p> +First of the wonders of the great West to be brought within reach of the +tourist were the Yosemite and the Big Trees, on the completion of the first +transcontinental railway; next came the Yellowstone and icy Alaska, by the +Northern roads; and last the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, which, naturally the +hardest to reach, has now become, by a branch of the Santa Fé, the most +accessible of all. +</p> + +<p> +Of course with this wonderful extension of steel ways through our wilderness +there is loss as well as gain. Nearly all railroads are bordered by belts of +desolation. The finest wilderness perishes as if stricken with pestilence. Bird +and beast people, if not the dryads, are frightened from the groves. Too often +the groves also vanish, leaving nothing but ashes. Fortunately, nature has a +few big places beyond man’s power to spoil—the ocean, the two icy +ends of the globe, and the Grand Cañon. +</p> + +<p> +When I first heard of the Santa Fé trains running to the edge of the Grand +Cañon of Arizona, I was troubled with thoughts of the disenchantment likely to +follow. But last winter, when I saw those trains crawling along through the +pines of the Cocanini Forest and close up to the brink of the chasm at Bright +Angel, I was glad to discover that in the presence of such stupendous scenery +they are nothing. The locomotives and trains are mere beetles and caterpillars, +and the noise they make is as little disturbing as the hooting of an owl in the +lonely woods. +</p> + +<p> +In a dry, hot, monotonous forested plateau, seemingly boundless, you come +suddenly and without warning upon the abrupt edge of a gigantic sunken +landscape of the wildest, most multitudinous features, and those features, +sharp and angular, are made out of flat beds of limestone and sandstone forming +a spiry, jagged, gloriously colored mountain-range countersunk in a level gray +plain. It is a hard job to sketch it even in scrawniest outline; and try as I +may, not in the least sparing myself, I cannot tell the hundredth part of the +wonders of its features—the side-cañons, gorges, alcoves, cloisters, and +amphitheaters of vast sweep and depth, carved in its magnificent walls; the +throng of great architectural rocks it contains resembling castles, cathedrals, +temples, and palaces, towered and spired and painted, some of them nearly a +mile high, yet beneath one’s feet. All this, however, is less difficult +than to give any idea of the impression of wild, primeval beauty and power one +receives in merely gazing from its brink. The view down the gulf of color and +over the rim of its wonderful wall, more than any other view I know, leads us +to think of our earth as a star with stars swimming in light, every radiant +spire pointing the way to the heavens. +</p> + +<p> +But it is impossible to conceive what the cañon is, or what impression it +makes, from descriptions or pictures, however good. Naturally it is untellable +even to those who have seen something perhaps a little like it on a small scale +in this same plateau region. One’s most extravagant expectations are +indefinitely surpassed, though one expect much from what is said of it as +“the biggest chasm on earth”—“so big is it that all +other big things,—Yosemite, the Yellowstone, the Pyramids, +Chicago,—all would be lost if tumbled into it.” Naturally enough, +illustrations as to size are sought for among other cañons like or unlike it, +with the common result of worse confounding confusion. The prudent keep +silence. It was once said that the “Grand Cañon could put a dozen +Yosemites in its vest pocket.” +</p> + +<p> +The justly famous Grand Cañon of the Yellowstone is, like the Colorado, +gorgeously colored and abruptly countersunk in a plateau, and both are mainly +the work of water. But the Colorado’s cañon is more than a thousand times +larger, and as a score or two new buildings of ordinary size would not +appreciably change the general view of a great city, so hundreds of +Yellowstones might be eroded in the sides of the Colorado Cañon without +noticeably augmenting its size or the richness of its sculpture. But it is not +true that the great Yosemite rocks would be thus lost or hidden. Nothing of +their kind in the world, so far as I know, rivals El Capitan and Tissiack, much +less dwarfs or in any way belittles them. None of the sandstone or limestone +precipices of the cañon that I have seen or heard of approaches in smooth, +flawless strength and grandeur the granite face of El Capitan or the Tenaya +side of Cloud’s Rest. These colossal cliffs, types of permanence, are +about three thousand and six thousand feet high; those of the cañon that are +sheer are about half as high, and are types of fleeting change; while +glorious-domed Tissiack, noblest of mountain buildings, far from being +overshadowed or lost in this rosy, spiry cañon company, would draw every eye, +and, in serene majesty, “aboon them a’” she would take her +place—castle, temple, palace, or tower. Nevertheless a noted writer, +comparing the Grand Cañon in a general way with the glacial Yosemite, says: +“And the Yosemite—ah, the lovely Yosemite! Dumped down into the +wilderness of gorges and mountains, it would take a guide who knew of its +existence a long time to find it.” This is striking, and shows up well +above the levels of commonplace description; but it is confusing, and has the +fatal fault of not being true. As well try to describe an eagle by putting a +lark in it. “And the lark—ah, the lovely lark! Dumped down the red, +royal gorge of the eagle, it would be hard to find.” Each in its