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Show 19G the walls of the Grand Calion of the Colorado, where it dividet~ the twin plateaus. IIavinO' crossed theW estern Kaibab Fault, the canon suddenly changes b in eharacter. The tlu·ow of the rocks being· more than one thousand five hundred feet, we lose the granite, and the bed of the river is in the lemon colored rock , and now for many miles the canon is comparatively straight, and the walls arc much more regular. At the bottom we have the rusty beds, and then the lemon colored beds, and then the marble cliffs, and when we reach the summit of this limestone we. find the same bench as above, under the Kaibab Plateau, but here it is wider, ranging from two or three hundred yn.rds to two or throe miles. Then comes a sloping, bright red terrace, and uack of it the cliffs of the cherty limestone, with standing rocks on the brink. You can stand on the southwestern corner of the Kaibab Plateau, and look over this straight stretch of calion for sixty miles. There seems to be a valley enclosed with walls one thousand five hundred or two thousand feet high, five to ten miles in width, with a narrow, winding gorge down its center. A few lateral canons come in on either side; so the walls are broken here and there, but the general outline is well preserved. Just before the river wheels again to the south, in the second great bend, it passes the To-ro'-weap Fault, which extends across the canon. The rocks have dropped down about eight hundred feet, and let the homogeneous limestone nearly down to the water. The fissure of this fault has been the channel through which floods of lava have been forced from depths below into the upper world. Many volcanic cones are seen standing along the line of the fault, or on the branches of the fissure. One of theso volcanic cones stands on the very brink of the calion, and is the one of which mention was made in the account of the exploration. Passing this, the course of the river is southward, and once more the channel enters tho granite. At the very apex of this bend, Diamond Creek. make. its contribution from tho south, and it was here that Lieutenant I ves and Doctor Newberry came down to the depths of the Grand Oauon. LATERAL OARONS. l H7 Turning here again to the north, the river soon passes out of the gran ite, and then, at last, out of the canon, where the Grand Wash comes down from the nortl1. Around this second great bend the walls of the canon have a more simple structure than in the first, but there are many points where views can be obtained of a simple gorge, much more impressive as such, than in the complex region above. LATERAL CANONS. Many other streams, heading to the north and south, arc tributaries of the Colorado, and have canons which are lateral to the Grand Canon. 'rhe K.anab heads away to the north, at the foot of the P ink Cliffs, and runs south into the Grand Calion, passing through a series of gorges. Where it cuts through the successive lines of cliffs, it presents another seriel:! of terrace canons, in many respects like the series on Green River; but the lower calion of the Kanab, wh~ch comes down to the Colorado River, is carved through the harder limestones and sandstones of Carboniferous Age, and its general characteristics are the same as those of Marble Canon. The Little Colorado, heading away off to the southeast, enters the Grand Canon by a profound gorge of its own. From the south, the most important stream is Coanini Creek, which heads near the San Francisco Mountain, and rapidly finds its way int~ great depths. . Besides thel:!e streams, the plateaus are cut by the Rio Virgen, in its upper course, which empties into the Colorado below the Grand Canon, and by the Paria, which heads in the Pink Cliffs, and enters the Colorado at tho head of · Marble Calion. All these streams, and many others of lesser importance, have cut gorges of their own; and they all have wet-weather affiuents, that run in deep canons. It is a canon land. TilE CANONS CARVED llY RUNNING WATERS. I have stated, and assumed, from time to time, in the above discussion, that these canons have been cut by rnnniug waters. Professor Newberry, |
