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Grand Cañon of the Colorado - John Muir · For the Birds

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Speaker 1: Section one, The Grand Canyon of the Colorado. This is
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Speaker 1: the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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Speaker 1: Read by Rebecca eden Walker. The Grand Canyon of the
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Speaker 1: Colorado by John Muir nineteen o two. Happy nowadays is
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Speaker 1: the tourists, with Earth's wonders, new and old, spread invitingly
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Speaker 1: open before him, and a host of able workers as
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Speaker 1: his slaves, making everything easy, padding plush about him, grading
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Speaker 1: roads for him, boring tunnels, moving hills out of his way,
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Speaker 1: eager like the devil to show him all the kingdoms
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Speaker 1: of the world and their glory and foolishness, spiritualizing travel
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Speaker 1: for him, with lightning and steam, abolishing spain, beasts and time,
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Speaker 1: and almost everything else. Little children and tender pulpy people,
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Speaker 1: as well as storm seasoned explorers, may now go almost
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Speaker 1: everywhere in smooth comfort, cross oceans and deserts, scarce accessible
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Speaker 1: to fishes and birds, and dragged by steel horses, go
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Speaker 1: up high mountains, riding gloriously beneath starry showers of sparks,
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Speaker 1: ascending like Elijah in a whirlwind, and Chariot of Fire,
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Speaker 1: first of the wonders of the Great West to be
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Speaker 1: brought within the reach of the tourists, where the Yosemite
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Speaker 1: and the Big Trees on the completion of the first
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Speaker 1: transcontinental railway. Next came the Yellowstone and Icy Alaska by
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Speaker 1: the Northern roads. And last the Grand Canyon of the Colorado,
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Speaker 1: which naturally the hardest to reach, has now become, by
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Speaker 1: a branch of the Santa Fe the most accessible of all.
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Speaker 1: Of course, with this wonderful extension of steel ways through
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Speaker 1: our wilderness, there is loss as well as gain. Nearly
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Speaker 1: all railroads are bordered by belts of desolation. The finest
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Speaker 1: wilderness perishes as if stricken with pestilence, bird and beast people.
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Speaker 1: If not the dryads are frightened from the groves. Too
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Speaker 1: often the groves also vanish, leaving nothing but ashes. Fortunately,
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Speaker 1: nature has a few big places beyond man's power to spoil,
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Speaker 1: the ocean, the two icy ends of the globe, and
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Speaker 1: the Grand Canyon. When I first heard of the Santa
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Speaker 1: Fe trains running to the edge of the Grand Canyon
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Speaker 1: of Arizona, I was troubled with thoughts of the disenchantment
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Speaker 1: likely to follow But last winter, when I saw those
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Speaker 1: trains crawling along through the pines of the Cocanini forest
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Speaker 1: and close up to the brink of the chasm at
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Speaker 1: bright air Angel, I was glad to discover that in
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Speaker 1: the presence of such stupendous scenery, they are nothing. The
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Speaker 1: locomotives and trains are mere beetles and caterpillars, and the
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Speaker 1: noise they make is as little disturbing as the hooting
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Speaker 1: of an owl in the lonely woods. In a dry, hot,
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Speaker 1: monotonous forested plateau, seemingly boundless, you come suddenly and without warning,
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Speaker 1: upon the abrupt edge of a gigantic, sunken landscape of
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Speaker 1: the wildest, most multitudinous features. And those features, sharp and angular,
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Speaker 1: are made out of flat beds of limestone and sandstone,
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Speaker 1: forming a spiery, jagged, gloriously colored mountain range counter sunk
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Speaker 1: in a level, gray plain. It is a hard job
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Speaker 1: to sketch it, even in its grawniest outline, And try
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Speaker 1: as I may not, in the least bearing myself, I
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Speaker 1: cannot tell the hundredth part of the world wonders of
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Speaker 1: its features, the side canyons, gorges, alcoves, cloisters, and amphitheaters
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Speaker 1: of vast sweep and depth, carved in its magnificent walls,
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Speaker 1: the throng of great architectural rocks it contains, resembling castles, cathedrals, temples,
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Speaker 1: and palaces, towered inspired and painted, some of them nearly
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Speaker 1: a mile high, yet beneath one's feet. All this, however,
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Speaker 1: is less difficult than to give any idea of the
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Speaker 1: impression of wild, primeval beauty and power one receives in
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Speaker 1: merely gazing from its brink, The view down the gulf
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Speaker 1: of color and over the rim of its wonderful wall,
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Speaker 1: more than any other view, I know, leads us to
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Speaker 1: think of our earth as a star within stars, swimming
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Speaker 1: in light, every radiant spire pointing the way to the heavens.
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Speaker 1: But it it is impossible to conceive what the canyon is,
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Speaker 1: or what impression it makes from descriptions or pictures, however
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Speaker 1: good naturally it is untellable even to those who have
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Speaker 1: seen something perhaps a little like it, on a small scale.
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Speaker 1: In this same plateau region, one's most extravagant expectations are
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Speaker 1: indefinitely surpassed, though one expect much from what is said
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Speaker 1: of it, as the biggest chasm on Earth. So big
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Speaker 1: is it that all other big things, Yosemite, the Yellowstone,
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Speaker 1: the Pyramids Chicago, all would be lost if tumbled into it.
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Speaker 1: Naturally enough illustrations as to size are sought for among
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Speaker 1: other canyons like or unlike it, with the common result
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Speaker 1: of worse confounding confusion. The prudent keeps silent. It was
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Speaker 1: once said that the Grand Canyon could put a dozen
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Speaker 1: Yosemites in its vest pocket. The justly famous Grand Canyon
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Speaker 1: of the Yellowstone is like the Colorado, gorgeously colored and
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Speaker 1: abruptly countersunk in a plateau, and both are mainly the
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Speaker 1: work of water. But the Colorado's canyon is more than
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Speaker 1: a thousand times larger, and as a score or two
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Speaker 1: new buildings of ordinary size would not appreciably change the
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Speaker 1: general view of a great city. So hundreds of Yellowstones
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Speaker 1: might be eroded in the sides of the Colorado Canyon
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Speaker 1: without noticeably augmenting its size or the richness of its sculpture.
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Speaker 1: But it is not true that the great Yosemite rocks
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Speaker 1: would be thus lost or hidden. Nothing of their kind
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Speaker 1: in the world, so far as I know. Rivals El
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Speaker 1: Capitan and Tissiak, much less dwarfs or in any way
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Speaker 1: belittles them. None of the sandstone or limestone precipices of
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Speaker 1: the canyon that I have seen or heard of, approaches
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Speaker 1: in smooth, flawless strength and grandeur the granite face of
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Speaker 1: El Capitan or the Tenayas side of Cloud's rest. These
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Speaker 1: colossal cliffs types of permanence, are about three thousand and
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Speaker 1: six thousand feet high. Those of the canyon that are
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Speaker 1: sheer are about half as high and are types of
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Speaker 1: fleeting change. While gloriously domed Tissiak noblest of mountain buildings,
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Speaker 1: far from being overshadowed or lost in this rosy spiery canyon,
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Speaker 1: company would draw every eye, and in serene majesty a
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Speaker 1: boon the may she would take her place, castle, temple, palace,
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Speaker 1: or tower. Nevertheless, a noted writer comparing the Grand Canyon
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Speaker 1: in a general way with the glacial Yosemite says, and
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Speaker 1: the Yosemite ah, the lovely Yosemite dump down into the
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Speaker 1: wilderness of gorges and mountains. It would take a guide
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Speaker 1: who knew of its existence a long time to find it.