own +place is better, singing at heaven’s gate, and sailing the sky with the +clouds. +</p> + +<p> +Every feature of nature’s big face is beautiful,—height and hollow, +wrinkle, furrow, and line,—and this is the main master furrow of its kind +on our continent, incomparably greater and more impressive than any other yet +discovered, or likely to be discovered, now that all the great rivers have been +traced to their heads. +</p> + +<p> +The Colorado River rises in the heart of the continent on the dividing ranges +and ridges between the two oceans, drains thousands of snowy mountains through +narrow or spacious valleys, and thence through cañons of every color, +sheer-walled and deep, all of which seem to be represented in this one grand +cañon of cañons. +</p> + +<p> +It is very hard to give anything like an adequate conception of its size, much +more of its color, its vast wall-sculpture, the wealth of ornate architectural +buildings that fill it, or, most of all, the tremendous impression it makes. +According to Major Powell, it is about two hundred and seventeen miles long, +from five to fifteen miles wide from rim to rim, and from about five thousand +to six thousand feet deep. So tremendous a chasm would be one of the +world’s greatest wonders even if, like ordinary cañons cut in sedimentary +rocks, it were empty and its walls were simple. But instead of being plain, the +walls are so deeply and elaborately carved into all sorts of +recesses—alcoves, cirques, amphitheaters, and side-cañons—that were +you to trace the rim closely around on both sides your journey would be nearly +a thousand miles long. Into all these recesses the level, continuous beds of +rock in ledges and benches, with their various colors, run like broad ribbons, +marvelously beautiful and effective even at a distance of ten or twelve miles. +And the vast space these glorious walls inclose, instead of being empty, is +crowded with gigantic architectural rock forms gorgeously colored and adorned +with towers and spires like works of art. +</p> + +<p> +Looking down from this level plateau, we are more impressed with a feeling of +being on the top of everything than when looking from the summit of a mountain. +From side to side of the vast gulf, temples, palaces, towers, and spires come +soaring up in thick array half a mile or nearly a mile above their sunken, +hidden bases, some to a level with our standpoint, but none higher. And in the +inspiring morning light all are so fresh and rosy-looking that they seem +new-born; as if, like the quick-growing crimson snow-plants of the California +woods, they had just sprung up, hatched by the warm, brooding, motherly +weather. +</p> + +<p> +In trying to describe the great pines and sequoias of the Sierra, I have often +thought that if one of those trees could be set by itself in some city park, +its grandeur might there be impressively realized; while in its home forests, +where all magnitudes are great, the weary, satiated traveler sees none of them +truly. It is so with these majestic rock structures. +</p> + +<p> +Though mere residual masses of the plateau, they are dowered with the grandeur +and repose of mountains, together with the finely chiseled carving and modeling +of man’s temples and palaces, and often, to a considerable extent, with +their symmetry. Some, closely observed, look like ruins; but even these stand +plumb and true, and show architectural forms loaded with lines strictly regular +and decorative, and all are arrayed in colors that storms and time seem only to +brighten. They are not placed in regular rows in line with the river, but +“a’ through ither,” as the Scotch say, in lavish, exuberant +crowds, as if nature in wildest extravagance held her bravest structures as +common as gravel-piles. Yonder stands a spiry cathedral nearly five thousand +feet in height, nobly symmetrical, with sheer buttressed walls and arched doors +and windows, as richly finished and decorated with sculptures as the great rock +temples of India or Egypt. Beside it rises a huge castle with arched gateway, +turrets, watch-towers, ramparts, etc., and to right and left palaces, obelisks, +and pyramids fairly fill the gulf, all colossal and all lavishly painted and +carved. Here and there a flat-topped structure may be seen, or one imperfectly +domed; but the prevailing style is ornate Gothic, with many hints of Egyptian +and Indian. +</p> + +<p> +Throughout this vast extent of wild architecture—nature’s own +capital city—there seem to be no ordinary dwellings. All look like grand +and important public structures, except perhaps some of the lower pyramids, +broad-based and sharp-pointed, covered with down-flowing talus like loosely set +tents with hollow, sagging sides. The roofs often have disintegrated rocks +heaped and draggled over them, but in the main the masonry is firm and laid in +regular courses, as if done by square and rule. