Los Angeles herald., 1906-05-28

in any part Of the world Whatever
periods may have been assigned to the
antiquity OF past events have been as
signed Professionally only, and the in
ferences are almost purely hypothetical.
In the plateau country nature has in
some respects been more communicative
than In other regions, and has answered
many questions far more fully and
graciously. But here. as elsewhere,
whenever we interrogate her about time
other than relative. her lips are sternly
closed and her face becomes as the face
OF the sphinx"
For the reason that the Grand cam
yon of the Colorado bursts on the view
of the traveller as if the earth before
his feet suddenly caved in for more
than a. mile, it Is not wonderful that
he should ask questions that to the
learned seem childish As he approaches
its rip by railroad he sees only the
Arizona desert apparently stretching
away on every side-a dreary expanse--
for illmitable distances.
"There Is no preparation for it, says
Charles II. Lummis, the author ana eX-
plorer, in describing his first sensations
on visiting the canyon. unless you
had been told, you would no more
dream that out yonder amid the pines
the flat earth Is slashed to its very
bowels than you would expect to find
an iceberg on Broadway. With very
ordinary running jump from the spot
where you get your first glimpse of the
canyon you could go down 1000 feet
without touching. IL is sudden as we'll
But IL Is no more cleft. 1t is terrific
trough peopled with hundreds of peaks
taller than any mountain east or the
Rockies, yet not one Of them with It's
head so high as your feet, and all
ablaze with such color as no eastern or
European landscape ever knew. even in
the Alpenglow. And as you sit upon
the brink the divine scene shlfters give
you a new canyon every hour with
each degree of the suns course the
great Countersink mountains we have
been watching fade away, and new ones
as terrific arc carved by the westering
shadows. 1t is like dissection of the
whole cosmogony. The purple shadows,
the dazzling lights. the thunderstorms
and snowstorms, the clouds and the
rainbows shift and drift in that vast
subterranean arena below your feet"
Story of an Artist
To artists who boast of being able to
portray the Grand canyon on canvas
the guides are hard hearted enough to
tell the story of the painter-philosoph
who blindfoded his bride near it's rim
This man intended to paint the canyon,
but before he began his picture he
wanted to study what psychic phe-
nomena the scenery would arouse in
human being who saw it unexpectedly
for the first time. 1t was before the rail-
road was built, and he brought his
bride thither in a prairie wagon. When
some yards away, before she had any
idea of what was so near her. he said
Indians were coming and that he
would bandage her eyes as the red
skins blndfolded their wives when in
the presence of strangers. With black
cloths around her head he led her to the
rim of the chasm.
Friends had tried to dissuade him
from such an experiment but he had
persisted. They had told him she was
such nervous creature that the sight
would drive her crazy. She would dash
herself into the chasm below, they said.
But he persisted. On the edge of the
precipice he grasped her with one arm
for, fear she might leap down to her
death, and with the other he cautiously,
tremblingly united the cloths about her
head. And as he held her in viselike
grip he asked falteringly:
MARY, how do you feel?"
Her voice was choked. but she man
aged to say:
John, If you try to paint this you'll
make a botch of it."