INTO THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH.
The Grand Cañon of the Colorado--Niagara Outdone--The Course of the
Colorado River--A Survey Party Through the Cañon--Experiences of a
Terrible Night--Wonderful Contrasts of Color in the Massive Rocks--A
Natural Wall a Thousand Feet High--Hieroglyphics which have Never been
Deciphered--Relics of a Superior Race--Conjecture as to the Origin of
the Ancient Bearded White Men.
We have already spoken of Niagara as one of the wonders of the world,
and one of the most sought-after beauty spots of America. We will now
devote a few pages to a description of a far more remarkable natural
wonder and to a phenomenon which, were it situated nearer the center of
population, would have long since outclassed even Niagara as a tourist's
Mecca.
Reference is made to the Grand Cañon of the Colorado.
Few people have the slightest conception of the magnitude or awfulness
of this cañon. It is clearly one of the wonders of the world, and its
vastness is such that to explore it from end to end is a work of the
greatest possible difficulty.
Even in area, the cañon is extraordinary. It is large enough to contain
more than one Old World country. It is long enough to stretch across
some of the largest States in the Union. Some of the smaller New England
States would be absolutely swallowed up in the yawning abyss could they,
by any means, be removed to it bodily. An express train running at a
high rate of speed, without a single stop and on a first-class road-bed,
could hardly get from one end of the cañon to the other in less than
five hours, and an ordinary train with the usual percentage of stoppage
would about make the distance between morning and evening.
Reduced to the record of cold figures, the Grand Cañon is made up of a
series of chasms measuring about 220 miles in length, as much as 12
miles in width, and frequently as much as 7,000 feet in depth.
This marvelous feature of American scenery is very fully described in
"Our Own Country," published by the National Publishing Company. In
describing the cañon, that profusely illustrated work says that the
figures quoted "do not readily strike a responsive chord in the human
mind, for the simple reason that they involve something utterly
different from anything that more than 99 per cent. of the inhabitants
of the world have ever seen. The man who gazes upon Niagara for the
first time, is astounded at the depth of the gorge as well as at the
force of the water; and he who has seen Niagara can appreciate somewhat
the marvels of the Grand Cañon, when he bears in mind that the great
wonder of the Western World is for miles at a stretch more than fifty
times as deep as the falls and the gorge, generally admitted to be the
most awful scenic grandeur within reach of the ordinary traveler. Nor is
this all. Visitors to Paris who have enjoyed a bird's-eye view of the
gay city from the summit of Eifel Tower, have felt terribly impressed
with its immense altitude, and have been astounded at the effect on the
appearance of living and inanimate objects so far below them. How many
of the Americans who have been thus impressed by French enterprise, have
realized that in their own country there is a natural gorge, at points
of which the distance between the summit and the base is more than five
times as great as the height of the Eifel Tower?"
The Colorado River rises in the Rocky Mountains, crosses the Territories
of Utah and Arizona, and then running between the last named and the
State of California, finally empties its waters into the gulf bearing
the name of the Golden State. For more than two hundred miles of its
course it runs through the gorge known as the Grand Cañon, and hence it
has been a very difficult river to explore. During the Sixteenth
Century, some of the Spanish explorers, to whom this country is indebted
so much for early records and descriptions, crossed the then undeveloped
deserts of the Southwest and discovered the Grand Cañon. Many of the
reports they made of the wonders of the New World read so much like
fairy tales, and seemed so obviously exaggerated, that little credence
was given to them. Hence it was that their estimates concerning the
gorge through which the Rio Colorado Grande flows were treated as
fables, and laughed at rather than believed.
Major Powell, than whom few men have done more to enlighten the world
concerning the wonders of the Far West, describes the cañon very aptly,
and speaks in a most attractive manner of the countless cañons and
caverns, whirlpools and eddies, brooklets and rivers, fords and
waterfalls, that abound on every side. In his first extended description
of the cañon, he stated that "every river entering it has cut another
cañon; every lateral creek has also cut another cañon; every brook runs
in a cañon; every rill born of a shower and living only in the showers,
has cut for itself a cañon; so that the whole upper portion of the basin
of the Colorado is traversed by a labyrinth of these deep gorges. About
the basin are mountains; within the basin are cañon gorges; the
stretches of land from brink to brink are of naked rock or of drifting
sands, with here and there lines of volcanic cones, and of black scoria
and ashes scattered about."
