globe. At
least it is unique. In attempting to convey an idea of it the writer can
be assisted by no comparison, nor can he appeal in the minds of his
readers to any experience of scenery that can apply here. The so-called
Grand Canon differs not in degree from all other scenes; it differs in
kind.

The Colorado River flows southward through Utah, and crosses the Arizona
line below the junction with the San Juan. It continues southward,
flowing deep in what is called the Marble Canon, till it is joined by
the Little Colorado, coming up from the south-east; it then turns
westward in a devious line until it drops straight south, and forms the
western boundary of Arizona. The centre of the district mentioned is the
westwardly flowing part of the Colorado. South of the river is the
Colorado Plateau, at a general elevation of about 7000 feet. North of
it the land is higher, and ascends in a series of plateaus, and then
terraces, a succession of cliffs like a great stair-way, rising to the
high plateaus of Utah. The plateaus, adjoining the river on the north
and well marked by north and south dividing lines, or faults, are,
naming them from east to west, the Paria, the Kaibab, the Kanab, the
Uinkaret, and the Sheavwitz, terminating in a great wall on the west,
the Great Wash fault, where the surface of the country drops at once
from a general elevation of 6000 feet to from 1300 to 3000 feet above
the sea-level--into a desolate and formidable desert.

If the Grand Canon itself did not dwarf everything else, the scenery of
these plateaus would be superlative in interest. It is not all desert,
nor are the gorges, canons, cliffs, and terraces, which gradually
prepare the mind for the comprehension of the Grand Canon, the only
wonders of this land of enchantment. These are contrasted with the
sylvan scenery of the Kaibab Plateau, its giant forests and parks, and
broad meadows decked in the summer with wild flowers in dense masses of
scarlet, white, purple, and yellow. The Vermilion Cliffs, the Pink
Cliffs, the White Cliffs, surpass in fantastic form and brilliant color
anything that the imagination conceives possible in nature, and there
are dreamy landscapes quite beyond the most exquisite fancies of Claude
and of Turner. The region is full of wonders, of beauties, and
sublimities that Shelley's imaginings do not match in the "Prometheus
Unbound," and when it becomes accessible to the tourist it will offer an
endless field for