After Lunch, The Men Then Cache Much Of The Remaining
Provisions And Cooking Outfit For Future Use, And We Go On Riding As Fast
As Possible Down The Dry Bed Of The Stream.
Then out of this, through a
narrow canyon, past the gray-rock walls and gulch with black cave at
Bottom
and slide in the talus above, over the fertile plateau, long descent on
foot, where as I zigzag I see the men and the burros what seem to be
hundreds of feet below.
"On down another dry stream bed, many stony descents in a shut-in canyon.
Out of this into more open country, but over ridges, up and down. We come
down to that part of the trail which I feared most in daylight and now we
have only the starlight to enable us to descend. Mr. Bass takes me in
charge and Mr. James goes up over the ridges to round up the burros which
have been left to their own devices. A torch of sage-brush is lighted to
find the trail. At last we reach the bottom. The men throw some blankets on
the ground for me and I fall upon them. They go down to the Shinumo, which
is only a few yards away, prepare supper and bring a cup of hot coffee for
me. I return with them, make my bed, eat a hearty supper and then fall
asleep with the roar of the Shinumo in my ears. My bed is comfortable and I
have a feeling of perfect safety and confidence.
Watermelons in the Canyon. "Sunday, Sept. 8, 1901. We are on the Shinumo,
and only half an hour's ride above the camp. What a beautiful stream it is;
cataracts, still reaches, rapids, sandy shoals, deep pools, and the water
so pure, blue and clear. We cross and re-cross many times, through thickets
of willow and mesquite. I am many times scratched and my hat is forcibly
snatched from my head. At camp I feed watermelon rinds to Belshazzar who
receives them as gratefully as I did the melons. How strange to find them
growing here, - so ripe, rich and delicious. I feel very weary but deeply
regret having to leave this lovely place. We start for the river. When the
others arrive the packs, etc., are taken across in three loads. The four of
us go over in the last load. Scramble up the Archaean by myself and sit in
the shade, near the shelter tent, until I am put on the burro Joe and
started off with the doctor.
Back at Bass Camp. "Dad had brought the burros here to receive us, all the
animals we had ridden to Point Sublime having been left on the north side.
At Bed Rock Camp we all have
lunch; and then at 4:00, the others with the burros having gone on
ahead, we follow. I remain on my burro all the way up, save at three
places, where Mr. James deems it best for me to dismount. At last, we make
the final ascent, I see the tent above my head, then the roof of the house
at Bass Camp, and in another moment or two the most memorable and wonderful
trip of my life is over."
CHAPTER XIII. How The Canyon Was Formed*
* This chapter, while in manuscript, was read by Dr. Charles D. Walcott,
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and formerly Director of the
United States Geological Survey, and also by Professor Matthis, of the
Survey. It may therefore be accepted as a fairly accurate and authoritative
presentation of the geological conditions existent at the Canyon, with
their explanations, as accepted by the leading scientists of to-day.
The beginning of land. In the long ago centuries, when the world was
"without form and void," waters covered the face of the earth, and darkness
brooded over the waters. As the earth's crust began to shrink under the
water, in the process of cooling, the first masses to crumple up, to
wrinkle, were the first to arise above the surface of the vast, primeval,
shoreless ocean. They appeared as tiny islands, pinnacles, or ridges thrust
up, exactly as we see them sometimes on the coast, - hidden at high tide;
appearing again at low tide.
The Laurentian Hills. Nature had plenty of time before her, so she did not
hurry her work, and it took long centuries before there was any large
amount of land thrust up out of the bosom of the sea. The scientists are
able to tell us, with some definiteness, which came forth first. They say
that on the continent of America the earliest born land was a mass of
granitic rock in Canada, - the Laurentian Hills. The next to peer above the
surface and feel the warmth of the sun were peaks and ridges that made
islands of themselves, in what are now known as the Rocky Mountains and the
Appalachians. Now, at last, the great waves of the sea and the resistless
storms had something to play with, and they pounced down upon the land as
with tooth and claw. They rubbed and pounded, raged and smashed for a
thousand years, and then another thousand, and still another, while Mother
Earth uneasily thrust forth her rocky children out of the ocean into the
light of day. Surprised at such treatment by the storms and seas, the newly
born earth masses began to crumble and "weather." The detached fragments
slipped back, or were washed back, into the deeper or shallower parts of
the ocean, and were there tossed back and forth, pounded and ground into
sand and silt, into pebbles and boulders, while more land was slowly being
thrust out for the angry sea to work upon. Layer by layer, the ground-up
masses were deposited in the inner ocean bed, parts of which were now
practically shut off from the vast ocean beyond. How many centuries of
centuries this process continued geologists do not tell us.
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