Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries Explored in 1869, 1870, 1871, and 1872, Under the Direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

Page 168, Exploration of the Colorado River

168 EXPLORATION OF THE CANONS OF THE COLORADO. of this stairway, the Orange Cliffs, is more than one thousand two hundred feet high, and the step itself is two or three score miles in width. The second step, the Book Cliffs, is two thousand feet high, or more, and a score of miles in width. The third, or upper step, is more than two thousand feet high. Passing along this step, for two or three score miles, we reach the valley of the Uinta; but this valley is not five or six thousand feet higher than the Toom'-pin Wu-near1 Tu-weap', for the stairway is tipped backward. Climb the Orange Cliffs, 1,200 feet high, and go north to the foot of the Book Cliffs, and you have gradually descended, so that at the foot of the Book Cliffs you are not more than a hundred feet above the foot of the Orange Cliffs In like manner the foot of the Brown Cliffs is but 200 feet higher than the foot of the Book Cliffs, and the valley of the Uinta is not / quite three hundred feet higher than the foot of the Brown Cliffs. To go by land from the valley of White Eiver to the Toom'-pin Wu-near1 Tu-weap'j you must gradually, almost imperceptibly climb as you pass to the south, for a distance of forty or fifty miles, until you attain an altitude of two thousand five hundred or three thousand feet above the starting point. Then you descend from the first terrace, by an abrupt step, to a lower. Still continuing to the south, you gradually climb again, until you attain an altitude of more than a thousand feet, when you arrive at the brink of another cliff, and descend abruptly to the top of the lowest terrace. Still extending your travels in the same direction, you climb gradually for a third time, until you reach the brink of the third line of cliffs, or the edge of the escarpment of the lower terrace, and here you descend by another sudden step to the plane* of the river, at the foot of Labyrinth Canon. In coming down by the river, of course you do not ascend, but you pass these terraces along the plane of the river, the upper terrace, through the Canon of Desolation, the middle terrace through Gray Canon, and the third through Labyrinth Canon. The beds, or series of rocks, through which Labyrinth Cafion is cut, extend under the beds of Gray Canon, and these run under the beds of the Canon of Desolation. At one time the Desolation series and the Gray Cailon series extended over the Labyrinth Canon series, but they have been washed away.