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Show 298 GEOLOGY OF THE HIGH PLATEAUS. view, though less pleasing, is no less impressive. None of the cliffs are lofty, but the grandeur of the spectacle consists in the great number of cliffs rising successively one above and beyond another, like a stairway for the Titans, leading up to a mighty temple. The Eocene beds which form the upper table are rosy red, and carved in a manner which is so suggestive of intelligence that it is difficult to persuade ourselves that the blind forces of nature could have achieved such a result. KAIPAROWITS PEAK. Kaiparowits Peak is a mountain-like butte south of Table Cliff, capped by Tertiary beds, with the Upper Cretaceous upon its flanks. It is obviously a mere remnant of the continuous Eocene formation which formerly stretched indefinitely southward. Its slopes descend to the platform of the Kaiparowits Plateau, which is composed of Middle Cretaceous beds. This plateau is properly a member of the Kaibab system, and is one of the most interesting. It is a broad causeway, reaching to the Colorado, where it is cut off momentarily by the Glen Canon. Beyond the river the Cretaceous beds continue far into Arizona, and expand into the great mesas and terraces which cover a large part of that Territory. Along this plateau there are still preserved the unity and virtual continuity of the formations which constitute the District of the High Plateaus and the mesas of New Mexico and Arizona, while elsewhere throughout the heart of the Plateau Province they have been removed by the great erosion. The little remnant of Tertiary beds upon the summit of Kaiparowits Peak is one of the many indications that the Lower Eocene also once reached across the same interval. |