Show > l1i6 isc t a I TIlE G flAND 3AON J J l l i < I r What words are to be used unaided by pencil or brush whell one seeks to de scribe what the canyon of the Colorado rIver really is Its magnitude its 80 J mnity the awful depth the rushing waters the clifeall towering cliffs all speak to us but we cannot speak of them Man is dwarfed by nature abashed by her grandeur silenced by the exhibition of her powers Imagine the scene A yellowhued stream rushing like a gust of angered wind along a rockstrewn bat and between a line of darkhued cliffs Look upward a thousandleet and rocks look angrily down gaze up another thousand feet another and still anot1u ana there are the same darkbrowed I monsters glaring down upon YOU and upon the river Look up again and now J gaze for 6000 feet into the air towards the I heavens and you can still see rough I edged rocks all outlined against the sky II over a mile in height thro away throwing up pinnacles and towers and domes and isolated peaks chipped and scarred and dark massive and irregular The light of day is dimmed the place is full of loud hoarse roars the air is chilled and the river lashed into foaming fury leaps madly along its course Here are shadow that Rembrandt would have gloried in here Dare might have copied nature and added to his fame Here is the road to Dantes sdmbre halls One stands within the very bowels of the earth with all earth and brightness lost to view He sees the work of th ages tha result of a mighty power The earth is cleft in twain it is as though a mountain tall ana strong had been halved by Some sharpened sword Six thousand feet of stony depth 1 Six thousand feet beneath the light of day There are no pleasant Smiles of nature to be seen No flowers grow no shrubs appear no birds are vis ible Dark are the towering walls and darker still their shadows while the towers take on most uncouth shapes and the river runs out of blackness to us and I into darkness from us a puny monster in I comparison with its prison a wayward I child held in stern rebuke From the tops of the cliffs which form II tha Colorados canyon the river winding at their base is like a strand of gold But it needs strong nerve to look from the I great height into the depths below Drop I a atone and the splash it would make t upon striking the water could not be I seon Even tho noise the river makes is not audible and the stream seems to flow I noiselessly along its dark and rugged course Turning from gazing into the i canyon and looking about the country I i the deep rent is eeen stretching far away to the east and west while in the distance are tall trees and rocks and bare brown hills One questions why the canyon was I I made and hc whether worn by the J r river or formed by volcanic action But whatever the cause it is a strange freak of nature rivalling with its grandeurs i all other sights inviting comparisons but I challenging competition All other canyons can-yons of the wild Southwest where rivers delight to wind in darkened places sink intoinsignificance when compared to this I of the Rio Colorado I |