illustrations of this chapter and at any photographs which may be at
hand, and realization will begin. Let imagination dart back a million
years or more to the time when this foreground rim and that far run
across the vast chasm are one continuous plain; perhaps it is a pine
forest, with the river, no greater than to-day, perhaps not so great,
winding through it close to the surface level. As the river cuts
downward, the spring floods following the winter snows cave in its banks
here and there, forming sharply slanted valleys which enclose
promontories between them. Spring succeeds spring, and these side
valleys deepen and eat backward while the promontories lengthen and
grow. The harder strata resist the disintegration of alternate heat and
cold, and, while always receding, hold their form as cliffs; the softer
strata between the cliffs crumbles and the waste of spring waters
spreads them out in long flattened slopes. The centuries pass. The ruin
buries itself deep in the soft sandstone. The side valleys work miles
back into the pine forest. Each valley acquires its own system of
erosion; into each, from either side, enter smaller valleys which
themselves are eating backward into the promontories.
The great valley of the Colorado now has broad converging cliff-broken
sides. Here and there these indentations meet far in the background
behind the promontories, isolating island-like mesas.
The rest of the story is simple repetition. Imagine enough thousands of
centuries and you will imagine the Grand Canyon. Those myriad temples
and castles and barbaric shrines are all that the rains and melting
snows have left of noble mesas, some of which, when originally isolated,
enclosed, as the marble encloses the future statue, scores of the lesser
but mighty structures which compose the wonder city of the depths.
These architectural operations of Nature may be seen to-day in midway
stages. Find on the map the Powell Plateau in the northwest of the
canyon. Once it was continuous with the rim, a noble promontory. It was
cut out from the rim perhaps within the existence of the human race. A
few hundred thousand years from now it will be one or more Aladdin
palaces.
Find on the map the great Walhalla Plateau in the east of the canyon.
Note that its base is nearly separated from the parental rim; a thousand
centuries or so and its isolation will be complete. Not long after that,
as geologists reckon length of time, it will divide into two plateaus;
it is easy to pick the place of division. The tourist of a million years
hence will see, where now it stands, a hundred glowing castles.
Let us look again at our photographs, which now we can see with
understanding. To realize the spectacle of the canyon, let imagination
paint these strata their brilliant colors. It will not be difficult; but
here again we must understand.
It is well to recall that these strata were laid in the sea, and that
they hardened into stone when the earth's skin was pushed thousands of
feet in air. Originally they were the washings of distant highlands
brought down by rivers; the coloring of the shales and sandstones is
that of the parent rock modified, no doubt, by chemical action in
sea-water. The limestone, product of the sea, is gray.
As these differently colored strata were once continuous across the
canyon, it follows that their sequence is practically identical on both
sides of the canyon. That the colors seem confused is because, viewing
the spectacle from an elevation, we see the enormous indentations of the
opposite rim in broken and disorganized perspective. Few minds are
patient and orderly enough to fully disentangle the kaleidoscopic
disarray, but, if we can identify the strata by form as well as color,
we can at least comprehend without trouble our principal outline; and
comprehension is the broad highway to appreciation.
To identify these strata, it is necessary to call them by name. The
names that geologists have assigned them have no scientific significance
other than identity; they are Indian and local.
Beginning at the canyon rim we have a stalwart cliff of gray limestone
known as the Kaibab Limestone, or, conversationally, the Kaibab; it is
about seven hundred feet thick. Of this product of a million years of
microscopic life and death on sea-bottoms is formed the splendid
south-rim cliffs from which we view the chasm. Across the canyon it is
always recognizable as the rim.
Below the talus of the Kaibab is the Coconino sandstone, light
yellowish-gray, coarse of grain, the product of swift currents of untold
thousands of centuries ago. This stratum makes a fine bright cliff
usually about four hundred feet in thickness, an effective roofing for
the glowing reds of the depths.
Immediately below the Coconino are the splendid red shales and
sandstones known as the Supai formation. These lie in many strata of
varying shades, qualities, and thicknesses, but all, seen across the
canyon, merging into a single enormous horizontal body of gorgeous red.