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless they are ever changing: their tops are now a dome, now a flat +table or a spire, as harder or softer strata are reached in their slow +degradation, while the sides, with all their fine moldings, are being steadily +undermined and eaten away. But no essential change in style or color is thus +effected. From century to century they stand the same. What seems confusion +among the rough earthquake-shaken crags nearest one comes to order as soon as +the main plan of the various structures appears. Every building, however +complicated and laden with ornamental lines, is at one with itself and every +one of its neighbors, for the same characteristic controlling belts of color +and solid strata extend with wonderful constancy for very great distances, and +pass through and give style to thousands of separate structures, however their +smaller characters may vary. +</p> + +<p> +Of all the various kinds of ornamental work displayed,—carving, tracery +on cliff-faces, moldings, arches, pinnacles,—none is more admirably +effective or charms more than the webs of rain-channeled taluses. Marvelously +extensive, without the slightest appearance of waste or excess, they cover +roofs and dome-tops and the base of every cliff, belt each spire and pyramid +and massy, towering temple, and in beautiful continuous lines go sweeping along +the great walls in and out around all the intricate system of side-cañons, +amphitheaters, cirques, and scallops into which they are sculptured. From one +point hundreds of miles of this fairy embroidery may be traced. It is all so +fine and orderly that it would seem that not only had the clouds and streams +been kept harmoniously busy in the making of it, but that every raindrop sent +like a bullet to a mark had been the subject of a separate thought, so sure is +the outcome of beauty through the stormy centuries. Surely nowhere else are +there illustrations so striking of the natural beauty of desolation and death, +so many of nature’s own mountain buildings wasting in glory of high +desert air—going to dust. See how steadfast in beauty they all are in +their going. Look again and again how the rough, dusty boulders and sand of +disintegration from the upper ledges wreathe in beauty the next and next below +with these wonderful taluses, and how the colors are finer the faster the +waste. We oftentimes see nature giving beauty for ashes,—as in the +flowers of a prairie after fire,—but here the very dust and ashes are +beautiful. +</p> + +<p> +Gazing across the mighty chasm, we at last discover that it is not its great +depth nor length, nor yet these wonderful buildings, that most impresses us. It +is its immense width, sharply defined by precipitous walls plunging suddenly +down from a flat plain, declaring in terms instantly apprehended that the vast +gulf is a gash in the once unbroken plateau, made by slow, orderly erosion and +removal of huge beds of rocks. Other valleys of erosion are as great,—in +all their dimensions some are greater,—but none of these produces an +effect on the imagination at once so quick and profound, coming without study, +given at a glance. Therefore by far the greatest and most influential feature +of this view from Bright Angel or any other of the cañon views is the opposite +wall. Of the one beneath our feet we see only fragmentary sections in cirques +and amphitheaters and on the sides of the outjutting promontories between them, +while the other, though far distant, is beheld in all its glory of color and +noble proportions—the one supreme beauty and wonder to which the eye is +ever turning. For while charming with its beauty it tells the story of the +stupendous erosion of the cañon—the foundation of the unspeakable +impression made on everybody. It seems a gigantic statement for even nature to +make, all in one mighty stone word, apprehended at once like a burst of light, +celestial color its natural vesture, coming in glory to mind and heart as to a +home prepared for it from the very beginning. Wildness so godful, cosmic, +primeval, bestows a new sense of earth’s beauty and size. Not even from +high mountains does the world seem so wide, so like a star in glory of light on +its way through the heavens. +</p> + +<p> +I have observed scenery-hunters of all sorts getting first views of yosemites, +glaciers. While Mountain ranges, etc. Mixed with the enthusiasm which such +scenery naturally excites, there is often weak gushing, and many splutter aloud +like little waterfalls. Here, for a few moments at least, there is silence, and +all are in dead earnest, as if awed and hushed by an earthquake—perhaps +until the cook cries “Breakfast!” or the stable-boy “Horses +are ready!” Then the poor unfortunates, slaves of regular habits, turn +quickly away, gasping and muttering as if wondering where they had been and +what had enchanted them. +</p> + +<p> +Roads have been made from Bright Angel Hotel through the Cocanini Forest to the +ends of outstanding promontories, commanding extensive views up and down the +cañon. The nearest of them, three or four miles east and west, are +McNeil’s Point and Rowe’s Point; the latter, besides commanding the +eternally interesting cañon, gives wide-sweeping views southeast and west over +the dark forest roof to the San Francisco and Mount Trumbull +volcanoes—the bluest of mountains over the blackest of level woods. +</p> + +<p> +Instead of thus riding in dust with the crowd, more will be gained by going +quietly afoot along the rim at different times of day and night, free to +observe the vegetation, the fossils in the rocks, the seams beneath overhanging +ledges once inhabited by Indians, and to watch the stupendous scenery in the +changing lights and shadows, clouds, showers, and storms. One need not go +hunting the so-called “points of interest.” The verge anywhere, +everywhere, is a point of interest beyond one’s wildest dreams. +</p> + +<p> +As yet, few of the promontories or throng of mountain buildings in the cañon +are named. Nor among such exuberance of forms are names thought of by the +bewildered, hurried tourist. He would be as likely to think of names for waves +in a storm. The Eastern and Western Cloisters, Hindu Amphitheater, Cape Royal, +Powell’s Plateau, and Grand View Point, Point