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3800 feet below the surface. This is Marble Cañon. The river has turned toward the west, and at the foot of this cañon or for this is continuous with the Grand Cañon at the foot of this portion, the general course of the river is west. At this point it is crossed by the Paria fold, in which the throw is to the west, thus suddenly increasing the depth of the cañon by adding to the elevation of the country.

Farther down the river is met another fault, which in some places becomes a fold, running across the river's course. It is an enormous one, with a throw of about 3000 feet, which, like the last, is to the west. This is the eastern Kaibab fault, and the plateau produced by it, the Kaibab (mountain-lying-down) plateau. The cañon here attains its maximum depth, which is nearly 7000 feet. This is not in a single slope from the water; a part of it is in one or two benches, which stand back one, two, or three miles from the edge of the lower cliffs. The throw of the Paria fold has brought to the surface the underlying granite, and the lower cliffs of the Grand Cañon are of this rock.

In Major Powell's story of his trip through these cañons, we find the following fine description of the Grand Cañon :-"The walls now are more than a mile in height, a vertical distance difficult to appreciate. A thousand feet of this is up through granite crags, then steep slopes and perpendicular cliffs rise, one above another, to the summit. The gorge is black and narrow below, red and gray and flaring above, with crags and angular projections on the walls, which, cut in many places by side cañons, seem to be a vast wilderness of rocks. Down in these grand gloomy depths we glide, ever listening, for the mad waters keep up their roar; ever watching, ever peering ahead, for the narrow cañon is winding, and the river is closed in, so that we can see

but a few hundred yards, and what there may be below we know not; but we listen for falls, and watch for rocks, or stop now and then, in the bay of a recess, to admire the gigantic scenery. And ever as we go there is some new pinnacle or tower, some crag or peak, some distant view of the upper plateau, some strange-shaped rock, or some deep narrow side cañon. Then we come to another broken fall, which appears more difficult than the one we ran this morning.

"Clouds are playing in the cañon to-day. Sometimes they roll down in great masses, filling the gorge with gloom; sometimes they hang above, from wall to wall, and cover the cañon with a roof of impending storm; and we can peer long distances up and down this cañon corridor, with its cloud-roof overhead, its walls of black granite, and its river bright with the sheen of broken waters. Then a gust of wind sweeps down a side gulch, and, making a rift in the clouds, reveals the blue heavens, and a stream of sunlight pours in. Then the clouds drift

away into distance, and hang around crags and peaks, and pinnacles and towers and walls, and cover them with a mantle that lifts from time to time and sets them all in sharp relief. Then baby clouds creep out of side cañons, glide around points, and creep back again into more distant gorges. Then, clouds set in strata across the cañon, with intervening vista-views to cliffs and rocks beyond. The clouds are children of the heavens, and when they play among the rocks they lift them to the region above. . . .

"The varying depths of this cañon, due to the varying altitudes of the plateaus through which it runs, can only be seen from above. As we wind about in the gloomy depths below, the difference between 4000 and 6000 feet is not discerned, but the characteristics of the cañon -the scenic features-change abruptly with the change

in the altitude of the walls as the falls are passed. In running the channel which divides the twin plateaus, we pass round the first great southern bend. In the very depths of the cañon we have black granite, with a narrow cleft through which a great river plunges. This granite portion of the walls is carved with deep gulches, and embossed with pinnacles and towers. Above are broken, ragged, nonconformable rocks, in many places sloping back at a low angle. Clambering over these, we reach rocks lying in horizontal beds. Some are soft; many very hard; the softer strata are washed out; the harder temain as shelves. Everywhere there are side gulches and cañons, so that these gulches are set about ten thousand dark gloomy alcoves. One might imagine that this was intended for the library of the gods; and it was. The shelves are not for books, but form the stony leaves of one great book. He who would read the language of the universe may dig out letters here and there, and with them spell the words, and read, in a slow and imperfect way, but still so as to understand a little, the story of creation."-Exploration of the Colorado River of the West: Washington, 1875, pp. 83, 85, 193-4.

3. Running a Rapid.

The dangers of the navigation in rivers, like the Colorado, winding through a series of cañons are naturally often of a very formidable character. The writer just quoted, who ran many risks in his exploration of these regions, had on one occasion to navigate a rapid in the Grand Cañon at the imminent peril of his life. "About eleven o'clock," he writes, "we hear a great roar ahead, and approach it very cautiously. The sound grows louder and louder as we run, and at last we find ourselves above a long, broken fall, with ledges and pinnacles of

rock obstructing the river. There is a descent of perhaps 75 or 80 feet in a third of a mile, and the rushing waters break into great waves on the rocks, and lash themselves into a mad white foam. We can land just above, but there is no foothold on either side by which we can make a portage. It is nearly 1000 feet to the top of the granite, so it will be impossible to carry our boats around, though we can climb to the summit up a side gulch, and, passing along a mile or two, can descend to the river. This we find on examination, but such a portage would be impracticable for us, and we must run the rapid or abandon the river. There is no hesitation. We step into our boats, push off, and away we go; first on smooth but swift water, then we strike a glassy wave and ride to its top, down again into the trough, up again on a higher wave, and down and up on waves higher and still higher, until we strike one just as it curls back, and a breaker rolls over our little boat. Still, on we speed; shooting past projecting rocks, till the little boat is caught in a whirlpool, and spun round several times. At last we pull out again into the stream, and now the other boats have passed us. The open compartment of the Emma Dean' is filled with water, and every breaker rolls over us. Hurled back from a rock -now on this side, now on that-we are carried into an eddy, in which we struggle for a few minutes, and are then out again, the breakers still rolling over us. Our boat is unmanageable, but she cannot sink, and we drift down another hundred yards through breakers-how, we scarcely know. We find the other boats have turned into an eddy at the foot of the fall, and are waiting to catch us as we come, for the men have seen that our boat is swamped. They push out as we come near, and pull us in against the wall. We bail our boat, and on we go again" (op. cit. pp. 82-3).

The walls of the Grand Cañon and the level of the plateau descend by a succession of great steps, produced by faults, until the level of the river is reached at the mouth of the Grand Wash; and thus ends the Grand Cañon.

Below the Grand Wash, a dry stream bed which enters the Colorado from the north, the river turns south again and enters the Black Cañon of Lieutenant Ives' report-a cañon which would be a remarkable feature were it not brought into such close juxtaposition with that described above.

Below it the river runs in narrow valleys and low cañons to its mouth.

4. Fauna and Flora of the Plateau Region.

This region is not all a desert. The high plateaus must be excepted from the general condemnation, but as these are in the immediate vicinity of the mountains, and are of very limited extent, they can scarcely be considered as belonging to the plateau region. On these the fauna and flora of the mountain region are found in abundance, dependent in large measure upon the elevation. As we go down into the true cañon country, the scene changes. Aspens give place to piñon pine and cedar; the grasses, fruits, and flowers, to sage, cacti, and bare rock; the streams become confined in rocky cañons, turn muddy and warm, and gradually disappear. The game changes, -deer and elk are replaced by the coyote, while rattlesnakes and centipedes assert their proprietorship. Of the fauna Major Powell writes-"Among the buttes on the lower terraces, rattlesnakes crawl, lizards glide over the rocks, tarantulas stagger about, and red ants build their playhouse mountains. Sometimes rabbits are seen, and wolves prowl in their quest; but the desert has no bird of sweet song and no beast of noble mien."