The Supai measures eleven hundred feet in perpendicular thickness, but
as it is usually seen in slopes which sometimes are long and gentle, it
presents to the eye a surface several times as broad. This is the most
prominent single mass of color in the canyon, for not only does it form
the broadest feature of the opposite wall and of the enormous
promontories which jut therefrom, but the main bodies of Buddha,
Zoroaster, and many others of the fantastic temples which rise from the
floor.
Below the Supai, a perpendicular wall of intense red five hundred feet
high forces its personality upon every foot of the canyon's vast length.
This is the famous Redwall, a gray limestone stained crimson with the
drip of Supai dye from above. Harder than the sloping sandstone above
and the shale below, it pushes aggressively into the picture, squared,
perpendicular, glowing. It winds in and out of every bay and gulf, and
fronts precipitously every flaring promontory. It roofs with overhanging
eaves many a noble palace and turns many a towering monument into a
pagoda.
Next below in series is the Tonto, a deep, broad, shallow slant of
dull-green and yellow shale, which, with the thin broad sandstone base
on which it rests, forms the floor of the outer canyon, the tessellated
pavement of the city of flame. Without the Tonto's green the spectacle
of the Grand Canyon would have missed its contrast and its fulness.
Through this floor the Granite Gorge winds its serpentine way, two
thousand feet deep, dark with shadows, shining in places where the
river swings in view.
These are the series of form and color. They occur with great regularity
except in several spots deep in the canyon where small patches of
gleaming quartzites and brilliant red shales show against the dark
granite; the largest of these lies in the depths directly opposite El
Tovar. These rocks are all that one sees of ancient Algonkian strata
which once overlay the granite to a depth of thirteen thousand
feet--more than twice the present total depth of the canyon. The erosion
of many thousands of centuries wore them away before the rocks that now
compose the floor, the temples and the precipiced walls of the great
canyon were even deposited in the sea as sand and limestone ooze, a fact
that strikingly emphasizes the enormous age of this exhibit. Geologists
speak of these splashes of Algonkian rocks as the Unkar group, another
local Indian designation. There is also a similar Chuar group, which
need not concern any except those who make a close study of the canyon.
This is the picture. The imagination may realize a fleet, vivid
impression from the photograph. The visitor upon the rim, outline in
hand, may trace its twisting elements in a few moments of attentive
observation, and thereafter enjoy his canyon as one only enjoys a new
city when he has mastered its scheme and spirit, and can mentally
classify its details as they pass before him.
To one thus prepared, the Grand Canyon ceases to be the brew-pot of
chaotic emotion and becomes the orderly revelation of Nature, the master
craftsman and the divine artist.
III
Entrance is from the south. The motor-road to Grand View is available
for most of the year. The railroad to the El Tovar Hotel serves the year
around, for the Grand Canyon is an all-year resort. There is a short
winter of heavy snows on the rim, but not in the canyon, which may be
descended at all seasons. Both routes terminate on the rim. Always
dramatic, the Grand Canyon welcomes the pilgrim in the full panoply of
its appalling glory. There is no waiting in the anteroom, no sounding of
trumpets, no ceremony of presentation. He stands at once in the
presence.
Most visitors have bought tickets at home which permit only one day's
stay. The irrecoverable sensation of the first view is broken by the
necessity for an immediate decision upon how to spend that day, for if
one is to descend horseback to the river he must engage his place and
don his riding-clothes at once. Under this stress the majority elect to
remain on the rim for reasons wholly apart from any question of
respective merit.
[Illustration: _From a photograph copyright by Fred Harvey_
SUNSET FROM GRAND VIEW, GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK
All the strata from the rim to the river may be seen in this picture]
After all, if only one day is possible, it is the wise decision. With
the rim road, over which various drives are scheduled, and several
commanding points to whose precipices one may walk, it will be a day to
remember for a lifetime. One should not attempt too much in this one
day. It is enough to sit in the presence of the spectacle. Fortunate is
he who may stay another day and descend the trail into the streets of
this vast city; many times fortunate he who may live a little amid its
glories.
Because of this general habit of "seeing" the Grand Canyon between
sunrise and sunset, the admirable hotel accommodations are not
extensive, but sufficient. There are cottage accommodations also at
cheaper rates. Hotels and cottages are well patronized summer and
winter. Upon the rim are unique rest-houses, in one of which is a
high-power telescope. There is a memorial altar to John Wesley Powell,
the first explorer of the canyon. There is an excellent reproduction of
a Hopi house. There is an Indian camp. The day's wanderer upon the rim
will not lack entertainment when his eyes turn for rest from the chasm.
