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Show CIRCLE CLIFFSâ€"ESCALANTE CANONS. 289 them is possible. It seems as if a few hours of lively traveling would bring us there, but it is a two days' journey with the best of animals. They are by far the most striking features of the panorama, on account of the strong contrast they present to the scenery about them. Among innumerable flat crest-lines, terminating in walls, they rise up grandly into peaks of Alpine form and grace like a modern cathedral among catecombsâ€"the gothic order of architecture contrasting with the elephantine. Beyond the spurs of Mount Ellen may be seen the northernmost summits of the Sierra La Sal, 120 miles distant; but the main range is hidden by the mass of the Henry Mountains. The view to the south and southeast is dismal and suggestive of the terrible. It is almost unique even in the catagory of plateau scenery. The streams which head at the foot of the lava-cap on the southern wall of the Aquarius flow southward down its long slopes. The amphitheaters soon grow into canons of profound depth and inaccessible walls. These passages open into a single trunk canon, and their united waters form the Escalante River, which flows out of Potato Valley due eastward for 12 or 15 miles, and then turns to the southeastward, reaching the Colorado about 50 miles from the turn. It enters its canon at the foot of Potato Valley (see map, Atlas Sheet No. 1), and at no point can its walls be scaled.* Numberless tributary canons open into it along its course from both sides, so that the entire platform through which it runs is scored with a net-work of narrow chasms. The rocks are swept bare of soil and show the naked edges of the strata. Nature has here made a geological map of the country and colored it so that we may read and copy it miles away. The rocks exposed are Trias and Jura, each preserving emphatically its characteristic color and architecture. The descending spurs from the southeastern salient terminate upon a spot which is about as desolate as any to be found on earth. It is a large plain, about 25 miles long and 10 miles wide, elliptical in shape and girt about by a circuit of cliffs of great, altitude. On the eastern, side are the * Mr. Jacob Hamblin, of Kanab, entered this chasm and. traversed it nearly to the Colorado River, but at length found it impassable on account of quicksands and fallen rocks. His journey was a terrible one, and he sought in vain to reach the country above. The depth of the Escalante Canon where its river first enters the Monocline is about 1,600 feet, and increases as the river flows on. 19 H P |
