es long. Half-way down he has a house by a spring.
At the bottom, somewhere in those depths, is a sort of farm, grass
capable of sustaining horses and cattle, and ground where fruit-trees
can grow. Horses are actually living there, and parties descend there
with tents, and camp for days at a time. It is a world of its own. Some
of the photographic views presented here, all inadequate, are taken from
points on Hance's trail. But no camera or pen can convey an adequate
conception of what Captain Dutton happily calls a great innovation in
the modern ideas of scenery. To the eye educated to any other, it may be
shocking, grotesque, incomprehensible; but "those who have long and
carefully studied the Grand Canon of the Colorado do not hesitate for a
moment to pronounce it by far the most sublime of all earthly
spectacles."

I have space only to refer to the geologic history in Captain Dutton's
report of 1882, of which there should be a popular edition. The waters
of the Atlantic once overflowed this region, and were separated from the
Pacific, if at all, only by a ridge. The story is of long eras of
deposits, of removal, of upheaval, and of volcanic action. It is
estimated that in one period the thickness of strata removed and
transported away was 10,000 feet. Long after the Colorado began its work
of corrosion there was a mighty upheaval. The reader will find the story
of the making of the Grand Canon more fascinating than any romance.

Without knowing this story the impression that one has in looking on
this scene is that of immense antiquity, hardly anywhere else on earth
so overwhelming as here. It has been here in all its lonely grandeur and
transcendent beauty, exactly as it is, for what to us is an eternity,
unknown, unseen by human eye. To the recent Indian, who roved along its
brink or descended to its recesses, it was not strange, because he had
known no other than the plateau scenery. It is only within a quarter of
a century that the Grand Canon has been known to the civilized world. It
is scarcely known now. It is a world largely unexplored. Those who best
know it are most sensitive to its awe and splendor. It is never twice
the same, for, as I said, it has an atmosphere of its own. I was told by
Hance that he once saw a thunder-storm in it. He described the chaos of
clouds in the pit, the roar of the tempest, the reverberations of
thunder, the inconceivable splendor of the rainbows mingled with the
colors of th