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Show KAIBAB PLATEAU. 185 fault, especially where the throw is great and the rocks ate indurated, produces precipitous cliffs, with a small talus below, made of the frao0 ·ments which have fallen from above. Where the down-fallen rocks ·have caurbr ht and have been flexed, we usually find a long slope at the foot of the cliffs, and where the faults change into flexures gentle slopes are observed, stretch-ing from tho high lands to the lower country. The elevated district traversed by tho Grand Oanon is broken by a number of such faults, and portions of the country have fallen down, so that, although the general upper surface is formed, in chief part, of the samo beds of eherty limestone, the canon is not cut through one groat, unbroken plateau, but through a series of plateaus, or gren.t geographic terraces and tables. '"rho most elevated portion of the country is a central belt, about twenty five or thirty miles in width, and about eighty miles in length. This is called, by the Indians, J(aibab, or "mountain lying down," and we have auopted the name. I t is well defined on the oa 't and we ·t by line!:! of cliffs and steep slopes, which have been formed by di placements, and on the south by the chasm of the Colorado, but on tho north it abuts against tho Vermilion Cliffs. '"r ho lines of eliffs which form its eastern and western boundaries extend to the south beyond the Grand Cai1on, for the faults run far to the south, and they define there, in part, a companion, or twin plateau. IIad there been no river running there, there would have been but one plateau. From this central belt the general smface of the country drops by steps to the east and west, and the edge of each step marks the line of a fault, or its equivalent fold. In the region under discussion there are six of these great ui place-ments, which gi've rise to important elements in tho topography, and deserve special mention. I shall enumerate them in order, from cast to west, omit-ting mention of the faults and fold of minor importance. East of Marble Cafion, and running in a general northerly and south-erly course, so as to cross the Colorado at the mouth of the Paria, we have the Paria Fold, in which the down-fall of the rocky foundation is to the 24 c;or_ |
