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Show 8 INTEODUCTOEY. the westward, looking across a valley floored with recent alluvium to typical Basin Ranges lying to the westward. The district of the High Plateaus is therefore a portion of the western belt of the Plateau Province, and its western boundary is the trenchant one just described. THE PLATEAU PROVINCE AT LARGE. To the eastward of the High Plateaus is spread out a wonderful region. Standing upon the eastern verge of any one of these lofty tables where the altitudes usually exceed 11,000 feet, the eye ranges over avast expanse of nearly level terraces, bounded by cliffs of strange aspect, which are truly marvelous, Whether we consider their magnitude, their seemingly interminable length, their great number, or their singular sculpture. They wind about in all directions, here throwing out a great promontory, there receding in a deep bay, but continuing on and on until they sink below the horizon, or swing behind some loftier mass, or fade out in the distant haze. Each cliff marks the boundary of a geographical terrace sloping gently backward from its crestline to the foot of the next terrace behind it, and each marks a higher and higher horizon in the geological scale as we approach its face. Very wonderful at times is the sculpture of these majestic walls. Panels, pilasters, niches, alcoves, and buttresses, needing not the slightest assistance from the imagination to point the resemblance; grotesque forms, neatly carved out of solid rock, which pique the imagination to find analogies; endless repetitions of meaningless shapes fretting the entablatures are presented to us on every side, and fill us with wonder as we pass. But of all the characters of this unparalleled scenery, that which appeals most strongly to the eye is the color. The gentle tints of an eastern landscape, the rich blue of distant mountains, the green of vernal and summer vegetation, the subdued colors of hillside and meadow, all are wanting here, and in their place we behold belts of fierce staring red, yellow, and toned white, which are intensified rather than alleviated by alternating belts of dark iron gray. The Plateau country is also the land of canons. Gorges, ravines, canadas are found in every high country, but canons belong to the region of the Plateaus. Like every other river, the Colorado has many tributaries, and in former times had many more than |