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Speaker 1: This is striking and shows up well above the levels
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Speaker 1: of commonplace description, but it is confusing and has the
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Speaker 1: fatal fault of not being true as well. Try to
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Speaker 1: describe an eagle by putting a lark in it, and
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Speaker 1: the lark ah the lovely lark, dump down the red
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Speaker 1: royal gorge of the eagle, it would be hard to find.
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Speaker 1: Each in its own place is better singing at Heaven's
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Speaker 1: gate and sailing the sky with the clouds. Every feature
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Speaker 1: of nature's big face is beautiful, height and hollow, wrinkle,
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Speaker 1: furrow and line. And this is the main master furrow
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Speaker 1: of its kind on our continent, incomparably greater and more
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Speaker 1: impressive than any other yet discovered or likely to be discovered.
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Speaker 1: Now that all the great rivers have been traced to
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Speaker 1: their heads, the Colorado River rises in the heart of
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Speaker 1: the continent, on the dividing ranges and ridges between the
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Speaker 1: two oceans, drains thousands of snowy mountains through narrow or
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Speaker 1: spacious valleys, and thence through canyons of every color, sheer, walled,
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Speaker 1: and deep, all of which seemed to be represented in
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Speaker 1: this one grand canyon of canyons. End of Section one,
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Speaker 1: Section two of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado by
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Speaker 1: John Muir. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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Speaker 1: It is very hard to give anything like an adequate
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Speaker 1: conception of its size, much more of its color, its
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Speaker 1: vast wall sculpture, the wealth of ornate architectural buildings that
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Speaker 1: fill it, or most of all, the tremendous impression it makes.
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Speaker 1: According to Major Powell, it is about two hundred and
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Speaker 1: seventeen miles long, from five to fifteen miles wide from
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Speaker 1: rim to rim, and from about five thousand to six
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Speaker 1: thousand feet deep. So tremendous a chasm would be one
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Speaker 1: of the world's greatest wonders even if, like ordinary canyons
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Speaker 1: cut in sedimentary rocks, it were empty and its walls
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Speaker 1: were simple. But instead of being plain, the walls are
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Speaker 1: so deeply and elaborately carved into all sorts of recesses, alcoves, cirques, amphitheaters,
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Speaker 1: and side canyons that were you to trace the rim
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Speaker 1: closely around on both sides, your journey would be nearly
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Speaker 1: a thousand miles long, and into all these recesses. The
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Speaker 1: level continuous beds of rocks in ledges and benches, with
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Speaker 1: their various colors, run like broad ribbons, marvelously beautiful and
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Speaker 1: effective even at a distance of ten or twelve miles,
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Speaker 1: and the vast space these glorious walls enclose, instead of
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Speaker 1: being empty, is crowded with gigantic architectural rock forms, gorgeously
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Speaker 1: colored and adorned with towers and spires like works of art.
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Speaker 1: Looking down from this level plateau, we are more impressed
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Speaker 1: with a feeling of being on top of everything than
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Speaker 1: when looking from the summit of a mountain. From side
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Speaker 1: to side of the vast gulf, temples, palaces, towers, and
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Speaker 1: spires comes soaring up in thick array half a mile
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Speaker 1: are nearly a mile above their sunken hidden bases, some
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Speaker 1: to a level within our standpoint, but none higher. And
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Speaker 1: in the inspiring morning light, all are so fresh and
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Speaker 1: rosy looking that they seem new born, as if, like
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Speaker 1: the quick growing crimson snow plants of the California Woods,
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Speaker 1: they had just sprung up, hatched by the warm, brooding,
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Speaker 1: motherly weather. In trying to describe the great pines and
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Speaker 1: sequoias of the Sierra, I have often thought that if
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Speaker 1: one of those trees could be set by itself in
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Speaker 1: some city park, it's grandeur there might be impressively realized.
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Speaker 1: While in its home forest, where all magnitudes are great,
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Speaker 1: the weary, statiated traveler sees none of them. Truly, it
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Speaker 1: is so with these majestic rock structures. Though mere residual
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Speaker 1: masses of the plateau, they are dowered with the grandeur
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Speaker 1: and repose of mountains, together with the finely chiseled carvings
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Speaker 1: and modeling of man temples and palaces, and often to
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Speaker 1: a considerable extent, with their symmetry. Some closely observed look
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Speaker 1: like ruins, but even those stand plumb and true and
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Speaker 1: show architectural forms loaded with lines strictly regular and decorative,
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Speaker 1: And all are arrayed in colors that storms and times
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Speaker 1: seem only to brighten. They are not placed in regular
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Speaker 1: rows in line with the river, but a thruither, as
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Speaker 1: the Scotch say, in lavish exuberant crowds, as if nature
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Speaker 1: in wildest extravagance, held her bravest structures as common as
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Speaker 1: gravel piles. Yonder stands a spiry cathedral nearly five thousand
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Speaker 1: feet in height, nobly symmetrical with sheer buttressed walls and
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Speaker 1: arched doorways and windows, as richly finished and decorated with
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Speaker 1: sculptures as the great rock temples of India or Egypt.
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Speaker 1: Beside it rises a huge castle with arched gateway turrets,
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Speaker 1: watch towers, ramparts, et cetera. And to the right and
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Speaker 1: left palaces, obelists and pyramids fairly fill the gulf, all
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Speaker 1: colossal and all lavishly painted and carved. Here and there
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Speaker 1: a flat top structure may be seen, or one imperfectly domed,
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Speaker 1: but the prevailing style is ornate Gothic, with many hints
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Speaker 1: of Egyptian and Indian. Throughout this vast extent of wild architecture,
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Speaker 1: Nature's own capital city, there is to be no ordinary dwellings.
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Speaker 1: All look like grand and important public structures, except perhaps
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Speaker 1: some of the low pyramids, broad based and sharp pointed,
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Speaker 1: covered with down flowing talus like loosely set tents with
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Speaker 1: hollow sagging sides. The roofs often have di cintegrated rocks
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Speaker 1: heaped and draggled over them, but in the main the
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Speaker 1: masonry is firm and laid in regular courses, as if
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Speaker 1: done by square and rule. Nevertheless, they are ever changing.
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Speaker 1: Their tops are now a dome, now a flat table
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Speaker 1: or spire, as harder or softer strata are reached in
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Speaker 1: their slow degradation, while the sides, with all their fine moldings,
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Speaker 1: are being steadily undermined and eaten away. But no essential
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Speaker 1: change in style or color is thus affected. From century
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Speaker 1: to century they stand the same. What seems confusion among
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Speaker 1: the rough earthquake shaken crags, nearest one comes to order
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Speaker 1: as soon as the main plan of the various structures appear.
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Speaker 1: Every building, however complicated and laden with ornamental lines, is
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Speaker 1: at one with itself and every one of its neighbors.