Sublime, Bissell and Moran +points, the Temple of Set, Vishnu’s Temple, Shiva’s Temple, Twin +Temples, Tower of Babel, Hance’s Column—these fairly good names +given by Dutton, Holmes, Moran, and others are scattered over a large stretch +of the cañon wilderness. +</p> + +<p> +All the cañon rock-beds are lavishly painted, except a few neutral bars and the +granite notch at the bottom occupied by the river, which makes but little sign. +It is a vast wilderness of rocks in a sea of light, colored and glowing like +oak and maple woods in autumn, when the sun-gold is richest. I have just said +that it is impossible to learn what the cañon is like from descriptions and +pictures. Powell’s and Dutton’s descriptions present magnificent +views not only of the cañon but of all the grand region round about it; and +Holmes’s drawings, accompanying Dutton’s report, are wonderfully +good. Surely faithful and loving skill can go no further in putting the +multitudinous decorated forms on paper. But the <i>colors</i>, the living, +rejoicing <i>colors</i>, chanting morning and evening in chorus to heaven! +Whose brush or pencil, however lovingly inspired, can give us these? And if +paint is of no effect, what hope lies in pen-work? Only this: some may be +incited by it to go and see for themselves. +</p> + +<p> +No other range of mountainous rock-work of anything like the same extent have I +seen that is so strangely, boldly, lavishly colored. The famous Yellowstone +Cañon below the falls comes to mind, but, wonderful as it is, and well deserved +as is its fame, compared with this it is only a bright rainbow ribbon at the +roots of the pines. Each of the series of level, continuous beds of +carboniferous rocks of the cañon has, as we have seen, its own characteristic +color. The summit limestone-beds are pale yellow; next below these are the +beautiful rose-colored cross-bedded sandstones; next there are a thousand feet +of brilliant red sandstones; and below these the red wall limestones, over two +thousand feet thick, rich massy red, the greatest and most influential of the +series, and forming the main color-fountain. Between these are many +neutral-tinted beds. The prevailing colors are wonderfully deep and clear, +changing and blending with varying intensity from hour to hour, day to day, +season to season; throbbing, wavering, glowing, responding to every passing +cloud or storm, a world of color in itself, now burning in separate rainbow +bars streaked and blotched with shade, now glowing in one smooth, all-pervading +ethereal radiance like the alpenglow, uniting the rocky world with the heavens. +</p> + +<p> +The dawn, as in all the pure, dry desert country, is ineffably beautiful; and +when the first level sunbeams sting the domes and spires, with what a burst of +power the big, wild days begin! The dead and the living, rocks and hearts +alike, awake and sing the new-old song of creation. All the massy headlands and +salient angles of the walls, and the multitudinous temples and palaces, seem to +catch the light at once, and cast thick black shadows athwart hollow and gorge, +bringing out details as well as the main massive features of the architecture; +while all the rocks, as if wild with life, throb and quiver and glow in the +glorious sunburst, rejoicing. Every rock temple then becomes a temple of music; +every spire and pinnacle an angel of light and song, shouting color +halleluiahs. +</p> + +<p> +As the day draws to a close, shadows, wondrous, black, and thick, like those of +the morning, fill up the wall hollows, while the glowing rocks, their rough +angles burned off, seem soft and hot to the heart as they stand submerged in +purple haze, which now fills the cañon like a sea. Still deeper, richer, more +divine grow the great walls and temples, until in the supreme flaming glory of +sunset the whole cañon is transfigured, as if all the life and light of +centuries of sunshine stored up and condensed in the rocks was now being poured +forth as from one glorious fountain, flooding both earth and sky. +</p> + +<p> +Strange to say, in the full white effulgence of the midday hours the bright +colors grow dim and terrestrial in common gray haze; and the rocks, after the +manner of mountains, seem to crouch and drowse and shrink to less than half +their real stature, and have nothing to say to one, as if not at home. But it +is fine to see how quickly they come to life and grow radiant and communicative +as soon as a band of white clouds come floating by. As if shouting for joy, +they seem to spring up to meet them in hearty salutation, eager to touch them +and beg their blessings. It is just in the midst of these dull midday hours +that the cañon clouds are born. +</p> + +<p> +A good storm-cloud full of lightning and rain on its way to its work on a sunny +desert day is a glorious object. Across the cañon, opposite the hotel, is a +little tributary of the Colorado called Bright Angel Creek. A fountain-cloud +still better deserves the name “Angel of the Desert +Wells”—clad in bright plumage, carrying cool shade and living water +to countless animals and plants ready to perish, noble in form and gesture, +seeming able for anything, pouring life-giving, wonder-working floods from its +alabaster fountains, as if some sky-lake had broken. To every gulch and gorge +on its favorite ground is given a passionate torrent, roaring, replying to the +rejoicing lightning—stones, tons in weight, hurrying away as if +frightened, showing something of the way Grand Cañon work is done. Most of the +fertile summer clouds of the cañon are of this sort, massive, swelling