From the hotel, coaches make regular trips daily to various viewpoints.
Hopi Point, Mohave Point, Yavapai Point, and Grandeur Point may all be
visited; the run of eight miles along the famous Hermit Rim Road permits
brief stops at Hopi, Mohave, and Pima Points. Automobiles also make
regular runs to the gorgeous spectacle from Grand View. Still more
distant points may be made in private or hired cars. Navajo Point offers
unequalled views up and down the full length of the canyon, and an
automobile-road will bring the visitor within easy reach of Bass Camp
near Havasupai Point in the far west of the reservation.
Many one-day visitors take none of these stage and automobile trips,
contented to dream the hours away upon Yavapai or Hopi Points near by.
After all, it is just as well. A single viewpoint cannot be mastered in
one's first day, so what's the use of others? On the other hand, seeing
the same view from different viewpoints miles apart will enrich and
elaborate it. Besides, one should see many views in order to acquire
some conception, however small, of the intricacy and grandeur of the
canyon. Besides, these trips help to rest the eyes and mind. It is hard
indeed to advise the unlucky one-day visitor. It is as if a dyspeptic
should lead you to an elaborate banquet of a dozen courses, and say: "I
have permission to eat three bites. Please help me choose them."
Wherever he stands upon the rim the appalling silence hushes the voice
to whispers. No cathedral imposes stillness so complete. It is sacrilege
to speak, almost to move. And yet the Grand Canyon is a moving picture.
It changes every moment. Always shadows are disappearing here, appearing
there; shortening here, lengthening there. With every passing hour it
becomes a different thing. It is a sun-dial of monumental size.
In the early morning the light streams down the canyon from the east.
Certain promontories shoot miles into the picture, gleaming in vivid
color, backed by dark shadows. Certain palaces and temples stand in
magnificent relief. The inner gorge is brilliantly outlined in certain
places. As the day advances these prominences shift positions; some
fade; some disappear; still others spring into view.
As midday approaches the shadows fade; the promontories flatten; the
towering edifices move bodily backward and merge themselves in the
opposite rim. There is a period of several hours when the whole canyon
has become a solid wall; strata fail to match; eye and mind become
confused; comprehension is baffled by the tangle of disconnected bands
of color; the watcher is distressed by an oppressive sense of
helplessness.
It is when afternoon is well advanced that the magician sun begins his
most astonishing miracles in the canyon's depths. Out from the blazing
wall, one by one, step the mighty obelisks and palaces, defined by
ever-changing shadows. Unsuspected promontories emerge, undreamed-of
gulfs sink back in the perspective. The serpentine gorge appears here,
fades there, seems almost to move in the slow-changing shadows. I shall
not try even to suggest the soul-uplifting spectacle which culminates in
sunset.
Days may be spent upon the rim in many forms of pleasure; short camping
trips may be made to distant points.
The descent into the canyon is usually made from El Tovar down the
Bright Angel Trail, so called because it faces the splendid Bright Angel
Canyon of the north side, and by the newer Hermit Trail which starts a
few miles west. There are trails at Grand View, eight miles east, and at
Bass Camp, twenty-four miles west of El Tovar, which are seldom used
now. All go to the bottom of the Granite Gorge. The commonly used trails
may be travelled afoot by those physically able, and on mule-back by any
person of any age who enjoys ordinary health. The Bright Angel trip
returns the traveller to the rim at day's end. The Hermit Trail trip
camps him overnight on the floor of the canyon at the base of a magic
temple. The finest trip of all takes him down the Hermit Trail, gives
him a night in the depths, and returns him to the rim by the Bright
Angel Trail. Powell named Bright Angel Creek during that memorable first
passage through the Canyon. He had just named a muddy creek Dirty Devil,
which suggested, by contrast, the name of Bright Angel for a stream so
pure and sparkling.
The Havasupai Indian reservation may be visited in the depths of
Cataract Canyon by following the trail from Bass Camp.