Of late years thousands of people have been attracted to this great
cañon, although but very few have succeeded in exploring its entire
length. Few, indeed, have been able to pass along the balcony of the
cañon, and to gaze up at the countless wonders of nature, piled one
above the other, apparently up to the very region of the clouds. The
common notion of a cañon, as Captain C. E. Dutton tells us, is that of a
deep, narrow gash in the earth, with nearly vertical walls, like a great
and neatly cut trench. There are hundreds of chasms in the plateau
country which answer very well to this notion. It is, however,
unfortunate that the stupendous passway for the Colorado River through
the Kaibabs was ever called a cañon, for the name identified it with the
baser conception. At places the distance across the chasm to the nearest
point on the summit of the opposite wall is about seven miles. A more
correct statement of the general width would be from eleven to twelve
miles. It is hence somewhat unfortunate that there is a prevalent idea,
in some way, that an essential part of the grandeur of the Grand Cañon
is the narrowness of its defile.
As Major Powell expresses it, there are rather a series of cañons, than
one huge one. Wherever the river has cut its way through the sandstones,
marbles and granites of the Kaibab Mountains, beautiful and
awe-inspiring pictures are seen, while above there are domes and peaks,
some of red sandstone and some of snowy whiteness. Cataract Cañon alone
is forty-one miles long, and has seventy-five cataracts and rapids, of
which fifty-seven are within a space of nineteen miles. A journey along
the bank of a river with a waterfall every twenty feet, on the average,
is no joke, and only the hardiest men have been able to accomplish it.
In the spring of 1889, the survey party of a projected railroad from
Grand Junction to the Gulf of California, made this journey, and from
its published description more actual information can be gleaned
concerning the cañon itself than almost any mere verbal description.
The surveyors had to carry with them, on their backs, for a great
portion of the way, the limited supplies of food they took with them,
because it was frequently impossible to get the boats along at all. When
the boats were used, several were upset, and everything was uncertainty
as to the bill of fare that would be presented at the next meal, even if
there was to be a meal at all. Mr. Frank M. Brown, president of the
railroad company, lost his life in one of the whirlpools. He was in a
boat, a little ahead of the others, and seemed to be cheerful and
hopeful. He shouted to his comrades in the rear to come on with their
boats, and that he was all right. A moment later, his friends were
astonished to see the boat gone, and their leader swimming around and
around in a whirlpool, trying hard to reach smooth water.
He was a good swimmer, and a brave man, but his efforts were futile, and
finally he sank. The party waited and watched for hours, but were
finally compelled to recognize the fact that their friend and leader was
gone forever.
It was determined almost immediately to beat a retreat. While the party
was hunting for a side cañon leading northward through which they could
make their exit, it became evident that a storm was brewing. Rain
commenced to fall in a steady shower, and to increase in quantity. The
surveyors had no dry clothing beyond what they stood up in, and there
was no shelter of any kind at hand. They were near Vassey's Paradise, in
the deepest part of the cañon they had yet reached. A storm in such a
location had its awfulness intensified beyond measure, and the
frightened men looked in every direction for shelter. Finally, about
forty feet up the side of the marble cliff, the opening to a small
cavern was seen. Into this Mr. R. B. Stanton, one of the party, climbed.
There was not room enough for his body at full length, but he crawled in
as best he could, curled himself up, and tried to sleep.
A terrible night followed. At about midnight he was awakened by a
terrific peal of thunder, which re-echoed and reverberated through the
cañon in a most magnificently awful manner. He had been caught in storms
in mountain regions and deep valleys before, but he had never felt so
terribly alone or so superstitiously alarmed as on this occasion. Every
now and then a vivid flash of lightning would light up the dark recesses
of the gorge, casting ghastly shadows upon the cliffs, hill sides,
ravines and river. Then again there would be the darkness which, as
Milton puts it, could be felt, and the feeling of solitude was almost
intolerable.
