The Locomotives And Trains Are Mere Beetles And
Caterpillars, And The Noise They Make Is As Little Disturbing As The
Hooting Of An Owl In The Lonely Woods.
In a dry, hot, monotonous forested plateau, seemingly boundless, you
come suddenly and without warning upon the abrupt edge
Of a gigantic
sunken landscape of the wildest, most multitudinous features, and
those features, sharp and angular, are made out of flat beds of
limestone and sandstone forming a spiry, jagged, gloriously colored
mountain range countersunk in a level gray plain. It is a hard job to
sketch it even in scrawniest outline; and, try as I may, not in the
least sparing myself, I cannot tell the hundredth part of the wonders
of its features - the side canyons, gorges, alcoves, cloisters, and
amphitheaters of vast sweep and depth, carved in its magnificent
walls; the throng of great architectural rocks it contains resembling
castles, cathedrals, temples, and palaces, towered and spired and
painted, some of them nearly a mile high, yet beneath one's feet. All
this, however, is less difficult than to give any idea of the
impression of wild, primeval beauty and power one receives in merely
gazing from its brink. The view down the gulf of color and over the
rim of its wonderful wall, more than any other view I know, leads us
to think of our earth as a star with stars swimming in light, every
radiant spire pointing the way to the heavens.
But it is impossible to conceive what the canyon is, or what
impression it makes, from descriptions or pictures, however good.
Naturally it is untellable even to those who have seen something
perhaps a little like it on a small scale in this same plateau region.
One's most extravagant expectations are indefinitely surpassed, though
one expects much from what is said of it as "the biggest chasm on
earth" - "so big is it that all other big things - Yosemite, the
Yellowstone, the Pyramids, Chicago - all would be lost if tumbled into
it." Naturally enough, illustrations as to size are sought for among
other canyons like or unlike it, with the common result of worse
confounding confusion. The prudent keep silence. It was once said
that the "Grand Canyon could put a dozen Yosemites in its vest
pocket."
The justly famous Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is, like the
Colorado, gorgeously colored and abruptly countersunk in a plateau,
and both are mainly the work of water. But the Colorado's canyon is
more than a thousand times larger, and as a score or two of new
buildings of ordinary size would not appreciably change the general
view of a great city, so hundreds of Yellowstones might be eroded in
the sides of the Colorado Canyon without noticeably augmenting its
size or the richness of its sculpture.
But it is not true that the great Yosemite rocks would be thus lost or
hidden. Nothing of their kind in the world, so far as I know, rivals
El Capitan and Tissiack, much less dwarfs or in any way belittles
them. None of the sandstone or limestone precipices of the canyon
that I have seen or heard of approaches in smooth, flawless strength
and grandeur the granite face of El Capitan or the Tenaya side of
Cloud's Rest. These colossal cliffs, types of permanence, are about
three thousand and six thousand feet high; those of the canyon that
are sheer are about half as high, and are types of fleeting change;
while glorious-domed Tissiack, noblest of mountain buildings, far from
being overshadowed or lost in this rosy, spiry canyon company, would
draw every eye, and, in serene majesty, "aboon them a'" she would take
her place - castle, temple, palace, or tower. Nevertheless a noted
writer, comparing the Grand Canyon in a general way with the glacial
Yosemite, says: "And the Yosemite - ah, the lovely Yosemite! Dumped
down into the wilderness of gorges and mountains, it would take a
guide who knew of its existence a long time to find it." This is
striking, and shows up well above the levels of commonplace
description, but it is confusing, and has the fatal fault of not being
true. As well try to describe an eagle by putting a lark in it. "And
the lark - ah, the lovely lark! Dumped down the red, royal gorge of
the eagle, it would be hard to find." Each in its own place is
better, singing at heaven's gate, and sailing the sky with the clouds.
Every feature of Nature's big face is beautiful, - height and hollow,
wrinkle, furrow, and line, - and this is the main master-furrow of its
kind on our continent, incomparably greater and more impressive than
any other yet discovered, or likely to be discovered, now that all the
great rivers have been traced to their heads.
The Colorado River rises in the heart of the continent on the dividing
ranges and ridges between the two oceans, drains thousands of snowy
mountains through narrow or spacious valleys, and thence through
canyons of every color, sheer-walled and deep, all of which seem to be
represented in this one grand canyon of canyons.
It is very hard to give anything like an adequate conception of its
size; much more of its color, its vast wall-sculpture, the wealth of
ornate architectural buildings that fill it, or, most of all, the
tremendous impression it makes. According to Major Powell, it is
about two hundred and seventeen miles long, from five to fifteen miles
wide from rim to rim, and from about five thousand to six thousand
feet deep. So tremendous a chasm would be one of the world's greatest
wonders even if, like ordinary canyons cut in sedimentary rocks, it
were empty and its walls were simple. But instead of being plain, the
walls are so deeply and elaborately carved into all sorts of recesses - alcoves, cirques, amphitheaters, and side canyons - that, were you to
trace the rim closely around on both sides, your journey would be
nearly a thousand miles long.
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