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Speaker 1: For the same character is stick controlling belts of color
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Speaker 1: and solid strata extend with wonderful constancy for very great distances,
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Speaker 1: and pass through and give style to thousands of separate structures.
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Speaker 1: However their smaller characters may be. Of all the various
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Speaker 1: kinds of ornamental work displayed carving tracery on cliff faces, moldings, arches, pinnacles,
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Speaker 1: none is more admirably effective or charms more than the
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Speaker 1: webs of rain channeled taluses, marvelously extensive, without the slightest
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Speaker 1: appearance of waste or excess. They cover roofs and dome tops,
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Speaker 1: and the base of every cliff belt, each spire and
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Speaker 1: pyramid and massy towering temple, and in beautiful continuous lines
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Speaker 1: go sweeping along the great walls, in and out around
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Speaker 1: all the intricate systems of side canyons, amphitheaters, cirques, and
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Speaker 1: scallops into which they are sculptured. From one point, hundreds
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Speaker 1: of miles of this fairy embroidery may be traced. It
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Speaker 1: is all so fine and orderly that it would seem
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Speaker 1: that not only had the clouds and streams been kept
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Speaker 1: harmoniously busy in the making of it, but that every
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Speaker 1: rain drop scent like a bullet to a mark, had
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Speaker 1: been the subject of a separate thought. So sure is
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Speaker 1: the outcome of beauty throughout the stormy centuries. Surely nowhere
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Speaker 1: else are their illustrations so striking of the natural beauty
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Speaker 1: of desolation and death, So many of nature's own mountain
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Speaker 1: buildings wasting in glory of high desert air going to dust.
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Speaker 1: See how steadfast in beauty they all are in their going.
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Speaker 1: Look again and again, how the rough, dusty boulders and
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Speaker 1: sand of disintegration from the upper ledges wreathe in beauty.
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Speaker 1: The next and the next below with these wonderful taluses,
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Speaker 1: And how the colors are finer the faster the waste.
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Speaker 1: We oftentimes see nature giving beauty for ashes, as in
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Speaker 1: the flowers of a prairie after fire. But here the
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Speaker 1: very dust and ashes are beautiful. Gazing across the mighty chasm,
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Speaker 1: we at last discover that it is not its great
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Speaker 1: depth nor length, nor yet these wonderful buildings that most
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Speaker 1: impresses us. It is its immense width, sharply defined by
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Speaker 1: precipitous walls, plunging suddenly down from a flat plain, declaring
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Speaker 1: in terms instantly apprehended that the vast gulf is a
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Speaker 1: gash in the once unbroken plateau, made by slow, orderly
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Speaker 1: erosion and removal of huge beds of rocks. Other valleys
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Speaker 1: of erosion are as great in all their dimensions, some
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Speaker 1: are greater, but none of these produces an effect on
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Speaker 1: the imagination at once, so quick and profound, coming without
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Speaker 1: study given at a glance. Therefore, by far, the greatest
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Speaker 1: and most influential feature of this view from Bright Angel
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Speaker 1: or any other of the canyon views, is the opposite
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Speaker 1: wall of the one beneath our feet. We see only
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Speaker 1: fragmentary sections in cirques and amphitheaters, and on the sides
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Speaker 1: of the outjutting promontories between them, while the other, though
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Speaker 1: far distant, is beheld in all its glory of color
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Speaker 1: and noble proportions, the one supreme beauty and wonder to
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Speaker 1: which the eye is ever turning for while charming with
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Speaker 1: its beauty, it tells the story of the stupendous erosion
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Speaker 1: of the canyon, the foundation of the unspeakable impression made
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Speaker 1: on everybody. It seems a gigantic statement for even nature
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Speaker 1: to make all in one mighty stone word apprehended at once,
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Speaker 1: like a burst of light, celestial color, its natural vesture,
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Speaker 1: coming in glory to mind and heart as to a
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Speaker 1: home prepared for it. From the very beginning, wildness, so godful,
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Speaker 1: cosmic primeval, bestows a new sense of Earth's beauty and size.
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Speaker 1: Not even from high mountains does the world seem so wide,
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Speaker 1: so like a star in glory of light, on its
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Speaker 1: way through the heavens. End of Section two, Section three
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Speaker 1: of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado by John Muir.
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Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. I have
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Speaker 1: observed scenery hunters of all sorts getting first views of
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Speaker 1: Yosemite's glaciers while mountain ranges et cetera. Mixed with the
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Speaker 1: enthusiasm which set scenery naturally excites, there is often weak gushing,
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Speaker 1: and many splutter aloud like little waterfalls. Here for a
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Speaker 1: few moments at least there is silence, and all are
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Speaker 1: in dead earnest, as if awed and hushed by an earthquake,
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Speaker 1: perhaps until the cook cries break fist or the stable
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Speaker 1: boy horses are ready. Then the poor unfortunates slaves of
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Speaker 1: regular habits turn quickly away, gasping and muttering, as wondering
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Speaker 1: where they had been and what had enchanted them. Roads
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Speaker 1: have been made from Bright Angel Hotel through the Cocanini
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Speaker 1: Forest to the ends of outstanding promontories, commanding extensive views
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Speaker 1: up and down the canyon. The nearest of them, three
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Speaker 1: or four miles east and west, are McNeil's Point and
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Speaker 1: Rose Point. The latter, besides commanding the eternally interesting canyon,
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Speaker 1: gives wide sweeping views southeast and west over the dark
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Speaker 1: forest roof to the San Francisco and Mount Trumbell volcanoes,
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Speaker 1: the bluest of mountains over the blackest of level woods.
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Speaker 1: Instead of thus riding in the dust with the crowd,
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Speaker 1: more will be gained by going quietly afoot along the
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Speaker 1: rim at different times of day and night, free to
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Speaker 1: observe the vegetation, the fossils in the rocks, the seams
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Speaker 1: beneath overhanging ledges once inhabited by Indians, and to watch
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Speaker 1: the stupendous scenery in the changing lights and shadows, clouds,
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Speaker 1: showers and storms. One need not go hunting the so
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Speaker 1: called points of interest the verge. Anywhere everywhere is a
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Speaker 1: point of interest beyond one's wildest dreams. As yet, few
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Speaker 1: of the promontories or throng of mountain buildings in the
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Speaker 1: canyon are named, Nor among such exuberance of forms are
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Speaker 1: names thought of by the bewildered, hurried tourist. He would
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Speaker 1: be as likely to think of names for waves in
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Speaker 1: a storm. The Eastern and Western cloisters, Hindu Amphitheater Cape,
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Speaker 1: Royal Powell's Plateau and Grand View, Point Points, Sublime Bissel
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Speaker 1: and Moran Points, the Temple of set Vishnoos, Temple, Shiva's Temple,
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Speaker 1: Twin Temples, Tower of Babel, Hans's Column. These fairly good
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Speaker 1: names given by Dutton, Holmes, Moran and others are scattered
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Speaker 1: over a large stretch of the Canyon wilderness. All the
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Speaker 1: canyon rock beds are lavishly painted, except a few neutral
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Speaker 1: bars in the granite notch at the bottom occupied by
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Speaker 1: the river, which makes but little sign. It is a
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Speaker 1: vast wilderness of rocks in a sea of light, colored
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Speaker 1: and glowing like oak and maple woods in autumn when
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Speaker 1: the sun gold is richest. I have just said that
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Speaker 1: it is impossible to learn what the canyon is like
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Speaker 1: from descriptions and pictures. Powells in Dutton's descriptions present magnificent
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Speaker 1: views not only of the canyon, but of all the
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Speaker 1: grand region round about it, And Holmes's drawings accompanying Dutton's
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Speaker 1: report are wonderfully good. Surely, faithful and loving skill can
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Speaker 1: go no further in putting the multitudinous decorated forms on pape.