The river in the meantime had swollen into a torrent, by the drenching
rain, which had converted every creek into a river, and every feeder of
the Colorado into a magnificent, if raging, river itself. The noise
caused by the excited river, as it leaped over the massive rocks along
its bed, vied with the thunder, and the echoes seemed to extend hundreds
of miles in every direction. What affected the stranded traveler the
most was the noise overhead, the reverberation inducing a feeling of
alarm that huge masses of rock were being displaced from their lofty
eminence thousands of feet above his head, and were rushing down upon
him.
The night was passed, finally, and when the storm had spent itself, the
survivors of the party succeeded in getting out of the cañon and
reaching a plateau, 2,500 feet above. They then took a brief rest, but
with that disregard for danger which is characteristic of the true
American, they at once organized another expedition, and a few months
later resumed the task so tragically interrupted and marred with such a
sad fatality.
The trip through Glen Cañon was like a pleasure trip on a smooth river
in autumn, with beautiful wild flowers and ferns at every camp. At Lee's
Ferry they ate their Christmas dinner, with the table decorated with
wild flowers, picked that day.
On December 28th they started to traverse, once more, that portion of
Marble Cañon made tragic by the fatality of the summer before. "On the
next Tuesday," writes Mr. Stanton, "we reached the spot where President
Brown lost his life. What a change in the waters! What was then a
roaring torrent, now, with the water some nine feet lower, seemed from
the shore like the gentle ripple upon the quiet lake. We found, however,
in going through it with our boats, there was the same swift current,
the same huge eddy, and between them the same whirlpool, with its
ever-changing circles. Marble Cañon seemed destined to give us trouble.
On January 1st, our photographer, Mr. Nims, fell from a bench of the
cliff, some twenty-two feet, on to the sand beach below, receiving a
severe jar, and breaking one of his legs just above the ankle. Having
plenty of bandages and medicine, we made Nims as comfortable as possible
till the next day, when we loaded one of the boats to make him a level
bed, and constructing a stretcher of two oars and a piece of canvas, put
him on board and floated down river a couple of miles--running two small
rapids--to a side cañon, which led out to the Lee's Ferry road."
The next day, after discovering a way out of the deep ravine, one of the
party tramped thirty-five miles back to Lee's Ferry, where a wagon was
obtained for the injured surveyor. Eight of the strongest men of the
party then undertook the task of carrying the injured man a distance of
four miles, and up a hill 1,700 feet high. It is indicative of the
extraordinary formation of the Grand Cañon that the last half mile was
an angle of 45 degrees, up a loose rock slide. The stretcher had to be
attached to ropes and gently lifted over perpendicular cliffs, from ten
to twenty feet high. The dangerous and tedious journey was at last
accomplished, and the trip continued.
Finally the unexplored portion of the cañon was reached. For thirty
miles down Marble Cañon, to the Little Colorado River, the most
beautiful scenery was encountered. At Point Retreat, the solid marble
walls stand perpendicularly 300 feet high from the river edge. Behind
these walls the sandstone lies in benches, and slopes to an aggregate
height of 2,500 feet. Above the narrow ravine of marble, the color is
mostly rich gray, although the presence of minerals has in places
imparted so many tints that quite a rainbow appearance is presented.
Caves and caverns relieve the monotony of the solid walls. Here and
there a most delightful grotto is seen, while the action of the water
rushing down the cliff sides has left little natural bridges in many
places. Countless fountains of pure, sparkling water adorn the smooth
rocks, and here and there are little oases of ferns and flowers, which
seem strangely out of place so far down into the very bowels of the
earth.
Below Point Hausbrough, named in honor of Peter M. Hausbrough, who was
drowned during the first exploring trip, the cañon widens rapidly. The
marble benches are replaced by strata of limestone and between the river
and the rocks green fields and groves of trees become common. The view
from the river, looking across this verdure, with sandstone rocks for
the immediate background, and snow-capped mountains in the distance, is
extraordinary in its magnificence and combinations. Between the grand
junction of the Little Colorado with the main cañon and the Granite
Gorge, there is about eight hundred miles of a very different section.
Evidences of volcanic action abound. Rocks and boulders seem to have
been blown out of position and mixed up all in a heap. The rocks are
largely charged with mineral, and, as a result, almost every known color
is represented, in the most remarkable purity. The river runs through a
wide valley, with the top walls several miles apart.
