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Show 38 BY PATH AND TRAIL. of a blazing sun or by contact with the hot sand of a great plain, it looses moisture and rapidly ascends to higher regions in the heavens ; then other and much cold er air from the sea or. surrounding land rushes in to fill the void, and as this new atmospheric sea rolls its great waves into the stupendous space partially left vacant by the disappearing hot air, sand and grit are taken up and, with violent force and velocity, carried against a projecting cliff of soft material, separating it from the parent body; or again, a great sandstone hill may stand solitary and alone in melancholy isolation surrounded by hills of lesser height and magnitude. Then, year after year and century after century, these sand blasts cut a little here and a little there, till in time these spectral forms stand alone, and from afar, resemble in their deso lation the ruins of a long- deserted city. This vast amphitheater, with its great forest of monu ments and weird structures, surrounded by volcanic cones and walled in by towering monuments is a part of the great Barranca. You now perceive that you are in a region of many canyons, and that the whole face of the country is covered with wounds and welts, and with sharply outlined and lofty hills of gneiss and quartzite springing from the floor of the valley. Beyond contra diction, earthquakes and volcanoes at one time shook this place with violence. Only by the aid of an airship may the Gran Barranca be seen in its majestic entirety, for much of it lies buried in the vast and gloomy abyss through which the silent river flows and to which direct descent is impossible. |