Connecticut western news., 1875-02-12
THE CANYONS OF COLORADO.
Tho Great Work of Nnture-A Magnificent
 Description. .-. - -s--

The Great Work of Nature-A Magnificent
 Description. .-;. -. -..-
 Let us understand these canyons, says Major Powell, writing of the Colorado canyons. Leaving the Uinta valley and going south by land, you climb gradu, ally as you advance, so that on passing to the south 8 distance of forty miles, you are more than three thousand feet above the starting point. The country then drops off suddenly by bold, abrupt l step of more than three thousand feet, which in many places is vertical for hun dreds of feet Through this inclined plateau the Canyon of Desolation is cut. To the north, of course, the walls are low; at the southern extremity of the plateau, they are more than three thou sand feet high. Through such another inclined ter race Gray canyon is cut, except that 1t is narrower and lower, the azure cliffs which terminate this terrace being but two thousand feet. ra.. .s'. g:.
 The Orange cliffs, forming the south ern escarpment of the great plateau through which Labyrinth canyon is cut, are but thirteen hundred feet high. Thus there are three benches, or terraced steps, the escarpments or lines of cliffs, and three great canyons, forming the channel of the river across this terraced land. The northern escarpment we call ed the Brown cliffs; the middle, the Book cliffs; and the southern, the Orange cliffs. ,,.... ....r !.
 Climb the cliffs at the foot of Laby- binth canyon and look over the plain below, and you see vast numbers of sharp, angular buttes, and pinnacles, and towers, and standing rocks, scatter ed about over scores of miles, and every butte, and pinnacle, and tower so regu- lar and beautiful, that you can hardly of Titanic art It seems as if thousand battles had been fought on the plains below, and on every field the giant which the pillar on Bunker Hill is but a milestone. But no human hand has placed block in all those wonderful structures; the rain drops of unreckon- ed ages have cut them from the solid rock.
 Climb the Book cliffs, and look off to the south over plains of orange and golden sands, and here and there you see massive towering buttes of gypsum. Sometimes the faces of these buttes are as white as the heart of the alabaster from which they are carved, while in others there are stained and mottled red and brown. These alabaster buttes are in the distance; nearer the foot of the cliffs are buttes of azure shades, capped with massive sandstones and hmestones.
 The summit of the high plateau, through which the Canyon of Desola- tion is cut, is fretted into pine-clad hills with nestling valleys and meadow-bor dered lakes, for now we are in that up per region where the clouds yield their moisture to the soil. In these meadows herds of deer carry aloft with pride their branching antlers, and sweep the coun- try with their sharp outlook, or test the air with their delicate nostrils for the faintest evidence, of an approaching In dian hunter. Huge elk, with heads bowed by the weight of ragged horns, feed among the pines, or trot with head long speed through the undergrowth, frightened at the report of the red mans rife. Eagles sail down from distant mountain summits and make their homes upon the trees. Grouse feed on the pine-nuts, and birds and beasts have a home from which they rarely wander to the desert lands below. Among the buttes on the lower terraces rattlesnakes crawl, lizards glide over the rocks, tar antulas stagger about, and red ants build their playhouse mountains. Sometimes rabbits are seen, and wolves prowl in their quest. But the desert has no bird of sweet song, and no beast of noble mien.
 Immediately on leaving Labyrinth canyon, we entered another with quiet water, so we called it "Still-water can yon." This canyon is cut through the region of standing rocks which have before mentioned. The Indians call this "Toom- pin Woo-near Too-weap," the land of standing rocks. It is a weird, grand region. The landscape every where away from the river is of rock, a pavement of rock with cliffs of rock, tables of rock, plateaus of rock, terraces of rock, crags of rock, buttes of rock, ten thousand strangely carved forms; rocks everywhere, and no vegetation, no soil, no sand. In long gentle curves the river winds about these rocks.
 When speaking of them, we must not conceive of piles of powders or heaps of fragments, but whole landscape of naked rock with giant forms carved on it, cathedral-shaped buttes towering hundreds or thousands of feet, cliffs that cannot be sealed, and canyon walls that make the river shrink into insignif- canoe, with vast hollow domes and tall pinnacles, and shafts set on the verge overhead, and all the rocks, tinted with buff, gray, red, brown, and chocolate, never lichened, never moss covered, but bare, and sometimes even polished. Strange, indeed, is "Toom-pin Woo near Too-weap."