The Granite Gorge itself is entirely different. Here the great walls of
granite start from the water's edge. The first few feet are usually
vertical. Then, for a thousand feet or more, the rise is at an angle of
about 45 degrees, while occasionally masses of rock stand out
prominently and overhang the river. Above the granite comes a mass of
dark colored sandstone, with a vertical front. In many places it is
perfectly black, the color being intensified by the brightness of the
red below. If an artist were to paint a cliff deep red, with a jet black
border along the top, Old World critics would be apt to declare him
insane. Yet this is really the coloring of this section of the most
wonderful cañon in the entire world.
Although the cañon at this point varies in width at the top from six to
twelve miles, the river really runs through a narrow gorge, and partakes
very much of the nature of a long rapid or cataract. For ten miles the
fall averages twenty-one feet per mile, sufficient to make the current
very dangerous even at low water, and something terrible after heavy
rains or much snow melting. In one place the fall is eighty feet in
about five hundred yards, and here, of course, navigation is practically
out of the question. The explorers, to whom we have referred, were
compelled to proceed with great deliberation at this point. Occasionally
they ran the rapids, but very often they were compelled to lower their
boats by means of lines, and even to lift them over exceptionally
dangerous rocks.
At the worst point of all, one of the boats, while being lowered by
lines, was struck by an eddy and run tightly in between two rocks. It
became necessary for men to go into the water to liberate the boat. With
lines tied securely to their bodies, some of the boldest of the
explorers ventured into the water and tried to loosen the boat, or at
least to secure the invaluable provisions and blankets on board. It was
January, and the water was so intensely cold that no man could endure it
more than a few minutes at a time, so that the process was a long and
tedious one. Finally the boat was got out, but it took five days to
repair it, and even then it was a very poor means of navigation. A few
days later, a still more powerful and dangerous rapid was encountered.
Some idea of the force of the water can be gleaned from the precautions
that were necessary. A line 250 feet long was strung out ahead, and the
boat was swung into the stream. It went through apparently the most
dangerous places without much difficulty. The line was loosened slowly
and the boat held under control, but when it reached the main eddy it
began to get contrary, and finally swung round, and seemed to have
struck a back current. Several hours' work got the boat to shore, but
the next one was dashed into a thousand pieces while crossing over some
of the sharp-pointed rocks.
The forty miles of the Granite Gorge are replete with wonders. The
strangely misnamed section, the Bright Angel Creek, is absolutely dark,
even at midday. It has been described as a sentinel of the great cañon,
and few people have dared attempt to pass through it. Farther down, the
granite walls become less steep, and black granite relieves the monotony
of color. Here and there, at side cañons and sudden bends, the vast rear
view of the gorge, with its sandstone cliffs, is brought into view.
These are benched back several miles from the river, with huge mountains
here and there intervening. Above the dark sandstone there are flattened
slopes of yellow, brown, red, green and white rock, rich in mineral.
Through these the force of water for ages has cut narrow, trench-like
waterfalls, most remarkable in appearance and attractive in their
variety of coloring.
It is difficult to imagine an upright wall a thousand feet high with red
the predominating color, and with brighter hues near the summit. Benches
of marble, with tufts of glass and bush, appear here and there, while
occasionally there is a little tract of faultless green. Above all this,
there is something like two thousand feet of a lighter colored
sandstone. This is beautified by spiral turrets and domes, and wherever
the slope is gradual enough, pine and cedar trees abound in large
numbers. Behind all this there is the background of snow on the summit
of the mountains, and when an unexpected view can be obtained from the
river below, there is so great a profusion of coloring that the eye
rebels, and a feeling not unlike headache is produced.
Further wonders are revealed every few thousand feet. At the mouth of
the next creek the coloring is different. The strata dips visibly, and
the marble, which has hitherto been exposed to view, is now beneath the
surface. The sandstone forms the river boundary, and rises at a sharp
angle from the water's edge. The river itself is narrow in consequence,
but the great valley is even wider at the top. The walls vary in height
from 2,000 to 8,000 feet, and in rainy seasons the water rushes down the
side in great profusion. Thousands of little rivulets join the main
stream, and add greatly to the volume of water. Sometimes the river will
rise four or five feet in a single night, upsetting all calculation, and
making navigation risky in the extreme. When, by chance, the sun is able
to penetrate into the depths of this cañon, the kaleidoscopic effects
are exquisite, and cause the most indifferent to pause and wonder.