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Speaker 1: But the colors, the living, rejoicing colors, chanting morning and
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Speaker 1: evening in chorus to Heaven. Whose brush or pencil, however
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Speaker 1: lovingly inspired, can give us these? And if paint is
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Speaker 1: of no effect, what hope lies in pencil work? Only this?
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Speaker 1: Some may be incited by it to go and see
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Speaker 1: for themselves. No other range of mountainous rock work of
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Speaker 1: anything like the same extent have I seen that is
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Speaker 1: so strangely, boldly lavishly colored. The famous Yellowstone Canyon below
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Speaker 1: the falls comes to mind, But wonderful as it is,
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Speaker 1: and well deserved as is its fame, Compared with this,
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Speaker 1: it is only a bright rainbow ribbon at the roots
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Speaker 1: of the pines. Each of the series of level, continuous
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Speaker 1: beds of carboniferous rocks of the canyon has, as we
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Speaker 1: have seen, its own characteristic color. The summit limestone beds
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Speaker 1: are pale yellow. Next below these are the beautiful rose
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Speaker 1: colored cross bedded sandstones. Next there are a thousand feet
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Speaker 1: of brilliant red sandstones, and below these the red Wall limestones,
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Speaker 1: over two thousand feet thick, rich massy red, the greatest
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Speaker 1: and most influential of the series, and forming the main
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Speaker 1: color fountain. Between these are many neutral tinted beds. The
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Speaker 1: prevailing colors are wonderfully deep and clear, changing and blending
26:41
Speaker 1: with varying intensity from hour to hour, day to day,
26:46
Speaker 1: season to season, throbbing, wavering, glowing, responding to every passing
26:53
Speaker 1: cloud or storm, a world of color in itself, now
26:58
Speaker 1: burning in separate rainbow bars, streaked and blotched with shade,
27:03
Speaker 1: now glowing in one smooth, all pervading ethereal radiance like
27:09
Speaker 1: the aspen glow, uniting the rocky world with the heavens.
27:15
Speaker 1: The dawn, as in all the pure dry desert country
27:18
Speaker 1: is ineffably beautiful. And when the first level sunbeams, sting
27:23
Speaker 1: the domes and spires with what a burst of power
27:27
Speaker 1: the big wild days begin. The dead and the living
27:31
Speaker 1: rocks and hearts alike awake and sing the new old
27:36
Speaker 1: song of creation. All the massy headlands and salient angles
27:41
Speaker 1: of the walls, and the multitudinous temples and palaces seem
27:45
Speaker 1: to catch the light at once and cast thick black
27:50
Speaker 1: shadows athwart hollow and gorge, bringing out details as well
27:54
Speaker 1: as the main massive features of the architecture, while all
27:58
Speaker 1: the rocks, as if wild with life, throb and quiver
28:03
Speaker 1: and glow in the glorious sunburst, rejoicing. Every rock temple
28:10
Speaker 1: then becomes a temple of music, every spire and pinnacle
28:14
Speaker 1: and angel of light and song shouting color hollelujahs. As
28:21
Speaker 1: the day draws to a close, shadows wondrous black and
28:26
Speaker 1: thick like those of the morning, fill up the wall hollows,
28:30
Speaker 1: while the glowing rocks, their rough angles burned off, seem
28:35
Speaker 1: soft and hot to the heart as they stand submerged
28:39
Speaker 1: in purple haze, which now fills the canyon like a sea.
28:44
Speaker 1: Still deeper, richer, more divine, grow the great walls and temples,
28:49
Speaker 1: until in the supreme flaming glory of sunset, the whole
28:54
Speaker 1: canyon is transfigured, as if all the life and light
28:59
Speaker 1: of centuries of sun unshine stored up and condensed in
29:02
Speaker 1: the rocks, was now being poured forth, as if from
29:06
Speaker 1: one glorious fountain, flooding both earth and sky. Strange to say,
29:12
Speaker 1: in the full white effulgence of the midday hours, the
29:16
Speaker 1: bright colors grow dim and terrestrial in common gray haze,
29:21
Speaker 1: and the rocks, after the manner of the mountains, seem
29:24
Speaker 1: to crouch and drowse, and shrink to less than half
29:28
Speaker 1: their real stature, and have nothing to say to one,
29:31
Speaker 1: as if not at home. But it is fine to
29:35
Speaker 1: see how quickly they come to life and grow radiant
29:38
Speaker 1: and communicative. As soon as a band of white clouds
29:42
Speaker 1: come floating by, as if shouting for joy, they seemed
29:46
Speaker 1: to spring up to meet them in hearty salutation, eager
29:50
Speaker 1: to touch them and beg their blessings. It is just
29:55
Speaker 1: in the midst of these dull midday hours that the
29:59
Speaker 1: Canyon cloud clouds are born. A good storm cloud, full
30:03
Speaker 1: of lightning and rain on its way to its work
30:06
Speaker 1: on a sunny desert day, is a glorious object. Across
30:11
Speaker 1: the canyon. Opposite the hotel is a little tributary of
30:15
Speaker 1: the Colorado called Bright Angel Creek, A fountain cloud still
30:19
Speaker 1: better deserves the name Angel of the desert wells, clad
30:25
Speaker 1: in bright plumage, carrying cool shade and living water to
30:29
Speaker 1: countless animals and plants ready to perish, noble in form
30:34
Speaker 1: and gesture, seeming able for anything, pouring life giving, wonder
30:39
Speaker 1: working floods from its alabaster fountains, as if some sky
30:44
Speaker 1: lake had broken to every gulch and gorge on its
30:48
Speaker 1: favorite ground is given a passionate torrent, roaring, replying to
30:53
Speaker 1: the rejoicing lightning stones, tons in weight, hurrying away as
30:59
Speaker 1: if frightened and showing something of the way grand canyon
31:03
Speaker 1: work is done. Most of the fertile summer clouds of
31:07
Speaker 1: the canyon are of this sort, massive swelling cumuli growing rapidly,
31:13
Speaker 1: displaying delicious tones of purple and gray in the hollows
31:17
Speaker 1: of their sunbeaten bosses, showering favored areas of the heated landscape,
31:23
Speaker 1: and vanishing in an hour or two. Some busy and
31:27
Speaker 1: thoughtful looking glide with beautiful motion along the middle of