cumuli, +growing rapidly, displaying delicious tones of purple and gray in the hollows +of their sun-beaten bosses, showering favored areas of the heated landscape, +and vanishing in an hour or two. Some, busy and thoughtful-looking, glide with +beautiful motion along the middle of the cañon in flocks, turning aside here +and there, lingering as if studying the needs of particular spots, exploring +side-cañons, peering into hollows like birds seeking nest-places, or hovering +aloft on outspread wings. They scan all the red wilderness, dispensing their +blessings of cool shadows and rain where the need is the greatest, refreshing +the rocks, their offspring as well as the vegetation, continuing their +sculpture, deepening gorges and sharpening peaks. Sometimes, blending all +together, they weave a ceiling from rim to rim, perhaps opening a window here +and there for sunshine to stream through, suddenly lighting some palace or +temple and making it flare in the rain as if on fire. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes, as one sits gazing from a high, jutting promontory, the sky all +clear, showing not the slightest wisp or penciling, a bright band of cumuli +will appear suddenly, coming up the cañon in single file, as if tracing a +well-known trail, passing in review, each in turn darting its lances and +dropping its shower, making a row of little vertical rivers in the air above +the big brown one. Others seem to grow from mere points, and fly high above the +cañon, yet following its course for a long time, noiseless, as if hunting, then +suddenly darting lightning at unseen marks, and hurrying on. Or they loiter +here and there as if idle, like laborers out of work, waiting to be hired. +</p> + +<p> +Half a dozen or more showers may oftentimes be seen falling at once, while far +the greater part of the sky is in sunshine, and not a raindrop comes nigh one. +These thunder-showers from as many separate clouds, looking like wisps of long +hair, may vary greatly in effects. The pale, faint streaks are showers that +fail to reach the ground, being evaporated on the way down through the dry, +thirsty air, like streams in deserts. Many, on the other hand, which in the +distance seem insignificant, are really heavy rain, however local; these are +the gray wisps well zigzagged with lightning. The darker ones are torrent rain, +which on broad, steep slopes of favorable conformation give rise to so-called +“cloudbursts”; and wonderful is the commotion they cause. The +gorges and gulches below them, usually dry, break out in loud uproar, with a +sudden downrush of muddy, boulder-laden floods. Down they all go in one +simultaneous gush, roaring like lions rudely awakened, each of the tawny brood +actually kicking up a dust at the first onset. +</p> + +<p> +During the winter months snow falls over all the high plateau, usually to a +considerable depth, whitening the rim and the roofs of the cañon buildings. But +last winter, when I arrived at Bright Angel in the middle of January, there was +no snow in sight, and the ground was dry, greatly to my disappointment, for I +had made the trip mainly to see the cañon in its winter garb. Soothingly I was +informed that this was an exceptional season, and that the good snow might +arrive at any time. After waiting a few days, I gladly hailed a broad-browed +cloud coming grandly on from the west in big promising blackness, very unlike +the white sailors of the summer skies. Under the lee of a rim-ledge, with +another snow-lover, I watched its movements as it took possession of the cañon +and all the adjacent region in sight. Trailing its gray fringes over the spiry +tops of the great temples and towers, it gradually settled lower, embracing +them all with ineffable kindness and gentleness of touch, and fondled the +little cedars and pines as they quivered eagerly in the wind like young birds +begging their mothers to feed them. The first flakes and crystals began to fly +about noon, sweeping straight up the middle of the cañon, and swirling in +magnificent eddies along the sides. Gradually the hearty swarms closed their +ranks, and all the cañon was lost in gray gloom except a short section of the +wall and a few trees beside us, which looked glad with snow in their needles +and about their feet as they leaned out over the gulf. Suddenly the storm +opened with magical effect to the north over the cañon of Bright Angel Creek, +inclosing a sunlit mass of the cañon architecture, spanned by great white +concentric arches of cloud like the bows of a silvery aurora. Above these and a +little back of them was a series of upboiling purple clouds, and high above +all, in the background, a range of noble cumuli towered aloft like snow-laden +mountains, their pure pearl bosses flooded with sunshine. The whole noble +picture, calmly glowing, was framed in thick gray gloom, which soon closed over +it; and the storm went on, opening and closing until night covered all. +</p> + +<p> +Two days later, when we were on a jutting point about eighteen miles east of +Bright Angel and one thousand feet higher, we enjoyed another storm of equal +glory as to cloud effects, though only a few inches of snow fell. Before the +storm began we had a magnificent view of this grander upper part of the cañon +and also of the Cocanini Forest and Painted Desert. The march of the clouds +with their storm-banners flying over this sublime landscape was unspeakably +glorious, and so also was the breaking up of the storm next morning—the +mingling of silver-capped rock, sunshine, and cloud. +</p> + +<p> +Most tourists make out to