The discovery of an extinct volcano explains a great deal of the wonders
of the great cañon. The volcano is examined by thousands of tourists,
this being one of the spots to reach which scientists are willing to
incur countless hardships and risks. No one can tell when the volcano
was active, but from the nature of the crater it is perfectly clear that
at one time it belched forth volumes of lava, which had a marked effect
on the formation of the rock and the lay of the land of the surrounding
country. Past the volcano, for many miles, the bright colors already
referred to are supplanted by more sombre hues. Occasionally there is a
little scarlet, and, as a rule, the sandstone is covered with the
mysterious substance brought out of the bowels of the earth by the now
silent, but once magnificently awful, mountains.
The exploring party to which we have referred, went through 600 miles of
cañons, and found that no two miles were really alike. Finally, after
three months of hardship, they emerged into an open country, and became
almost frantic with joy. Never did country seem so beautiful, or verdure
so attractive, and the panorama of beauty which was presented to their
view caused them to shout with delight, and to offer up cries of
thankfulness for their ultimate deliverance from a series of hardships
and dangers which at one time seemed almost insurmountable.
The region also abounds with archaeological curiosities and remarkable
hieroglyphics. Many of these are found in close proximity to the Grand
Cañon of the Colorado, and on the cliffs in which the far-famed cliff
dwellers of old took up their abode. Hieroglyphics, marked upon rocks or
other lasting substances, have been used by nearly all ancient races to
perpetuate the history of certain events among them. Especially true is
this of the ancient people who lived in Arizona. The remarkable picture
rocks and boulders, with strange symbols upon them, left by the
prehistoric races of Arizona, have been the cause of much discussion
among those who have seen them, as to who these ancient hieroglyphic
makers were. These rock records may be divided into three different
kinds, which it is thought were made by two different races. The first,
or very ancient race, left records on rocks, in some instances of
symbols only, and in other instances of pictures and symbols combined.
The later race, which came after the first race had vanished, made only
crude representations of animals, birds or reptiles, not using symbols
or combinations of lines.
The age of the most ancient pictographs and hieroglyphics can only be
conjectured, but all give certain indications that they are many
centuries old, and the difference between the work of the ancient and
the later race leads the observer to believe that the older
hieroglyphics were made by a people far superior to those who came after
them, and who left no record in symbols, as we have said, with the
exception of crude representations of animals and reptiles.
In many instances it is quite evident that the same rock or cliff has
been used by the two different races to put their markings upon, the
later, or inferior, race often making their pictographs over or across
the hieroglyphic writings of the first race. Of the superiority of the
first people who left their writings on the rocks and boulders found in
the ancient mounds, ruins and graves, there can be no doubt, for their
writings show order and a well defined design in symbols, which were
evidently intended to convey their history to others; and it is quite
probable that those who made the great mounds, houses and canals were
the authors of these writings. It may be truthfully asserted that the
cliff dwellers of the rock houses in the deep cañons of the mountains
were of the same race as the mound builders of the valleys, for exactly
the same class of hieroglyphics found on boulders from the ancient ruins
of the valleys, are found on the rocks near the houses of the cliff
dwellers.
If this superior race were so distinctive from all other ancient races
of Arizona--in their work being so far advanced as to solve what would
be called, even at the present day, difficult engineering problems; to
dig great canals many miles in length, the remains of which can be seen
at the present time, and to bring them to such perfection for irrigating
purposes; to build such great houses and to live in cities--may it not
have been, as many who have studied this subject now contend, that this
superior race were white people instead of a copper colored race, as has
generally been supposed?
The hieroglyphics of the more ancient race are often found on sheltered
rocks on the slopes of the mountains leading up from the valleys.
Generally protected from the elements by overhanging cliffs, the dry
climate has kept the writings from wearing away, and being in most
instances picked into rocks which have a black, glistening surface, but
of a lighter color underneath, the contrast is very noticeable, and when
in prominent places these hieroglyphics can be seen several hundred feet
away.