The first experience usually noted in the descent is the fine quality of
the trail, gentle in slope and bordered by rock on the steep side. The
next experience is the disappearance of the straight uncompromising
horizon of the opposite rim, which is a distinctive feature of every
view from above. As soon as the descent fairly begins, even the smaller
bluffs and promontories assume towering proportions, and, from the Tonto
floor, the mighty elevations of Cheops, Isis, Zoroaster, Shiva, Wotan,
and the countless other temples of the abyss become mountains of
enormous height.
[Illustration: _From a photograph copyright by Fred Harvey_
CAMPING PARTY ON THE SOUTH RIM
This is within a few hundred feet of the Grand Canyon abyss]
[Illustration: _From a photograph copyright by Fred Harvey_
DOWN HERMIT TRAIL FROM RIM TO RIVER
Grand Canyon National Park]
From the river's side the elevations of the Granite Gorge present a new
series of precipitous towers, back of which in places loom the tops of
the painted palaces, and back of them, from occasional favored
view-spots, the far-distant rim. Here, and here only, does the Grand
Canyon reveal the fulness of its meaning.
IV
The Grand Canyon was discovered in 1540 by El Tovar, one of the captains
of Cardenas, in charge of one of the expeditions of the Spanish
explorer, Diaz, who was hunting for seven fabled cities of vast wealth.
"They reached the banks of a river which seemed to be more than three or
four leagues above the stream that flowed between them." It was seen in
1776 by a Spanish priest who sought a crossing and found one at a point
far above the canyon; this still bears the name Vado de los Padres.
By 1840 it was probably known to the trappers who overran the country.
In 1850 Lieutenant Whipple, surveying for a Pacific route, explored the
Black Canyon and ascended the Grand Canyon to Diamond Creek.
In 1857 Lieutenant Ives, sent by the War Department to test the
navigability of the Colorado, ascended as far as the Virgin River in a
steamboat which he had shipped in pieces from Philadelphia. From there
he entered the Grand Canyon afoot, climbed to the rim, and, making a
detour, encountered the river again higher up. In 1867 James White was
picked up below the Virgin River lashed to floating logs. He said that
his hunting-party near the head of the Colorado River, attacked by
Indians, had escaped upon a raft. This presently broke up in the rapids
and his companions were lost. He lashed himself to the wreckage and was
washed through the Grand Canyon.
About this time Major John Wesley Powell, a school-teacher who had lost
an arm in the Civil War, determined to explore the great canyons of the
Green and Colorado Rivers. Besides the immense benefit to science, the
expedition promised a great adventure. Many lives had been lost in these
canyons and wonderful were the tales told concerning them. Indians
reported that huge cataracts were hidden in their depths and that in one
place the river swept through an underground passage.
Nevertheless, with the financial backing of the State institutions of
Illinois and the Chicago Academy of Science, Powell got together a party
of ten men with four open boats, provisions for ten months, and all
necessary scientific instruments. He started above the canyons of the
Green River on May 24, 1869.
There are many canyons on the Green and Colorado Rivers. They vary in
length from eight to a hundred and fifty miles, with walls successively
rising from thirteen hundred to thirty-five hundred feet in height. The
climax of all, the Grand Canyon, is two hundred and seventeen miles
long, with walls six thousand feet in height.
[Illustration: _From a photograph by A.J. Baker_
THROUGH THE GRANITE GORGE SURGES THE MUDDY COLORADO]
[Illustration: _From a photograph by Fred Harvey_
WHEN MORNING MISTS LIFT FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE GRAND CANYON]
On August 17, when Powell and his adventurers reached the Grand Canyon,
their rations had been reduced by upsets and other accidents to enough
musty flour for ten days, plenty of coffee, and a few dried apples. The
bacon had spoiled. Most of the scientific instruments were in the bottom
of the river. One boat was destroyed. The men were wet to the skin and
unable to make a fire. In this plight they entered the Grand Canyon,
somewhere in whose depths a great cataract had been reported.
The story of the passage is too long to tell here. Chilled, hungry, and
worn, they struggled through it. Often they were obliged to let their
boats down steep rapids by ropes, and clamber after them along the
slippery precipices. Often there was nothing to do but to climb into
their boats and run down long foaming slants around the corners of which
death, perhaps, awaited. Many times they were upset and barely escaped
with their lives. With no wraps or clothing that were not soaked with
water, there were nights when they could not sleep for the cold.
