As A
Consequence, It Is Becoming A Great Attraction For Travelers.
Bridal Veil Falls.
There are five falls in all, occurring in the following
order: Havasupai, Navaho, Bridal Veil, Mooney and Beaver. The last three
are the most important. Bridal Veil is about one hundred and seventy feet
high, and five hundred feet broad, but this space is not entirely covered
with water. The edge is so broken that the water dashes over the precipice
in a large number of stream and falling upon several different ledges, is
again broken into a dashing spray, which, light and feathery, again leaps
into the air. The general effect is indescribably beautiful.
The visitor should not fail to cross the Creek either above or below the
Bridal Veil Falls, for on the further side are a number of water
concretions well worth seeing.
Mooney Falls. Mooney Falls, one mile farther down, is a much higher
cataract, but the water falls in an undivided stream. It gets its name from
an unfortunate miner, who, in trying to descend a rope ladder to the bottom
of the falls, fell, and was dashed to pieces.
Beaver Falls. Beaver Falls are about four miles farther down the Canyon,
and receive their name from the large number of beavers that used to be at
work in the stream close by.
By recent survey of this region, it has been found that these falls are not
included in the Havasupai reservation. It is to be hoped, however, that,
before it is too late, this Canyon, its waterfalls and surroundings, will
be made into a National Park, forever and inalienably to belong to the
people.
CHAPTER XXIII. The First Discoverers And Inhabitants Of The Grand Canyon
A Barren Waste of Rock. While the Grand Canyon, its vast system of
tributaries, and its plateau were being uplifted from the primeval ocean,
it consisted of nothing but a wild, barren waste of rock. Not a tree, not a
shrub, not a flower, not a blade of grass relieved the monotony of the
wilderness of rocks which emerged from the great Eocene sea. Not a lizard,
horned toad, centipede, tarantula, chuckwalla, campamouche,* frog,
tree-toad, turtle or snake was to be found on the long stretching areas of
its lifeless shores. Not a chipmunk, prairie-dog, coyote, rat, mouse,
porcupine, fox, bear, mountain-lion, badger, deer, antelope or other
four-footed creature ran over its new-born surfaces. The sun
shone unhindered; the rain beat with pitiless fury; the winds swept
unhampered; the snows piled up undeterred over the whole plateau and canyon
country. It was plateau and canyon, canyon and plateau; red rock, gray
rock, creamy rock, yellow, pink, blue, chocolate, carmine, crimson rock,
soft rock, hard rock; sunshine, shadow, wind and quietude; winter, summer,
autumn, spring-and that was all! A lifeless world, as yet unprepared for
insect, reptile, beast, man, flower or tree. Perhaps a solitary sea-bird
with strong pinion flew over it, and gazed into its lifeless depths with
wonder, or a dove flew from some earlier and habitable land over this
wonderful mass of rock, and returned to its nest and its mate. But no olive
or other leaf was in its bill.
*An insect that looks like a tiny dried wisp of hay, well-known in Arizona.
And so the land was born, and rested; while silence, sunshine and solitude
brooded over it.
Creation of Soil and Verdure. But in the course of ages, soil was created
by the disintegration of the rocks by the weather and the atmosphere, seeds
were blown in from regions where flowers and plants bloomed, or were
carried in by birds, and later distributed by the four-footed creatures.
Then verdure sprang into life; the gentle grasses and flowers began to
cover the slopes and level places where soil had gathered, and the trees
came to sway and swing in the breezes, and sing their songs of coming life
to the hitherto barren rocks.
Fossils of Sea Creatures. Yet they had not been altogether lifeless. Many
of the rocks had known life, but it was not insect, reptile, bird, beast or
man life; neither did they known anything of grass, flower, shrub or tree
life. In the far-away ages, when they were being deposited deep under the
surface of the Eocene sea, they saw vast monsters floating in the salty
deep, and later, fishes of all sizes, and even great beds of waving
sea-moss and ferns floated back and forth, as the tides ebbed and flowed.
And fishes and ferns, monsters and moss were occasionally caught in the
flowing deposits of lime and sand and silt and clay, and were embedded in
their mass. Thus imprisoned, their otherwise forgotten life and history is
told to the ages of man that were as yet unborn.
Coming of Man. But now the new life is coming! With verdure and animal life
in existence, these hitherto uninhabitable regions became capable of
sustaining human life. And the restless spirit of the human race, wherever
and howsoever it originated, drove bands of men and women into this region.
Who were they? What were they like? Whence did they come? How long did they
stay? Whither did they go? are questions one naturally asks in regard to
these first discoverers and inhabitants. If I were to say "I do not know,"
I would be saying what every other thinking man is compelled to say. Yet
there is pleasure in conjecture.
Traces of Ruins. Before looking at these conjectures, however, it is
appropriate that we look first at what facts there are to justify them.
Suppositions without any facts are mere fictions of the imagination, and
this we are not indulging in. When in our day men began to explore the
Grand Canyon and its numberless tributaries, a great number of indications
of man's presence were found on the rim, on the fault lines or breaks in the
sheer precipitous walls, on the plateaus and in the Canyon beneath, in the
shape of crude house ruins, lookout houses or forts, indifferent trails,
cliff-dwellings, hewn-out water cisterns, mescal pits, with countless
pieces of broken pottery, arrowheads, stone axes, hammers, mortars, pestles
and even cemeteries.
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