Mexico weekly ledger., 1919-05-29
Mcintyre
Writes
of
Grand
Canon

The Ledger is in receipt of the sixth
series of letters being contributed b.
j. S. McIntyce, who is travelling il
Arizona and other western and south
western States. The letter follows:
Col. R. NJ. White,
Mexico, Mo.
We spent four days last week seeing
the Grand Canyon of Arizona. Have
you seen it? Then / advise you to beg
borrow or steal enough money t.
make the trip there and back homo
again. 1t is certainly n of the mos
noted and distinctive scenic H2atures
of North America. For it's vastness
wondrous coloring, profound abysses
and unique formations, it stands alb,
solutely alone.
Arizona has frequently been refer,
red to as the "Wonderland" because
it is a land full of wonders. But won
ders of wonders is this, for none of
them can compare with the Grand
Canyon. For twenty years l have
wanted to see it and now that l have
looked at it continuously for four days,
l am no more able to describe it than
I was when l first heard of it some
thirty years ago. In fact, it would
take a person of the combined talents
of Dante and Milton to approach an
an accurate adequate description of
it. 1t would mean for one to be able
to tell the unreliable, and describe the
indescribable. / have seen the Royal
Gorge of Colorado, have taken the
rides to Cripple Crek and Silver Plume
spent a wee kin Yellow Stone Park of
Wyoming and have also ridden both
b yautomobile and horseback through
a large portion of the Glacier Park of
Montana but none OF them approach
the Grand Canyon as an indescribable
and incomprehensable freak of nature.
1t is interesting to observe different
persons when they view the Canyon
for the first time. Some burst into
ordinations of ecstacy, others burst
into tears, but the vast majority are
MCINTIRE-NO2
actually struck dumb with W and
establishment. Do you recall the sem
sation you had when suddenly thrown
into the presence of an extraordinary
personality-man or woman, and
do you recall having ever been moved
to tears by listening to, music or OBJ
serving the movement of large bodies
of we'll drilled men, or when reading
the heroic deeds of some great man?
So was l affected by the sight of the
canyon and l could sit on it's summit
and dream and dream for hours, days
and weeks, and then begin and dream
it all over again.
You can take a seat in the Pullman
car on the Santa Fe Railroad at Kan
sas City or Chicago and by merely re-
manning in the car for three days Ill
orally ride up to the very front door
of the EITovar, a Fred Harvey Hotel
located on the very rim of the Can
yon and built at a cost of two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars.
To the east, south and west of the
hotel, stand beautiful white pines for
ests, while the canyon lies immediate
ly 10 the north. The hotel stands on
an elevation of seven thousand feet
and is reached by a branch of the
Santa Fe Railroad about sixty-four
miles from Williams, 1t requires
sixty thousand gallons of water to
supply the needs of the hotel and
stables. This water is brought a dis
lance of one hundred and twenty-five
miles and requires ten freight cars,
each hauling a tank of six thousand
gallons daily.
The Grand Canyon is a rock walled
steep-sided gorge which crosses the
high plateau of Northern Arizona.
1t is four hundred and eighty miles
long, of which for a distance of two
hundred miles it has an average,of ten
miles and a depth of about n mile.
At the ETTovar Hotel the canyon is
about fourteen miles wide with a
depth of six thousand feet from the
rim on one side and nearly eight thou
sand feet on the other. It's sides are
a succession of narrow lodges, rocky
slopes, high cliffs and high steps of
sheer descent, in some instances as
much as six hundred feet. AT the
bottom of the Grand Canyon is a "V"
shaped gorge and through this flows
the Colorado River with an average
width of 80 feet, a depth of thirty to
fifty feet with a mean velocity from
two to ten miles an hour, due to its
fall of about twelve feet to the mile
through the central portion of the
CANYON. 1t is an underground river.
Its water is always muddy with sedi-
ment OF sand and gravel, and follow
ing the heavy rains and floods, even
powders and rock masses which it
carries through the canyon and out
into the fiat country for to the south
west. 1t is supposed to have been
formed by erasion. The plateau was
doubtless at one time a continuous
plain and a general u%pheaval of the
entire plateau took place resulting in
n steep grade of the river which then
began to cut the gorge through the
sand stone formation and which doubt
l~essless will continue to cut and deep
en- the gorge for a great many gener-
ations yet to come because the river
is still about two thousand feet above
the level of the sea. There is also a
constant disintergration and under
mining of the sand and limestone
rocks on account of the rain and frost.
The most casual observer will read