be in a hurry even here; therefore their few days or +hours would be best spent on the promontories nearest the hotel. Yet a +surprising number go down the Bright Angel trail to the brink of the inner +gloomy granite gorge overlooking the river. Deep cañons attract like high +mountains; the deeper they are, the more surely are we drawn into them. On +foot, of course, there is no danger whatever, and, with ordinary precautions, +but little on animals. In comfortable tourist faith, unthinking, unfearing, +down go men, women, and children on whatever is offered, horse, mule, or burro, +as if saying with Jean Paul, “fear nothing but fear”—not +without reason, for these cañon trails down the stairways of the gods are less +dangerous than they seem, less dangerous than home stairs. The guides are +cautious, and so are the experienced, much-enduring beasts. The scrawniest +Rosinantes and wizened-rat mules cling hard to the rocks endwise or sidewise, +like lizards or ants. From terrace to terrace, climate to climate, down one +creeps in sun and shade, through gorge and gully and grassy ravine, and, after +a long scramble on foot, at last beneath the mighty cliffs one comes to the +grand, roaring river. +</p> + +<p> +To the mountaineer the depth of the cañon, from five thousand to six thousand +feet, will not seem so very wonderful, for he has often explored others that +are about as deep. But the most experienced will be awe-struck but the vast +extent of strange, countersunk scenery, the multitude of huge rock monuments of +painted masonry built up in regular courses towering above, beneath, and round +about him. By the Bright Angel trail the last fifteen hundred feet of the +descent to the river has to be made afoot down the gorge of Indian Garden +Creek. Most of the visitors do not like this part, and are content to stop at +the end of the horse-trail and look down on the dull-brown flood from the edge +of the Indian Garden Plateau. By the new Hance trail, excepting a few daringly +steep spots, you can ride all the way to the river, where there is a good +spacious camp-ground in a mesquit-grove. This trail, built by brave Hance, +begins on the highest part of the rim, eight thousand feet above the sea, a +thousand feet higher than the head of Bright Angel trail, and the descent is a +little over six thousand feet, through a wonderful variety of climate and life. +Often late in the fall, when frosty winds are blowing and snow is flying at one +end of the trail, tender plants are blooming in balmy summer weather at the +other. The trip down and up can be made afoot easily in a day. In this way one +is free to observe the scenery and vegetation, instead of merely clinging to +his animal and watching its steps. But all who have time should go prepared to +camp awhile on the riverbank, to rest and learn something about the plants and +animals and the mighty flood roaring past. In cool, shady amphitheaters at the +head of the trail there are groves of white silver fir and Douglas spruce, with +ferns and saxifrages that recall snowy mountains; below these, yellow pine, +nut-pine, juniper, hop-hornbeam, ash, maple, holly-leaved berberis, cowania, +spiraea, dwarf oak, and other small shrubs and trees. In dry gulches and on +taluses and sun-beaten crags are sparsely scattered yuccas, cactuses, agave, +etc. Where springs gush from the rocks there are willow thickets, grassy flats, +and bright flowery gardens, and in the hottest recesses the delicate abronia, +mesquit, woody compositae, and arborescent cactuses. +</p> + +<p> +The most striking and characteristic part of this widely varied vegetation are +the cactaceae—strange, leafless, old-fashioned plants with beautiful +flowers and fruit, in every way able and admirable. While grimly defending +themselves with innumerable barbed spears, they offer both food and drink to +man and beast. Their juicy globes and disks and fluted cylindrical columns are +almost the only desert wells that never go dry, and they always seem to rejoice +the more and grow plumper and juicier the hotter the sunshine and sand. Some +are spherical, like rolled-up porcupines, crouching in rock hollows beneath a +mist of gray lances, unmoved by the wildest winds. Others, standing as erect as +bushes and trees or tall branchless pillars crowned with magnificent flowers, +their prickly armor sparkling, look boldly abroad over the glaring desert, +making the strangest forests ever seen or dreamed of. <i>Cereus giganteus</i>, +the grim chief of the desert tribe, is often thirty or forty feet high in +southern Arizona. Several species of tree yuccas in the same deserts, laden in +early spring with superb while lilies, form forests hardly less wonderful, +though here they grow singly or in small lonely groves. The low, almost +stemless <i>Yucca baccata</i>, with beautiful lily-flowers and sweet +banana-like fruit, prized by the Indians, is common along the cañon rim, +growing on lean, rocky soil beneath mountain-mahogany, nut-pines, and junipers, +beside dense flowery mats of <i>Spiraea caespitosa</i> and the beautiful +pinnate-leaved <i>Spiraea millefolium</i>. The nut-pine, <i>Pinus edulis</i>, +scattered along the upper slopes and roofs of the cañon buildings, is the +principal tree of the strange Dwarf Cocanini Forest. It is a picturesque stub +of a pine about twenty-five feet high, usually-with dead, lichened limbs thrust +through its rounded head, and grows on crags and fissured rock tables, braving +heat and frost, snow and drought, and continues patiently, faithfully fruitful +for centuries. Indians and insects and almost every desert