31:32
Speaker 1: the canyon in flocks, turning aside here and there, lingering
31:38
Speaker 1: as if studying the needs of particular spots, exploring side canyons,
31:44
Speaker 1: peering into hollows like birds seeking nest places, or hovering
31:50
Speaker 1: aloft on outspread wings. They scan all the red wilderness,
31:55
Speaker 1: dispensing their blessings of cool shadows and rain, where the
31:59
Speaker 1: knee is the greatest, refreshing the rocks their offspring, as
32:04
Speaker 1: well as the vegetation. Continuing their sculpture, deepening gorges and
32:10
Speaker 1: sharpening peaks, sometimes blending all together. They weave a ceiling
32:16
Speaker 1: from rim to rim, perhaps opening a window here and
32:21
Speaker 1: there for sunshine to stream through, suddenly lighting some palace
32:26
Speaker 1: or temple and making it flare in the rain, as
32:29
Speaker 1: if on fire, sometimes as one it's gazing from a
32:35
Speaker 1: high jutting promontory, the sky all clear, showing not the
32:40
Speaker 1: slightest whisp, or penciling a bright band of cumuli will
32:44
Speaker 1: appear suddenly coming up the canyon in single file, as
32:48
Speaker 1: if tracing a well known trail, passing in review, each
32:53
Speaker 1: in turn darting its lances and dropping its shower, making
32:58
Speaker 1: a row of little vertical rivers in the air above
33:01
Speaker 1: the big brown one. Others seem to grow from mere
33:05
Speaker 1: points and fly high above the canyon, yet following its
33:10
Speaker 1: course for a long time, noiseless, as if hunting, then
33:15
Speaker 1: suddenly darting, lightning at unseen marks and hurrying on. Or
33:21
Speaker 1: they loiter here and there as if vitle, like laborers
33:26
Speaker 1: out of work waiting to be hired. Half a dozen
33:30
Speaker 1: or more showers may oftentimes be seen falling at once,
33:34
Speaker 1: while far the greater part of the skies in sunshine,
33:38
Speaker 1: and not a rain drop comes nigh one. These thunder
33:43
Speaker 1: showers from as many separate clouds, looking like wists of
33:47
Speaker 1: long hair, may vary greatly in effects. The pale faint
33:52
Speaker 1: streaks are showers that fail to reach the ground, being
33:56
Speaker 1: evaporated on the way down through the dry, thirsty air
34:00
Speaker 1: like streams and deserts. Many, on the other hand, which
34:04
Speaker 1: in the distance seem insignificant, are really heavy rain. However
34:09
Speaker 1: local These are the gray wisps well zigzag with lightning.
34:14
Speaker 1: The darker ones are torrent rain, which on broad steep
34:19
Speaker 1: slopes of favorable conformation, give rise to so called cloudbursts,
34:25
Speaker 1: and wonderful as the commotion they cause. The gorges and
34:30
Speaker 1: gulges below them usually dry break out in loud uproar
34:35
Speaker 1: with a sudden downrush of muddy, boulder laden floods. Down
34:40
Speaker 1: they all go in one simultaneous gush, roaring, like lions
34:45
Speaker 1: rudely awakened, each of the tawny brood, actually kicking up
34:50
Speaker 1: a dust at the first onset. During the winter months,
34:55
Speaker 1: snow falls over all the high plateau, usually to an
35:00
Speaker 1: considerable depth, whitening the rim and the roofs of the
35:03
Speaker 1: canyon buildings. But last winter, when I arrived at Bright
35:07
Speaker 1: Angel in the middle of January, there was no snow
35:11
Speaker 1: in sight and the ground was dry, greatly to my disappointment,
35:16
Speaker 1: for I had made the trip mainly to see the
35:18
Speaker 1: canyon in its winter garb. Soothingly, I was informed that
35:23
Speaker 1: this was an exceptional season and that the good snow
35:27
Speaker 1: might arrive at any time. After waiting a few days,
35:32
Speaker 1: I gladly hailed a broad browed cloud coming grandly on
35:37
Speaker 1: from the west in big, promising blackness, very unlike the
35:42
Speaker 1: white sailors of the summer skies under the lee of
35:46
Speaker 1: a rim ledge. With another snow lover, I watched its
35:51
Speaker 1: movements as it took possession of the canyon and all
35:55
Speaker 1: the adjacent region in sight, Trailing its gray fringes over
35:59
Speaker 1: the spiry tops of the great temples and towers. It
36:03
Speaker 1: gradually settled lower, embracing them all with ineffable kindness and
36:09
Speaker 1: gentleness of touch, and fondled the little cedars and pines
36:14
Speaker 1: as they quivered eagerly in the wind, like young birds
36:18
Speaker 1: begging their mothers to feed them. The first flakes and
36:22
Speaker 1: crystals began to fly about noon, sweeping straight up the
36:26
Speaker 1: middle of the canyon and swirling in magnificent eddies along
36:31
Speaker 1: the sides. Gradually, the hearty swarms closed their ranks, and
36:36
Speaker 1: all the canyon was lost in gray gloom, except a
36:40
Speaker 1: short section of the wall and a few trees beside us,
36:43
Speaker 1: which looked glad with snow in their needles and about
36:47
Speaker 1: their feet as they leaned out over the gulf. Suddenly
36:51
Speaker 1: the storm opened with magical effect to the north, over
36:55
Speaker 1: the canyon of Bright Angel creek inclosing a sunlit mead
37:00
Speaker 1: gass of the canyon architecture spanned by great white, concentric
37:05
Speaker 1: arches of cloud like the bows of a silvery aurora.
37:10
Speaker 1: Above these, and a little back of them, was a
37:13
Speaker 1: series of up boiling purple clouds, and high above all
37:18
Speaker 1: in the background a range of noble cumuli towered aloft
37:23
Speaker 1: like snow laden mountains, their pure pearl bosses flooded with sunshine.
37:29
Speaker 1: The whole noble picture, calmly glowing, was framed in thick
37:34
Speaker 1: gray gloom, which soon closed over it, and the storm
37:38
Speaker 1: went on opening and closing until night covered all. Two
37:44
Speaker 1: days later, when we were on a jutting point about
37:48
Speaker 1: eighteen miles east of Bright Angel and one thousand feet higher,
37:52
Speaker 1: we enjoyed another storm of equal glory as to cloud effects,
37:56
Speaker 1: though only a few inches of snow fell before the
38:01
Speaker 1: storm began. We had a magnificent view of this grander
38:05
Speaker 1: upper part of the canyon, and also of the Cocanini
38:08
Speaker 1: forest and painted desert. The march of the clouds, with
38:12
Speaker 1: their storm banners flying over the sublime landscape, was unspeakably glorious,
38:18
Speaker 1: and so also was the breaking up of the storm.
38:21
Speaker 1: The next morning, the mingling of silver capped rock, sunshine
38:25
Speaker 1: and cloud. Most tourists make out to be in a
38:29
Speaker 1: hurry even here. Therefore, their few days or hours would
38:34
Speaker 1: be best spent on the promontories nearest the hotel. Yet
38:39
Speaker 1: a surprising number go down the bright Angel trail to
38:42
Speaker 1: the brink of the inner gloomy granite gorge overlooking the river.
38:47
Speaker 1: Deep canyons attract, like high mountains. The deeper they are,
38:53
Speaker 1: the more surely we are drawn into them on foot.
