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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/12298-0.txt b/12298-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7c8267e --- /dev/null +++ b/12298-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,726 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12298 *** + +THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO + +by John Muir + +1902 + + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _colors_, the living, rejoicing _colors_, +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. _Cereus giganteus_, 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 _Yucca +baccata_, 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 _Spiraea caespitosa_ and the beautiful +pinnate-leaved _Spiraea millefolium_. The nut-pine, _Pinus edulis_, +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12298 *** 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> diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e19f1c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #12298 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12298) diff --git a/old/12298-0.txt b/old/12298-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9b3999a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12298-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1102 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Grand Cañon of the Colorado, by John Muir + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The Grand Cañon of the Colorado + +Author: John Muir + +Release Date: May 7, 2004 [eBook #12298] +[Most recently updated: July 15, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Justin Gillbank and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO *** + + + + +THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO + +by John Muir + +1902 + + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _colors_, the living, rejoicing _colors_, +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. _Cereus giganteus_, 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 _Yucca +baccata_, 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 _Spiraea caespitosa_ and the beautiful +pinnate-leaved _Spiraea millefolium_. The nut-pine, _Pinus edulis_, +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Grand Cañon of the Colorado</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: John Muir</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: May 7, 2004 [eBook #12298]<br /> +[Most recently updated: July 15, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Justin Gillbank and PG Distributed Proofreaders</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO ***</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 style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Grand Caon of the Colorado + +Author: John Muir + +Release Date: May 7, 2004 [EBook #12298] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GRAND CAON OF THE COLORADO *** + + + + +Produced by Justin Gillbank and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + +THE GRAND CAON OF THE COLORADO + +by John Muir + +1902 + + +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. + +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 Caon of the +Colorado, which, naturally the hardest to reach, has now become, by +a branch of the Santa F, the most accessible of all. + +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 Caon. + +When I first heard of the Santa F trains running to the edge of +the Grand Caon 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. + +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-caons, 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. + +But it is impossible to conceive what the caon 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 caons like or unlike it, with the common +result of worse confounding confusion. The prudent keep silence. It was +once said that the "Grand Caon could put a dozen Yosemites in its vest +pocket." + +The justly famous Grand Caon 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 caon 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 Caon 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 caon 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 caon 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 caon +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 Caon 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. + +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. + +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 caons +of every color, sheer-walled and deep, all of which seem to be represented +in this one grand caon of caons. + +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 +caons 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-caons--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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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-caons, 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. + +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 caon 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 caon--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. + +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. + +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 caon. 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 caon, 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. + +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. + +As yet, few of the promontories or throng of mountain buildings in the +caon 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 caon wilderness. + +All the caon 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 +caon is like from descriptions and pictures. Powell's and Dutton's +descriptions present magnificent views not only of the caon 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 _colors_, the living, rejoicing _colors_, 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. + +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 Caon 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 caon 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. + +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. + +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 caon like a sea. +Still deeper, richer, more divine grow the great walls and temples, until +in the supreme flaming glory of sunset the whole caon 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. + +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 caon clouds are born. + +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 caon, 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 Caon work is done. +Most of the fertile summer clouds of the caon 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 +caon in flocks, turning aside here and there, lingering as if studying +the needs of particular spots, exploring side-caons, 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. + +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 caon 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 caon, 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. + +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. + +During the winter months snow falls over all the high plateau, usually +to a considerable depth, whitening the rim and the roofs of the caon +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 caon 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 caon 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 caon, and +swirling in magnificent eddies along the sides. Gradually the hearty swarms +closed their ranks, and all the caon 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 caon +of Bright Angel Creek, inclosing a sunlit mass of the caon 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. + +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 caon 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. + +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 caons 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 caon 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. + +To the mountaineer the depth of the caon, 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. + +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. _Cereus giganteus_, 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 +_Yucca baccata_, with beautiful lily-flowers and sweet banana-like fruit, +prized by the Indians, is common along the caon rim, growing on lean, +rocky soil beneath mountain-mahogany, nut-pines, and junipers, beside +dense flowery mats of _Spiraea caespitosa_ and the beautiful pinnate-leaved +_Spiraea millefolium_. The nut-pine, _Pinus edulis_, scattered along the +upper slopes and roofs of the caon 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. + +To civilized people from corn and cattle and wheat-field countries the +caon 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 caon, 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. + +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 +caon 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. + +The largest of the caon 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. + +Deer also are occasionally met in the caon, 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. + +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 caon wilderness. + +Here at Hance's river camp or a few miles above it brave Powell and his +brave men passed their first night in the caon 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 caons, the beginning of the system culminating in this grand caon +of caons. + +Our warm caon 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. + +The so-called Grand Colorado Plateau, of which the Grand Caon 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 caon 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. + +Walking quietly about in the alleys and byways of the Grand Caon 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 caon +grows wider and deeper. So also do the side-caons 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. + +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 caon, 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 Caon 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 caon 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. