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Show 78 EXPLORATION OF THE OANONS OF TllE COLORADO. side gulches, in some places, steps have been cut. I can see no evidence of its having been traveled for a long time. It was doubtless a path used by the people who inhabited this country anterior to the present Indian races-the people who built the communal houses, of which mention has been made. I rctw·n to camp about three o'clock, and find that some of the men haYc discovered ruins, and many fragments of pottery; also, etchings and hieroglyphics on the rocks. W o find, to night, on comparing the readings of the barometers, that the walls are about three thousand feet high-more than half a mile-an altitude difficuft to appreciate from a mere statement of feet. The ascent is made, not by a slope such as is usually found in climbing a mountain, but is much more abrupt-often vertical for many hundreds of feet-so that the impression is that we are at great depths; and we look up to see but a little patch of sky. Between the two streams, above the Colorado Chiquito, in some places the rocks are broken and shelving for six or seven hundred feet· then there is a sloping terrace, which can only be climbed by finding so~e way up a gulch; then, another terrace, and back, still another cliff. Th(j summit of the cliff is three thousand feet above the river, as our barometers atte~t. Our camp is below the Colorado Chiquito, and on the eastern side of the canon. August 12.-The rocks above camp are rust colored sandstones and conglomer~tes. Some are very hard ; others quite soft. These all lie nearly horJzontal, and the beds of softer material have been washed out and left the harder, thus forming a series of shelves. Lono- lines of thes~ are seen, of varying thickness, from one or two to twent; or thirty feet and the spaces bet~een.ha~e the same vm·jability. This morning, I spend two or three hours m ehmbmg amonO' these shelves and th I b th o ' c en pass a ove em, and go up. a long slope, to the foot of the cliff, and try to discover some way by which I can reach the top of the wall· but I find . . . cut off b h' h ' myp1og1ess I' ttl ul ~an amp It eater. Then, I wander away around to the left up a l el ~ c ' and along benches, and climb, from time to time until I 'reach an a tit.ude of nearly two th d r ' ousan Ieet, aud can get no high9r. From this DISTANCES AND llEIGHTS. 79 point, I can look off to the west, up side canons of the Colorado, and see the edge of a great plateau, from which streams run down into the Colorado, and deep gulches, in the escarpment which faces us, continued by canons, ragged and flaring, and set with cliffs and towering crags, down to the river. I can see far up Marble Canon, to long lines of chocolate colored cliffs, and above these, the Vermilion Cliffs. I can see, also, up the Colorado Chiquito, through a very ragged and broken canon, with sharp salients set out from the wa.lls on either side, their points overlapping, so that a huge tooth of marble, on one side, seems to be set between two teeth on the opposite; and I can also get glimpses of walls, standing away back from the river, while over my head are mural escarpments, not possible to be scaled. Cataract Canon is forty one miles long. The walls are 1,300 feet high at its head, and they gradually increase in altitude to a point about halfway down, where they are 2, 700 feet, and then decrease to 1,300 feot at tho foot. Narrow Canon is nine and a half miles long, with walls 1,300 feet in height at the head, and coming down to the water at the foot. There is very little vegetation in this. canon, or in the adjacent country. Just at the junction of the Grand and Green, there are a number of backberry trees; and along the entire length of Cataract Cafion, the high-water line is marked by scattered trees of the same species. A few nut-pines and cedars are found, and occasionally a red-bud or judas tree; but the general P.spect of the canons, and of the adjacent country, is that of naked rock. Tho distance through Glen Canon is 149 miles. Its walls vary from two or three hundred to sixteen hundred feet. Marble Canon is 65! miles long. .At its head, it is 200 feet deep, and steadily increases in depth to its foot, where its walls are 3,500 feet high. |