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Show JOURNEY OVER THE MARKAGUNT. 195 It is a valley of erosion carved into the plateau by a plexus of streams. The proportions are grand, and the abrupt slopes which wall it about on every side are very impressive. It is a vast Coliseum, opening to the westward by a deep and narrow canon leading to the floor of the Great Basin near Parowan. The walls west, south, and north are all Tertiary (Bitter Creek) and luminous with colors, which are all the more conspicuous from contrast with the dark trachytic beds which overlook them from the eastern side. Several great valleys of similar aspect and excavated in the same manner occur elsewhere in the sedimentary belt which borders the western portion of the Markagunt. The plateau is there yielding slowly to the destroying agents, and the continuance of the process through indefinite time will at last destroy its eminence. It taxes the credulity to think that this work has been gradually accomplished by the feeble action now in progress ; but the results here witnessed sink into insignificance when compared with those which are forced upon the conviction when we look upon the regions drained by the Colorado. Eastward from the foot of the mountain the plateau slopes almost insensibly to the base of the Sevier Plateau, which rises against the eastern sky. The country is rough with hills and rocky valleys, though these inequalities upon so vast an expanse as the back of the Markagunt are as mere ripples or waves upon the bosom of a great lake. In this direction none but old volcanic rocks and conglomerates are visible. To the southward the view is not extensive. The plateau slowly increases in altitude in that direction until it becomes more lofty than the peak. So much of it as is visible presents a pleasant but rather monotonous appearance, with rolling hills and ridges, grassy slopes and scattered groves of pines. A journey over this broad surface is a pleasure excursion, but not remarkably instructive to the geologist. The explorer will enjoy the luscious camps beneath the shade of century-old pines, beside sparkling streams of the purest water, and will see with pleasure the keen relish with which the animals devour the luxuriant wild grass. Nature is here in her gentle mood, neither wild nor inanimate, neither grand nor trivial, but genial, temperate, and mildly suggestive. A few canons which it is a pleasure to cross; long grassy slopes which seem to ask to be climbed; hill tops giving charm- |
