As Almost All This Mass Of Deposition Has
Disappeared From The Immediate Canyon Region, We Are Compelled To Believe
That
It has been swept away down the Colorado River to join the sands of
the Carboniferous and later periods in
The Colorado Desert, the Salton
Basin, the great low region of Lower California, and the Gulf itself.
Less by Erosion in the Canyon Region. Now figure out for a few moments the
results of these different erosive periods. Eleven thousand five hundred
feet of Algonkian gone; a small amount of erosion in the Cambrian epoch,
the depth of which is unknown; and then the great denudation of the Eocene
period sweeping away upwards of fifteen thousand feet of strata, give us a
total of twenty-six thousand five hundred feet that have totally
disappeared from the Canyon region. A vertical mile is five thousand two
hundred and eighty feet. Mount Washington is about six thousand five
hundred feet above the sea, - a trifle higher than Mount Lowe, near
Pasadena, California. Take off from this six thousand five hundred feet,
say one thousand five hundred feet, for the level of the country at the
base of these two mountains, and then imagine a region five times as high
as both of them, covering an area of country of possibly thirteen thousand
to fifteen thousand square miles, slowly planed off by the erosive forces
of nature.
Formation of River Beds. How was it done? I have spoken of the peaks and
islets that first emerged from the Eocene Sea, and received the rains.
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