In order to make the theory of water erosion tenable it is
assumed that the Colorado river started in its incipiency like
any other river. After a time the river bed began to rise and
was gradually pushed up more and more by some unknown
subterranean force as the water cut deeper and deeper into the
rock until the Grand Canon was formed.
Captain Hance has a theory that the canon originated in an
underground stream which tunneled until it cut its way through to
the surface. As improbable as is this theory it is as plausible
as the erosion theory, but both theories appear to be equally
absurd.
At some remote period of time the entire southwest was rent and
torn by an awful cataclysm which caused numerous fissures and
seams to appear all over the country. The force that did the
work had its origin in the earth and acted by producing lateral
displacement rather than direct upheaval. Whenever that event
occurred the fracture which marks the course of the Grand Canon
was made and, breaking through the enclosing wall of the Great
Basin, set free the waters of an inland sea. What the seismic
force began the flood of liberated water helped to finish, and
there was born the greatest natural wonder of the known world.
There are canons all over Arizona and the southwest that resemble
the Grand Canon, except that they were made on a smaller scale.
Many of them are perfectly dry and apparently never contained any
running water. They are all so much alike that they were
evidently made at the same time and by the same cause. Walnut
Canon and Canon Diablo are familiar examples of canon formation.
The rocks in the canons do not stand on end, but lie in
horizontal strata and show but little dip anywhere. Indeed, the
rocks lie so plumb in many places that they resemble the most
perfect masonry.
The rim rock of the Mogollon Mesa is of the same character as the
walls of the Grand Canon and is an important part of the canon
system. It is almost a perpendicular cliff from one to three
thousand feet high which extends from east to west across central
Arizona and divides the great northern plateau from the southern
valleys. It is one side of an immense vault or canon wall whose
mate has been lost or dropped completely out of sight.
In many of the canons where water flows continuously, effects are
produced that are exactly the opposite of those ascribed to water
erosion. Instead of the running water cutting deeper into the
earth it has partly filled the canon with alluvium, thereby
demonstrating nature's universal leveling process.