As no metal tools have ever been found in the mounds, ruins or cliff
dwellings, the hieroglyphics were probably picked into the rock with a
sharp-pointed stone much harder than the rock upon which the work was
done. It is a singular fact that, although iron, copper, gold and silver
abound in the mountains in Arizona, no tools, utensils or ornaments of
these metals are found in the mounds or ruins. Yet furnace-like
structures of ancient origin have been found, which appear to have been
used for reducing ores, and in and around which can be found great
quantities of an unknown kind of slag.
In many instances the hieroglyphic boulders have been found in great
heaps, of several hundred in number, as if many different persons had
contributed a piece of this strange writing to the collection. These
etched boulders have been found buried in the ground with ollas
containing the charred bones of human beings, and could the writings on
the boulders be deciphered, we would undoubtedly learn of the virtues of
the prehistoric deceased, just as we do of a person who dies in the
present day, when we read the epitaph on a tombstone of the one who is
buried beneath.
In opening some of the mounds, the investigator finds they are made of
the fallen walls of great adobe buildings, and as he digs deeper he
finds rooms of various dimensions, and which, in many instances, have
cemented walls and floors. In one instance there were found the
impressions of a baby's feet and hands, made, presumably, as the child
had crawled over the newly laid soft cement. In another mound the
cemented walls of a room were found covered with hieroglyphics and rude
drawings, which were thought to represent stellar constellations.
To a certain extent, some of the pictured rocks tell us of part of the
daily life of this ancient race, for in a number of instances the
pictures picked into the rocks, although rudely formed, are
self-explanatory, and the ancient artist tells plainly by his work what
is meant. On the edge of a little valley in the Superstition Mountains,
there was found a great rock on which had been etched many small
animals, apparently representing sheep, and at one side was the figure
of a man, as if watching them. It may be the ancient herder himself,
sitting in the shadow of the great rock, while his sheep were grazing in
the valley below, has passed away the time in making this rock picture.
The hardy wild sheep still found in the mountains of Arizona may be the
remnants of great bands formerly domesticated by these people.
The skeleton of the prehistoric man dug from beneath the stalagmites in
the cave of Mentone, France, and which set all the scientific men of the
world talking and thinking, gives proof of no greater age than many of
the skeletons, relics or bones of some of these ancient mound and canal
builders.
An incident illustrating the great antiquity of prehistoric man in
Arizona, is the following: In digging a well on the desert north of
Phoenix, at the depth of 115 feet from the surface a stone mortar, such
as the ancients used, was found standing upright, and in it was found a
stone pestle, showing the mortar had not been carried there by any
underground current of water, and that it had not been disturbed from
the position in which its ancient owner had left it with the pestle in
it. There is only one way to account for this mortar and pestle. They
had originally been left on what was at that time the surface of the
ground, and the slow wash from the mountains had gradually, during
unknown ages, raised the surface for miles on every side to the extent
of 115 feet.
The question is often asked, Will this hieroglyphic writing ever be
deciphered? The authors of the most ancient hieroglyphic writings or
markings seem to have had well-defined forms or marks, which were in
common use for this class of writing. Is it not most reasonable that a
race so far advanced in other ways would have perfected a method of
transmitting by marks of some kind their records to those who might come
after them? Again, where so much system is shown in the use of symbols,
it may be presumed that the same mark, wherever used in the same
position, carries with it a fixed meaning, alike at all times. Having
such a settled system of marks, there must be a key to the thoughts
concealed in writing, and quite likely the key for deciphering these
hieroglyphics will sometime be found on one of the yet undiscovered
hieroglyphic rocks in the high mountains or in the mounds not yet
examined. On the other hand, there can be no key to the inferior class
of pictographs made by the people who came after the mound, canal and
city builders had disappeared, for the crudely marked forms of reptiles,
animals or similar things had a meaning, if any, varying with each
individual maker.
Who were these people who formed a great nation here in the obscurity of
the remote past? Were they the ancient Phoenicians, who were not only a
maritime but a colonizing nation, and who, in their well-manned ships,
might have found their way to the southern coast of America ages since,
and from thence journeyed north? Or were they some of the followers of
Votan or Zamna, who had wandered north and founded a colony of the
Aztecs? Whoever these people were, and whichever way they came from, the
evidences of the great works they left behind them give ample proof that
they were superior and different from other races around them, and these
particular people may have been the "bearded white men," whom the
Indians had traditions of when Coronado's followers first came through
the Gila and Salt River valleys in 1526.