ll of the mesa twelve
miles distant. Away to the north-east was the blue Navajo Mountain, the
lone peak in the horizon; but on the southern side of it lay a desert
level, which in the afternoon light took on the exact appearance of a
blue lake; its edge this side was a wall thousands of feet high, many
miles in length, and straightly horizontal; over this seemed to fall
water. I could see the foam of it at the foot of the cliff; and below
that was a lake of shimmering silver, in which the giant precipice and
the fall and their color were mirrored. Of course there was no silver
lake, and the reflection that simulated it was only the sun on the lower
part of the immense wall.

Some one said that all that was needed to perfect this scene was a
Niagara Falls. I thought what figure a fall 150 feet high and 3000 long
would make in this arena. It would need a spy-glass to discover it. An
adequate Niagara here should be at least three miles in breadth, and
fall 2000 feet over one of these walls. And the Yosemite--ah! the lovely
Yosemite! Dumped down into this wilderness of gorges and mountains, it
would take a guide who knew of its existence a long time to find it.

The process of creation is here laid bare through the geologic periods.
The strata of rock, deposited or upheaved, preserve their horizontal and
parallel courses. If we imagine a river flowing on a plain, it would
wear for itself a deeper and deeper channel. The walls of this channel
would recede irregularly by weathering and by the coming in of other
streams. The channel would go on deepening, and the outer walls would
again recede. If the rocks were of different material and degrees of
hardness, the forms would be carved in the fantastic and architectural
manner we find them here. The Colorado flows through the tortuous inner
chasm, and where we see it, it is 6000 feet below the surface where we
stand, and below the towers of the terraced forms nearer it. The
splendid views of the canon at this point given in Captain Dutton's
report are from Point Sublime, on the north side. There seems to have
been no way of reaching the river from that point. From the south side
the descent, though wearisome, is feasible. It reverses mountaineering
to descend 6000 feet for a view, and there is a certain pleasure in
standing on a mountain summit without the trouble of climbing it. Hance,
the guide, who has charge of the well, has made a path to the bottom.
The route is seven mil