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Show NAKED ROCK. 195 Above this bed of limestone we havo beds of bright red sandstones, weathered so as to form shelves on a scalo even greater than in tho rust colored rocks below, but in many pl.aces they break down in steep slope~. Then above we have buff and gray sandstones, and limestones heavily bedded, and near the summit, where the limestone prevails, they are full of nodules of chert. This cherty limestone weathers in columns, and towers, and pinnacles; curious forms of standing rock are arranged all along the brink of the calion wall. So below we have granite b.uttresses, themselves set with pinnacles and towers, then broken slopes, then somber recesses, set with ragged shelves, then strangely carved and fretted slopes, and lemon colored shales, then vast amphitheaters of marble, then red slopes and sandstone shelves, then cliffs of ragged limestone, set with towers. The wonderful elaboration and diversity with which this work has been done is only equaled by the vast scale on which the plan was laid. In many places the conditions of erosion have been such that great blocks have been severed from the main plateau and stand as outliers, their sides having all the elaborate sculpture of the walls of the cailon. Lieutenant Ives, who explored the lower Colorado, made a land trip, from a point below the Grand Canon around to the southwest, and climbed the San Francisco Plateau, and from an elevated point he could look off to the northeast and see the region of which we are now speaking. Of this country he suys: "The extent and magnitude of the system of canons in that direction is astounding. The plateau is cut into shreds by these gigantic chasms, and resembles a vast ruin. Belts of country, miles in width, have been swept away, leaving only isolated mountains standing in the gap-fissures, so profound that the eye cannot penetrate their depths, are separated by walls whose thickness one can almost span, and slender spires, that seem tottering upon their base, shoot up a thousand feet from vaults below." In other regions, the rocks, when not covered with soil, or more vigorous vegetation, are at least lichened, or stained, and the rocks themselves of somber hue, but in this region they are naked, and many of them brightly colored, as if painted by artist gods; not stained and daubed with inharmonious hues, but beautiful as flowers, and gorgeous as the clouds. Such are |