bird and beast come +to it to be fed. +</p> + +<p> +To civilized people from corn and cattle and wheat-field countries the cañon at +first sight seems as uninhabitable as a glacier crevasse, utterly silent and +barren. Nevertheless it is the home of a multitude of our fellow-mortals, men +as well as animals and plants. Centuries ago it was inhabited by tribes of +Indians, who, long before Columbus saw America, built thousands of stone houses +in its crags, and large ones, some of them several stories high, with hundreds +of rooms, on the mesas of the adjacent regions. Their cliff-dwellings, almost +numberless, are still to be seen in the cañon, scattered along both sides from +top to bottom and throughout its entire length, built of stone and mortar in +seams and fissures like swallows’ nests, or on isolated ridges and peaks. +The ruins of larger buildings are found on open spots by the river, but most of +them aloft on the brink of the wildest, giddiest precipices, sites evidently +chosen for safety from enemies, and seemingly accessible only to the birds of +the air. Many caves were also used as dwelling-places, as were mere seams on +cliff-fronts formed by unequal weathering and with or without outer or side +walls; and some of them were covered with colored pictures of animals. The most +interesting of these cliff-dwellings had pathetic little ribbon-like strips of +garden on narrow terraces, where irrigating-water could be carried to +them—most romantic of sky-gardens, but eloquent of hard times. +</p> + +<p> +In recesses along the river and on the first plateau flats above its gorge were +fields and gardens of considerable size, where irrigating-ditches may still be +traced. Some of these ancient gardens are still cultivated by Indians, +descendants of cliff dwellers, who raise corn, squashes, melons, potatoes, +etc., to reinforce the produce of the many wild food-furnishing plants, nuts, +beans, berries, yucca and cactus fruits, grass and sunflower seeds, etc., and +the flesh of animals, deer, rabbits, lizards, etc. The cañon Indians I have met +here seem to be living much as did their ancestors, though not now driven into +rock dens. They are able, erect men, with commanding eyes, which nothing that +they wish to see can escape. They are never in a hurry, have a strikingly +measured, deliberate, bearish manner of moving the limbs and turning the head, +are capable of enduring weather, thirst, hunger, and over-abundance, and are +blessed with stomachs which triumph over everything the wilderness may offer. +Evidently their lives are not bitter. +</p> + +<p> +The largest of the cañon animals one is likely to see is the wild sheep, or +Rocky Mountain bighorn, a most admirable beast, with limbs that never fail, at +home on the most nerve-trying precipices, acquainted with all the springs and +passes and broken-down jumpable places in the sheer ribbon cliffs, bounding +from crag to crag in easy grace and confidence of strength, his great horns +held high above his shoulders, wild red blood beating and hissing through every +fiber of him like the wind through a quivering mountain pine. +</p> + +<p> +Deer also are occasionally met in the cañon, making their way to the river when +the wells of the plateau are dry. Along the short spring streams beavers are +still busy, as is shown by the cotton-wood and willow timber they have cut and +peeled, found in all the river drift-heaps. In the most barren cliffs and +gulches there dwell a multitude of lesser animals, well-dressed, clear-eyed, +happy little beasts—wood-rats, kangaroo-rats, gophers, wood-mice, skunks, +rabbits, bob cats, and many others, gathering food, or dozing in their +sun-warmed dens. Lizards, too, of every kind and color are here enjoying life +on the hot cliffs, and making the brightest of them brighter. +</p> + +<p> +Nor is there any lack of feathered people. The golden eagle may be seen, and +the osprey, hawks, jays, humming-birds, the mourning-dove, and cheery familiar +singers—the black-headed grosbeak, robin, bluebird, Townsend’s +thrush, and many warblers, sailing the sky and enlivening the rocks and bushes +through all the cañon wilderness. +</p> + +<p> +Here at Hance’s river camp or a few miles above it brave Powell and his +brave men passed their first night in the cañon on their adventurous voyage of +discovery thirty-three years ago. They faced a thousand dangers, open or +hidden, now in their boats gladly sliding down swift, smooth reaches, now +rolled over and over in back-combing surges of rough, roaring cataracts, sucked +under in eddies, swimming like beavers, tossed and beaten like castaway +drift—stout-hearted, undaunted, doing their work through it all. After a +month of this they floated smoothly out of the dark, gloomy, roaring abyss into +light and safety two hundred miles below. As the flood rushes past us, +heavy-laden with desert mud, we naturally think of its sources, its countless +silvery branches outspread on thousands of snowy mountains along the crest of +the continent, and the life of them, the beauty of them, their history and +romance. Its topmost springs are far north and east in Wyoming and Colorado, on +the snowy Wind River, Front, Park, and Sawatch ranges, dividing the two ocean +waters, and the Elk, Wasatch, Uinta, and innumerable spurs streaked with +streams, made famous by early explorers and hunters. It is a river of +rivers—the Du Chesne, San Rafael, Yampa, Dolores, Gunnison, Cotchetopa, +Uncompahgre, Eagle, and Roaring rivers, the Green and the Grand, and scores of +others with branches innumerable, as mad and glad a band as ever