38:57
Speaker 1: Of course, there is no danger, what ever, and with
39:01
Speaker 1: ordinary precautions, but little on animals. In comfortable tourist faith, unthinking, unfearing,
39:09
Speaker 1: down go men, women and children on whatever is offered, horse,
39:14
Speaker 1: mule or burrow, as if saying with Jean Paul, fear nothing,
39:20
Speaker 1: but fear not without reason, For these canyon trails down
39:25
Speaker 1: the stairways of the gods are less dangerous than they seem,
39:29
Speaker 1: less dangerous than home stairs. The guides are cautious, and
39:34
Speaker 1: so are the experienced, much enduring beasts, the scrawniest rosananthes,
39:40
Speaker 1: and wise and rat mules cling hard to the rocks,
39:44
Speaker 1: and wise or sidewise like lizards or ants, from terrace
39:49
Speaker 1: to terrace climate to climate down, one creeps in sun
39:54
Speaker 1: and shade, through gorge and gully and grassy ravine, and
39:58
Speaker 1: after a long scramble on foot, at last beneath the
40:03
Speaker 1: mighty cliffs, one comes to the Grand Roaring River end
40:11
Speaker 1: of section three Section four of the Grand Canyon of
40:21
Speaker 1: the Colorado by John Muir. This LibriVox recording is in
40:26
Speaker 1: the public domain. To the mountaineer, the depth of the
40:31
Speaker 1: canyon from five thousand to six thousand feet will not
40:36
Speaker 1: seem so very wonderful, for he has often explored others
40:40
Speaker 1: that are about as deep. But the most experienced will
40:44
Speaker 1: be awe struck. But the vast extent of strange countersunk scenery,
40:50
Speaker 1: the multitude of huge rock monuments of painted masonry built
40:55
Speaker 1: up in regular courses, towering above, beneath and round about him.
41:01
Speaker 1: By the bright Angel Trail, the last fifteen hundred feet
41:05
Speaker 1: of the descent to the river has to be made
41:07
Speaker 1: afoot down the gorge of Indian Garden Creek. Most of
41:12
Speaker 1: the visitors do not like this part, and are content
41:15
Speaker 1: to stop at the end of the horse trail and
41:18
Speaker 1: look down on the dull brown flood from the edge
41:21
Speaker 1: of the Indian Garden Plateau by the New Hants Trail.
41:26
Speaker 1: Excepting a few daringly steep spots, you can ride all
41:31
Speaker 1: the way to the river, where there is a good
41:33
Speaker 1: spacious campground in a mesquite grove. This trail, built by
41:39
Speaker 1: Brave Hants, begins on the highest part of the rim,
41:43
Speaker 1: eight thousand feet above the sea, a thousand feet higher
41:48
Speaker 1: than the head of Bright Angel Trail, and the descent
41:51
Speaker 1: is a little over six thousand feet through a wonderful
41:55
Speaker 1: variety of climate and life, often late in the fall,
42:00
Speaker 1: when frosty winds are blowing and snow is flying. At
42:04
Speaker 1: one end of the trail tender plants they are blooming
42:07
Speaker 1: in balmy summer weather at the other. The trip down
42:12
Speaker 1: and up can be made afoot easily in a day.
42:16
Speaker 1: In this way one is free to observe the scenery
42:19
Speaker 1: and vegetation instead of merely clinging to his animal and
42:24
Speaker 1: watching its steps. But all who have time should go
42:29
Speaker 1: prepared to camp awhile on the river bank to rest
42:33
Speaker 1: and learn something about the plants and animals, and the
42:37
Speaker 1: mighty flood roaring past in cool, shady amphitheaters. At the
42:42
Speaker 1: head of the trail there are groves of white silver
42:46
Speaker 1: fir and douglas spruce, with ferns and saxifrages that recall
42:51
Speaker 1: snowy mountains. Below these yellow pine, nut, pine, juniper, hop, hornbeam, ash, maple,
43:00
Speaker 1: holly leaved, barbarous Cauania, spyreea, dwarf oak, and other small
43:06
Speaker 1: shrubs and trees. In dry gulches and ontaluses and sun
43:11
Speaker 1: beaten crags are sparsely scattered yuccas, cactuses, agave, et cetera.
43:17
Speaker 1: Where springs gush from the rocks. There are willow thickets,
43:22
Speaker 1: grassy flats and bright flowery gardens, and in the hottest
43:27
Speaker 1: recesses the delicate abronia, mesquite, woody, composite and arborescent cactuses.
43:34
Speaker 1: The most striking and characteristic part of this widely varied
43:39
Speaker 1: vegetation are the cactacesy strange, leafless, old fashioned plants with
43:44
Speaker 1: beautiful flowers and fruit in every way able and admirable.
43:50
Speaker 1: While grimly defending themselves with innumerable barbed spears, They offer
43:55
Speaker 1: both food and drink to man and beasts. Their juicy
44:00
Speaker 1: globes and disks and fluted cylindrical columns are almost the
44:04
Speaker 1: only desert wells that never go dry. And they always
44:08
Speaker 1: seem to rejoice the more, and grow plumper and juicier,
44:12
Speaker 1: the hotter the sunshine and sand. Some are spherical, like
44:18
Speaker 1: rolled up porcupines, crouching in rock hollows beneath a mist
44:23
Speaker 1: of gray lances, unmoved by the wildest winds. Others standing
44:29
Speaker 1: as erect as bushes in trees, or tall branchless pillars
44:34
Speaker 1: crowned with magnificent flowers. Their prickly armor sparkling look boldly
44:40
Speaker 1: abroad over the glaring desert, making the strangest forests ever
44:45
Speaker 1: seen or dreamed of. Serious giganteus. The grim chief of
44:50
Speaker 1: the desert tribe is often thirty or forty feet high.
44:54
Speaker 1: In southern Arizona, several species of tree yuccas in the
44:57
Speaker 1: same deserts laid in an early spring with superb white lilies,
45:02
Speaker 1: formed forests hardly less wonderful, though here they grow singly
45:07
Speaker 1: or in small, lonely groves. The low, almost stemless Yucabacata,
45:13
Speaker 1: with beautiful lily flowers and sweet banana like fruit, prized
45:19
Speaker 1: by the Indians, is common along the canyon rim growing
45:23
Speaker 1: on lean, rocky soil beneath mountain. Mahogany nut pines and junipers,
45:30
Speaker 1: beside dense flowery mats of Spyria caspitosa and the beautiful
45:35
Speaker 1: pinnate leaves by Ria millifolium. The nut pine Pinus edulus,
45:41
Speaker 1: scattered along the upper slopes and roofs of the canyon buildings,
45:46
Speaker 1: is the principal tree of the strange dwarf Cocanini forest.
45:50
Speaker 1: It is a picturesque stub of a pine, about twenty
45:54
Speaker 1: five feet high, usually with dead lichened limbs thrust through
45:58
Speaker 1: its rounded head, and grows on crags and fissured rock tables,
46:03
Speaker 1: braving heat and frost, snow and drought, and continues patiently,
46:09
Speaker 1: faithfully fruitful for centuries. Indians and insects, and almost every
46:15
Speaker 1: desert bird and beast come to it to be fed.
46:19
Speaker 1: To civilize people from corn and cattle and wheat field countries.
