s the majestic
massing of needle-pointed towers which Powell named the Pinnacles of the
Virgin. The spectacular confuses with its brilliant variations.

At the confluence of the Virgin River and its North Fork, known of old
as the Parunuweap and the Mukuntuweap, the road sweeps northward up the
Mukuntuweap. There have been differing reports of the meaning of this
word, which gave the original name to the national monument. It has
been popularly accepted as meaning "Land of God," but John R. Wallis, of
St. George, Utah, has traced it to its original Indian source.
Mukuntuweap, he writes, means "Land of the Springs," and Parunuweap
"Land of the Birds."

Reaching Springdale, at the base of the Vermilion Cliff, the traveller
looks up-stream to the valley mouth through which the river emerges from
the cliffs, and a spectacle without parallel meets his eye. Left of the
gorgeous entrance rises the unbelievable West Temple of the Virgin, and,
merging with it from behind, loom the lofty Towers of the Virgin.
Opposite these, and back from the canyon's eastern brink, rises the
loftier and even more majestic East Temple of the Virgin. Between them
he sees a perspective of red and white walls, domes, and pinnacles which
thrills him with expectation.

And so, fully prepared in mind and spirit, awed and exultant, he enters
Zion.

Few natural objects which have been described so seldom have provoked
such extravagant praise as the West Temple. It is seen from a foreground
of gliding river, cottonwood groves, and talus slopes dotted with
manzanita, sage, cedars, and blooming cactus. From a stairway of mingled
yellows, reds, grays, mauves, purples, and chocolate brown, it springs
abruptly four thousand feet. Its body is a brilliant red. Its upper
third is white. It has the mass and proportions, the dignity and
grandeur, of a cathedral. It is supremely difficult to realize that it
was not designed, so true to human conception are the upright form and
mass of its central structure, the proportioning and modelling of its
extensive wings and buttresses. On top of the lofty central rectangle
rests, above its glistening white, a low squared cap of deepest red. It
is a temple in the full as well as the noblest sense of the word.

The East Temple, which rises directly opposite and two miles back from
the rim, is a fitting companion. It is a thousand feet higher. Its
central structure is a steep truncated cone capped like the West Temple.
It