sang on +mountains, descending in glory of foam and spray from snow-banks and glaciers +through their rocky moraine-dammed, beaver-dammed channels. Then, all emerging +from dark balsam and pine woods and coming together, they meander through wide, +sunny park valleys, and at length enter the great plateau and flow in deep +cañons, the beginning of the system culminating in this grand cañon of cañons. +</p> + +<p> +Our warm cañon camp is also a good place to give a thought to the glaciers +which still exist at the heads of the highest tributaries. Some of them are of +considerable size, especially those on the Wind River and Sawatch ranges in +Wyoming and Colorado. They are remnants of a vast system of glaciers which +recently covered the upper part of the Colorado basin, sculptured its peaks, +ridges, and valleys to their present forms, and extended far out over the +plateau region—how far I cannot now say. It appears, therefore, that, +however old the main trunk of the Colorado may be, all its wide-spread upper +branches and the landscapes they flow through are new-born, scarce at all +changed as yet in any important feature since they first came to light at the +close of the glacial period. +</p> + +<p> +The so-called Grand Colorado Plateau, of which the Grand Cañon is only one of +its well-proportioned features, extends with a breadth of hundreds of miles +from the flanks of the Wasatch and Park Mountains to the south of the San +Francisco Peaks. Immediately to the north of the deepest part of the cañon it +rises in a series of subordinate plateaus, diversified with green meadows, +marshes, bogs, ponds, forests, and grovy park valleys, a favorite Indian +hunting-ground, inhabited by elk, deer, beaver, etc. But far the greater part +of the plateau is good sound desert, rocky, sandy, or fluffy with loose ashes +and dust, dissected in some places into a labyrinth of stream-channel chasms +like cracks in a dry clay-bed, or the narrow slit crevasses of +glaciers,—blackened with lava-flows, dotted with volcanoes and beautiful +buttes, and lined with long continuous escarpments,—a vast bed of +sediments of an ancient sea-bottom, still nearly as level as when first laid +down after being heaved into the sky a mile or two high. +</p> + +<p> +Walking quietly about in the alleys and byways of the Grand Cañon City, we +learn something of the way it was made; and all must admire effects so great +from means apparently so simple: rain striking light hammer-blows or heavier in +streams, with many rest Sundays; soft air and light, gentle sappers and miners, +toiling forever; the big river sawing the plateau asunder, carrying away the +eroded and ground waste, and exposing the edges of the strata to the weather; +rain torrents sawing cross-streets and alleys, exposing the strata in the same +way in hundreds of sections, the softer, less resisting beds weathering and +receding faster, thus undermining the harder beds, which fall, not only in +small weathered particles, but in heavy sheer-cleaving masses, assisted down +from time to time by kindly earthquakes, rain torrents rushing the fallen +material to the river, keeping the wall rocks constantly exposed. Thus the +cañon grows wider and deeper. So also do the side-cañons and amphitheaters, +while secondary gorges and cirques gradually isolate masses of the +promontories, forming new buildings, all of which are being weathered and +pulled and shaken down while being built, showing destruction and creation as +one. We see the proudest temples and palaces in stateliest attitudes, wearing +their sheets of detritus as royal robes, shedding off showers of red and yellow +stones like trees in autumn shedding their leaves, going to dust like beautiful +days to night, proclaiming as with the tongues of angels the natural beauty of +death. +</p> + +<p> +Every building is seen to be a remnant of once continuous beds of +sediments—sand and slime on the floor of an ancient sea, and filled with +the remains of animals, and that every particle of the sandstones and +limestones of these wonderful structures was derived from other landscapes, +weathered and rolled and ground in the storms and streams of other ages. And +when we examine the escarpments, hills, buttes, and other monumental masses of +the plateau on either side of the cañon, we discover that an amount of material +has been carried off in the general denudation of the region compared with +which even that carried away in the making of the Grand Cañon is as nothing. +Thus each wonder in sight becomes a window through which other wonders come to +view. In no other part of this continent are the wonders of geology, the +records of the world’s auld lang syne, more widely opened, or displayed +in higher piles. The whole cañon is a mine of fossils, in which five thousand +feet of horizontal strata are exposed in regular succession over more than a +thousand square miles of wall-space, and on the adjacent plateau region there +is another series of beds twice as thick, forming a grand geological +library—a collection of stone books covering thousands of miles of +shelving tier on tier conveniently arranged for the student. And with what +wonderful scriptures are their pages filled—myriad forms of successive +floras and faunas, lavishly illustrated with colored drawings, carrying us back +into the midst of the life of a past infinitely remote. And as we go on and on, +studying this old, old life in the light of the life beating warmly about us, +we enrich and lengthen our own. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12298 ***</div> +</body> + +</html> |