46:24
Speaker 1: The canyon at first sight seems as uninhabitable as a
46:28
Speaker 1: glacier crevass, utterly silent and barren. Nevertheless, it is the
46:34
Speaker 1: home of a multitude of our fellow mortals men, as
46:39
Speaker 1: well as animals and plants. Centuries ago, it was inhabited
46:43
Speaker 1: by tribes of Indians who, long before Columbus saw America
46:49
Speaker 1: built thousands of stone houses in its crags and large ones,
46:55
Speaker 1: some of them several stories high with hundreds of rooms.
46:59
Speaker 1: On the maize of the adjacent regions. Their cliff dwellings,
47:04
Speaker 1: almost numberless, are still to be seen in the canyon,
47:08
Speaker 1: scattered along both sides, from top to bottom and throughout
47:13
Speaker 1: its entire length, built of stone and mortar, in seams
47:18
Speaker 1: and fissures like swallows nests, or on isolated ridges and peaks.
47:25
Speaker 1: The ruins of larger buildings are found on open spots
47:28
Speaker 1: by the river, but most of them aloft on the
47:32
Speaker 1: brink of the wildest, giddiest precipices, sites evidently chosen for
47:39
Speaker 1: safety from enemies and seemingly accessible only to the birds
47:44
Speaker 1: of the air. Many caves were also used as dwelling places,
47:49
Speaker 1: as were mere seams on cliff fronts, formed by unequal
47:53
Speaker 1: weathering and with or without outer or side walls, and
47:59
Speaker 1: some some of them were covered with colored pictures of animals.
48:03
Speaker 1: The most interesting of these cliff dwellings had pathetic, little
48:07
Speaker 1: ribbon like strips of garden on narrow terraces, where irrigating
48:12
Speaker 1: water could be carried to them. Most romantic of sky
48:17
Speaker 1: gardens but eloquent of hard times. In recesses along the
48:23
Speaker 1: river and on the first plateau flats above its gorge,
48:27
Speaker 1: were fields and gardens of considerable size, where irrigating ditches
48:32
Speaker 1: may still be traced. Some of these ancient gardens are
48:36
Speaker 1: still cultivated by Indians, descendants of cliff dwellers, who raise corn, squashes, melons, potatoes, etc.
48:45
Speaker 1: To reinforce the produce of the many wild food furnishing plants, nuts, beans, berries,
48:52
Speaker 1: yucca and cactus fruits, grass and sunflower seeds, et cetera,
48:57
Speaker 1: and the flesh of animals deer, rabbits, lizards, et cetera.
49:02
Speaker 1: The canyon Indians I have met here seem to be
49:06
Speaker 1: living much as did their ancestors, though not now driven
49:11
Speaker 1: into rock dens. They are able, erect men with commanding
49:16
Speaker 1: eyes which nothing that they wish to see can escape.
49:21
Speaker 1: They are never in a hurry, have a strikingly measured, deliberate,
49:25
Speaker 1: bearish manner of moving the limbs and turning the head,
49:28
Speaker 1: are capable of enduring weather, thirst, hunger, and over abundance,
49:34
Speaker 1: and are blessed with stomachs which triumph over everything the
49:38
Speaker 1: wilderness may offer. Evidently, their lives are not bitter. The
49:45
Speaker 1: largest of the canyon animals one is likely to see
49:48
Speaker 1: is the wild sheep or rocky mountain big horn, a
49:52
Speaker 1: most admirable beast with limbs that never fail at home
49:58
Speaker 1: on the most nerve trying press scipices, acquainted with all
50:02
Speaker 1: the springs and passes, and broken down jumpable places in
50:06
Speaker 1: the sheer ribbon cliffs, bounding from crag to crag in
50:11
Speaker 1: easy grace and confidence of strength, his great horns held
50:16
Speaker 1: high above his shoulders, wild red blood beating and hissing
50:20
Speaker 1: through every fiber of him, like the wind through a
50:24
Speaker 1: quivering mountain. Pine deer also are occasionally met in the canyon,
50:30
Speaker 1: making their way to the river. When the wells of
50:32
Speaker 1: the plateau are dry. Along the short spring streams, fevers
50:38
Speaker 1: are still busy, as is shown by the cottonwood and
50:41
Speaker 1: willow timber they have caught and peeled found in all
50:45
Speaker 1: the river drift heaps. In the most barren cliffs and gulches,
50:50
Speaker 1: there dwell a multitude of lesser animals, well dressed, clear eyed,
50:55
Speaker 1: happy little beasts, wood rats, kangaroo rats, gophers, wood mice, skunks, rabbits, bobcats,
51:03
Speaker 1: and many others, gathering food or dozing in their sun
51:08
Speaker 1: warmed dens. Lizards too, of every kind and color are here,
51:13
Speaker 1: enjoying life on the hot cliffs and making the brightest
51:17
Speaker 1: of them brighter. Nor is there any lack of feathered people.
51:22
Speaker 1: The golden eagle may be seen, and the offspry hawks, jays,
51:27
Speaker 1: humming birds, the mourning dove, and cheery familiar singers, the
51:32
Speaker 1: black headed grosbie, robin bluebird, Townsend's thrush, and many warblers
51:39
Speaker 1: sailing the sky and enlivening the rocks and bushes through
51:44
Speaker 1: all the Canyon wilderness. Here at Hans's River Camp, or
51:49
Speaker 1: a few miles above it, Brave Powell and his brave
51:53
Speaker 1: men passed their first night in the canyon on their
51:56
Speaker 1: adventurous voyage of discovery thirty three years ago. They faced
52:01
Speaker 1: a thousand dangers open or hidden. Now in their boats
52:06
Speaker 1: gladly sliding down swift smooth reaches now rolled over and
52:12
Speaker 1: over in backcombing surges of rough, roaring cataracts sucked under
52:17
Speaker 1: and eddies swimming like beavers, tossed and beaten like castaway driff, stout, hearted,
52:24
Speaker 1: undaunted doing their work through it all. After a month
52:29
Speaker 1: of this, they floated smoothly out of the dark, gloomy,
52:33
Speaker 1: roaring abyss into light and safety two hundred miles below.
52:39
Speaker 1: As the flood rushes past us, heavy laden with desert mud,
52:44
Speaker 1: we naturally think of its sources, its countless silvery branches
52:49
Speaker 1: outspread on thousands of snowy mountains along the crest of
52:54
Speaker 1: the continent, and the life of them, the beauty of them,
52:58
Speaker 1: their history and romance. Its topmost springs are far north
53:05
Speaker 1: and east in Wyoming and Colorado, on the snowy Wind
53:09
Speaker 1: River front Park and Sawitch Ranges dividing the two ocean
53:14
Speaker 1: waters and the elk wassach Uina and innumerable spurs streaked
53:20
Speaker 1: with streams made famous by early explorers and hunters. It
53:26
Speaker 1: is a river of rivers, the Duchene, San Rafel, Yampa, Dolores, Gunnison, Cochetopa, Uncompagre,
53:35
Speaker 1: Eagle and roaring rivers, the Green and the Grand, and
53:40
Speaker 1: scores of others, with branches innumerable, as mad and glad,
53:45
Speaker 1: a band as ever sang on mountains descending in glory
53:50
Speaker 1: of foam and spray from snow banks and glaciers through
53:54
Speaker 1: their rocky moraine, damned beaver dammed channels, then all in
54:00
Speaker 1: merging from dark balsam and pine woods, and coming together
54:04
Speaker 1: they meander through wide sunny park valleys and at length
54:09
Speaker 1: enter the Great Plateau and flow in deep canyons, the
54:14
Speaker 1: beginning of the system culminating in this Grand Canyon of canyons.