So the days passed and the food lessened to a few handfuls of wet flour.
The dangers increased; some falls were twenty feet in height. Finally
three of the men determined to desert; they believed they could climb
the walls and that their chances would be better with the Indians than
with the canyon. Powell endeavored to dissuade them, but they were firm.
He offered to divide his flour with them, but this they refused.
These men, two Howlands, brothers, and William Dunn, climbed the canyon
walls and were killed by Indians. Two or three days later Powell and the
rest of his party emerged below the Grand Canyon, where they found food
and safety.
Taught by the experience of this great adventure, Powell made a second
trip two years later which was a scientific achievement. Later on he
became Director of the United States Geological Survey.
Since then, the passage of the Grand Canyon has been made several times.
R.B. Stanton made it in 1889 in the course of a survey for a proposed
railroad through the canyon; one of the leaders of the party was
drowned.
V
The history of the Grand Canyon has been industriously collected. It
remains for others to gather the legends. It is enough here to quote
from Powell the Indian story of its origin.
"Long ago," he writes, "there was a great and wise chief who mourned the
death of his wife, and would not be comforted until Tavwoats, one of the
Indian gods, came to him and told him his wife was in a happier land,
and offered to take him there that he might see for himself, if, upon
his return, he would cease to mourn. The great chief promised. Then
Tavwoats made a trail through the mountains that intervene between that
beautiful land, the balmy region of the great West, and this, the desert
home of the poor Numa. This trail was the canyon gorge of the Colorado.
Through it he led him; and when they had returned the deity exacted from
the chief a promise that he would tell no one of the trail. Then he
rolled a river into the gorge, a mad, raging stream, that should engulf
any that might attempt to enter thereby."
VI
The bill creating the Grand Canyon National Park passed Congress early
in 1919, and was signed by President Wilson on February 26. This closed
an intermittent campaign of thirty-three years, begun by President
Harrison, then senator from Indiana, in January, 1886, to make a
national park of the most stupendous natural spectacle in the world.
Politics, private interests, and the deliberation of governmental
procedure were the causes of delay. A self-evident proposition from the
beginning, it illustrates the enormous difficulties which confront those
who labor to develop our national-parks system. The story is worth the
telling.
Senator Harrison's bill of 1886 met an instant response from the whole
nation. It called for a national park fifty-six miles long and
sixty-nine miles wide. There was opposition from Arizona and the bill
failed. In 1893 the Grand Canyon National Forest was created. In 1898,
depredations and unlawful seizures of land having been reported, the
Secretary of the Interior directed the Land-Office to prepare a new
national-park bill. In 1899 the Land-Office reported that the bill could
not be drawn until the region was surveyed. It took the Geological
Survey five years to make the survey. The bill was not prepared because
meantime it was discovered that the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, now
the Santa Fe, owned rights which first must be eliminated.
Failing to become a national park, President Roosevelt proclaimed the
Grand Canyon a national monument in 1908. In 1909 a bill was introduced
entitling Ralph H. Cameron to build a scenic railway along the canyon
rim, which created much adverse criticism and failed. In 1910 the
American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society proposed a bill to
create the Grand Canyon a national park of large size. The Geological
Survey, to which it was referred, recommended a much smaller area. By
the direction of President Taft, Senator Flint introduced a
national-park bill which differed from both suggestions. The opposition
of grazing interests threw it into the hands of conferees. In 1911
Senator Flint introduced the conferees' bill, but it was opposed by
private interests and failed.
Meantime the country became aroused. Patriotic societies petitioned for
a national park, and the National Federation of Women's Clubs began an
agitation. The Department of the Interior prepared a map upon which to
base a bill, and for several years negotiated with the Forest Service,
which administered the Grand Canyon as a national monument, concerning
boundaries. Finally the boundaries were reduced to little more than the
actual rim of the canyon, and a bill was prepared which Senator Ashurst
introduced in February, 1917. It failed in committee in the House owing
to opposition from Arizona. It was the same bill, again introduced by
Senator Ashurst in the new Congress two months later, which finally
passed the House and became a law in 1919; but it required a favoring
resolution by the Arizona legislature to pave the way.