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Grand Caon of the Colorado, by John Muir + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GRAND CAON OF THE COLORADO *** + +***** This file should be named 12298-8.txt or 12298-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/2/9/12298/ + +Produced by Justin Gillbank and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/old/12298-8.zip b/old/old/12298-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a46bda4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/12298-8.zip diff --git a/old/old/12298.txt b/old/old/12298.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2011ae0 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/12298.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1127 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Grand Canon of the Colorado, by John Muir + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Grand Canon of the Colorado + +Author: John Muir + +Release Date: May 7, 2004 [EBook #12298] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GRAND CANON OF THE COLORADO *** + + + + +Produced by Justin Gillbank and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + +THE GRAND CANON OF THE COLORADO + +by John Muir + +1902 + + +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. + +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 Canon of the +Colorado, which, naturally the hardest to reach, has now become, by +a branch of the Santa Fe, the most accessible of all. + +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 Canon. + +When I first heard of the Santa Fe trains running to the edge of +the Grand Canon 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. + +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-canons, 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. + +But it is impossible to conceive what the canon 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 canons like or unlike it, with the common +result of worse confounding confusion. The prudent keep silence. It was +once said that the "Grand Canon could put a dozen Yosemites in its vest +pocket." + +The justly famous Grand Canon 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 canon 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 Canon 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 canon 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 canon 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 canon +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 Canon 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. + +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. + +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 canons +of every color, sheer-walled and deep, all of which seem to be represented +in this one grand canon of canons. + +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 +canons 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-canons--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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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-canons, 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. + +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 canon 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 canon--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. + +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. + +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 canon. 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 canon, 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. + +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. + +As yet, few of the promontories or throng of mountain buildings in the +canon 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 canon wilderness. + +All the canon 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 +canon is like from descriptions and pictures. Powell's and Dutton's +descriptions present magnificent views not only of the canon 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 _colors_, the living, rejoicing _colors_, 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. + +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 Canon 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 canon 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. + +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. + +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 canon like a sea. +Still deeper, richer, more divine grow the great walls and temples, until +in the supreme flaming glory of sunset the whole canon 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. + +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 canon clouds are born. + +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 canon, 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 Canon work is done. +Most of the fertile summer clouds of the canon 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 +canon in flocks, turning aside here and there, lingering as if studying +the needs of particular spots, exploring side-canons, 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. + +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 canon 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 canon, 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. + +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. + +During the winter months snow falls over all the high plateau, usually +to a considerable depth, whitening the rim and the roofs of the canon +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 canon 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 canon 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 canon, and +swirling in magnificent eddies along the sides. Gradually the hearty swarms +closed their ranks, and all the canon 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 canon +of Bright Angel Creek, inclosing a sunlit mass of the canon 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. + +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 canon 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. + +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 canons 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 canon 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. + +To the mountaineer the depth of the canon, 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. + +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. _Cereus giganteus_, 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 +_Yucca baccata_, with beautiful lily-flowers and sweet banana-like fruit, +prized by the Indians, is common along the canon rim, growing on lean, +rocky soil beneath mountain-mahogany, nut-pines, and junipers, beside +dense flowery mats of _Spiraea caespitosa_ and the beautiful pinnate-leaved +_Spiraea millefolium_. The nut-pine, _Pinus edulis_, scattered along the +upper slopes and roofs of the canon 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. + +To civilized people from corn and cattle and wheat-field countries the +canon 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 canon, 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. + +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 +canon 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. + +The largest of the canon 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. + +Deer also are occasionally met in the canon, 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. + +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 canon wilderness. + +Here at Hance's river camp or a few miles above it brave Powell and his +brave men passed their first night in the canon 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 canons, the beginning of the system culminating in this grand canon +of canons. + +Our warm canon 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. + +The so-called Grand Colorado Plateau, of which the Grand Canon 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 canon 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. + +Walking quietly about in the alleys and byways of the Grand Canon 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 canon +grows wider and deeper. So also do the side-canons 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. + +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 canon, 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 Canon 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 canon 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. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Grand Canon of the Colorado, by John Muir + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GRAND CANON OF THE COLORADO *** + +***** This file should be named 12298.txt or 12298.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/2/9/12298/ + +Produced by Justin Gillbank and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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