54:20
Speaker 1: Our Warm Canyon Camp is also a good place to
54:24
Speaker 1: give a thought to the glaciers which still exist at
54:27
Speaker 1: the heads of the highest tributaries. Some of them are
54:31
Speaker 1: of considerable size, especially those on the Wind River and
54:36
Speaker 1: saw Witch Ranges in Wyoming and Colorado. They are remnants
54:40
Speaker 1: of a vast system of glaciers which recently covered the
54:45
Speaker 1: upper part of the Colorado basin, sculptured its peaks, ridges
54:49
Speaker 1: and valleys to their present forms, and extended far out
54:54
Speaker 1: over the plateau region. How far I cannot now say
54:58
Speaker 1: it appears therefore, or that, however old the main trunk
55:03
Speaker 1: of the Colorado may be, all its widespread upper branches
55:08
Speaker 1: and the landscapes they flow through are new born, scarce
55:13
Speaker 1: at all changed as yet in any important feature since
55:17
Speaker 1: they first came to light at the close of the
55:20
Speaker 1: glacial period. The so called Grand Colorado Plateau, of which
55:25
Speaker 1: the Grand Canyon is only one of its well proportioned features,
55:29
Speaker 1: extends with a breadth of hundreds of miles from the
55:33
Speaker 1: flanks of the Wasatch and Park Mountains to the south
55:37
Speaker 1: of the San Francisco Peaks. Immediately to the north of
55:41
Speaker 1: the deepest part of the canyon, it rises in a
55:44
Speaker 1: series of subordinate plateaus, diversified with green meadows, marshes, bogs, ponds,
55:51
Speaker 1: forest and Grovy Park valleys, a favorite Indian hunting ground
55:57
Speaker 1: inhabited by elk, deer, beaver, et cetera. But far the
56:02
Speaker 1: greater part of the plateau is good sound desert, rocky,
56:07
Speaker 1: sandy or fluffy with loose ashes and dust, dissected in
56:12
Speaker 1: some places into a labyrinth of stream channeled chasms like
56:17
Speaker 1: cracks in a dry clay bed, or the narrow slit
56:21
Speaker 1: crevasses of glaciers, blackened with lava flows, dotted with volcanoes
56:26
Speaker 1: and beautiful buttes, and lined with long continuous escarpments of
56:32
Speaker 1: vast bed of sediments of an ancient sea bottom, still
56:36
Speaker 1: nearly as level as when first laid down after being
56:40
Speaker 1: heaved into the sky a mile or two high. Walking
56:45
Speaker 1: quietly about in the alleys and byways of the Grand
56:49
Speaker 1: Canyon City, we learned something of the way it was made,
56:53
Speaker 1: and all must admire effects so great from means apparently
56:59
Speaker 1: so rains striking, light, hammer blows or heavier in streams
57:06
Speaker 1: with many rest Sundays, soft air and light gentle sappers
57:12
Speaker 1: and miners toiling forever, the big river sawing the plateau asunder,
57:17
Speaker 1: carrying away the eroded and ground waste, and exposing the
57:22
Speaker 1: edges of the strata to the weather, rain torrents sawing
57:26
Speaker 1: cross streets and alleys, exposing the strata in the same
57:31
Speaker 1: way in hundreds of sections, the softer, less resisting beds
57:36
Speaker 1: weathering and receding faster, thus undermining the harder beds, which
57:42
Speaker 1: falled not only in small weathered particles, but in heavy
57:47
Speaker 1: sheer cleaving masses, assisted down from time to time by
57:51
Speaker 1: kindly earthquakes, rain torrents, rushing the fallen material to the river,
57:57
Speaker 1: keeping the wall rocks constantly exposed. Thus the canyon grows
58:03
Speaker 1: wider and deeper, So also do the side canyons and amphitheaters,
58:08
Speaker 1: while secondary gorges and cirques gradually isolate masses of the
58:13
Speaker 1: promontories forming new buildings, all of which are being weathered
58:18
Speaker 1: and pulled and shaken down while being built. Showing destruction
58:23
Speaker 1: and creation as one. We see the proudest temples and
58:28
Speaker 1: palaces in stateliest attitudes, wearing their sheets of detritus as
58:34
Speaker 1: royal robes, shedding off showers of red and yellow stones,
58:39
Speaker 1: like trees in autumn, shedding their leaves going to dust,
58:44
Speaker 1: like beautiful days to night, proclaiming, as with the tongues
58:49
Speaker 1: of angels, the natural beauty of death. Every building is
58:55
Speaker 1: seen to be a remnant of once continuous beds of sediments,
59:00
Speaker 1: sand and slime on the floor of an ancient sea,
59:04
Speaker 1: and filled with the remains of animals. And that every
59:08
Speaker 1: particle of the sandstones and limestones of these wonderful structures
59:14
Speaker 1: was derived from other landscapes, weathered and rolled and ground
59:19
Speaker 1: in the storms and streams of other ages. And when
59:24
Speaker 1: we examine the escarpments, hills, buttes, and other monumental masses
59:29
Speaker 1: of the plateau on either side of the canyon, we
59:33
Speaker 1: discover that an amount of material has been carried off
59:37
Speaker 1: in the general denudation of the region, compared with which
59:41
Speaker 1: even that carried away in the making of the Grand
59:45
Speaker 1: Canyon is as nothing. Thus, each wonder in sight becomes
59:51
Speaker 1: a window through which other wonders come to view. In
59:55
Speaker 1: no other part of the continent are the wonders of geology,
59:59
Speaker 1: the record of the world's odd lungzine more widely open
1:00:04
Speaker 1: or displayed in higher piles. The whole canyon is a
1:00:09
Speaker 1: mine of fossils in which five thousand feet of horizontal
1:00:14
Speaker 1: strata are exposed in regular succession over more than a
1:00:19
Speaker 1: thousand square miles of wall space. And on the adjacent
1:00:23
Speaker 1: plateau region there is another series of beds twice as thick,
1:00:28
Speaker 1: forming a grand geological library, a collection of stone books
1:00:34
Speaker 1: covering thousands of miles of shelving, tier on tier, conveniently
1:00:40
Speaker 1: arranged for the student, and with what wonderful scriptures are
1:00:45
Speaker 1: their pages filled myriad forms of successive floras and faunas,
1:00:52
Speaker 1: lavishly illustrated with colored drawings, carrying us back into the
1:00:58
Speaker 1: midst of the life of a pass infinitely remote. And
1:01:02
Speaker 1: as we go on and on studying this old old
1:01:08
Speaker 1: life in the light of the life beating warmly about us,
1:01:13
Speaker 1: we enrich and lengthen our own. End of the Grand
1:01:20
Speaker 1: Canyon of the Colorado by John Muir read by Rebecca
1:01:26
Speaker 1: eden Walker