Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1901-04-15
Special Correspondence of Madison Demo

Special Correspondence or Madison Demo
crat.
Colorado Beach, Cal, April g.
After leaving Mexico, was loaded in
to the grand canon of the Colorado
and fired out again. 1t was my nrst
experience with such heavy artillery.
That canon is the grandest affair
known to man. One hundred and two
tourists left the Santa Fe road, at the
little town of Williams, were waited
northward 81 miles by rail and then 10
miles by stage, to the beautiful preci-
pice of the great gorge, which stands
at an altitude of 5000 feet above the
sea. We expected comfortable &C
Communications there on our arrival,
but were sadly disappointed. The
hotel facilities consist of one-story
log hut, with some shanty ATTACH
ments, in which not more than 20
people could be comfortably pro-
vided for at best. But there was a
large number of tents, into which
many of the new arrivals were
crowded. The old folks and lot of
the young ores also. slept on the
floor, with blankets under and over. |
actually slept well, however, and woke
up happy in the morning. Most of US
had to wash our hands and faces in a
little dish adapted for serving mashed
potatoes to a small family. But we
were happy in knowing the water was
imported, for not a drop is otherwise
available, within fifty miles, except at
the bottom of the canon. These incon-
veniences soon disappeared from our
minds, after breakfast, for the food
was abundant and excellent and the
scenery triumphantly beautiful. No
pen or pencil or painter can convey to
the stranger the faintest idea OF the
sublimity presented to the mind of the
=actual beho1der. He gives it up, and
wishes to gaze enraptured for an hour
!. or more Nature here transcends all
the poets, all the orators, all the
artists. Bewildering and glorious are
the visions everywhere. "The spaci-
! Gus armament on high" is nothing to
= it.
In our party, as one Of the attend
ants, was a witty Irishman who has
Tor several years served in similar
capacity in the Yellowstone park,
where there is a grand canon also. AS
we were approaching, he seemed to
fear that this canon might excel his
favorite one farther north, and per-
haps attract away it's customary sum
mer visitors. So he approached
with many misgivings. AS, however,
he stood on the beautiful brink, for a
minute or two, and gazed upon the
glories confronting him, he raised
both hands and ardently exclaimed in
his good Irish brogue:
"Begorrah, it is mighty we'll dug.
He was right.
1t is 200 miles long, Is miles wide and
more than a mile in depth. To UNI
trained eyes, it looks as deep as it is
broad, and appears as if painted for
scenic effect by the most skilled artists
whom the world has ever known. All
the other scenic glories at which, it
has been my good fortune to gladly
gaze in this country and beyond the
seas have been dwarfed by this one
most transcendent of all. do not
wonder at the rhapsody which has
been expended in both prose and poet
ry upon this natural spectacular glory
Of glories.
But how did this awful gorge get
here? This is a problem which has
troubled the wise men and about
which, as usual, no two of them. agree.
At it's base lie 1900 feet of archaean
or once melted rock, chiefly granite
Through this, the gorge is almost
perpendicular, with the fierce liver
flowing at it's base. Above the granite lie
stratified rocks of sandstone, lime
stone and quartzite in great variety
and to the depth of about 1000 feet-'It
is through this softer rock that has
occurred the erosion and abrasion,
which have evolved the most beautiful
scenic effects and widened the chasm
to 13 miles above the granite gorge.
The gap in the granite is not very
wide. The biologists say that, in
former days, the elevation of the coIt1-
try here was 5000 to 10000 feet
higher than at present, because "at
least that depth of sedimentary and
stratified rock, found on the earth in
general, is now missing here. This
immense quantity of absent rock has
been washed and worn away, they say,
by natural forces, from nearly the
whole of northern Arizona and south
ern Utah, and is still in like process.
The crevice of the original canon was
caused by an earthquake upheaval Or
by volcanic forces, which rent the
crust asunder down to a certain depth.
This, however, cannot be proved bI
any of the older inhabitants anda3s
doubted by many. N
Original Inferno.
A theory, urged by some minds ,g34s
that this great gap in the earth, 299
miles long, 13 miles wide and formerly
three miles in depth, was the site OF
the original hades, where the devil