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CHAPTER I. The Grand Canyon Of Arizona
Only One Grand Canyon. The ancient world had its seven wonders, but
they were all the work of man. The modern world of the United States
has easily its seven wonders--Niagara, the Yellowstone, Yosemite,
the Natural Bridge, the Mammoth Cave, the Petrified Forest and the
Grand Canyon of Arizona--but they are all the work of God. It is hard,
in studying the seven wonders of the ancients, to decide which is
the most wonderful, but now that the Canyon is known all men unite
in affirming that the greatest of all wonders, ancient or modern, is
the Grand Canyon of Arizona. Some men say there are several Grand
Canyons, but to the one who knows there is but one Grand Canyon. The
use of the word to name any lesser gorge is a sacrilege as well as a
misnomer.
Not in the spirit of carping criticism or of reckless boasting are
these words uttered. It is the dictum of sober truth. It is wrong to
even unintentionally mislead a whole people by the misuse of names.
Until made fully aware of the facts, the traveling world are liable
to error. They want to see the Grand Canyon. They are shown these
inferior gorges, each called the Grand Canyon, and, because they do no
know, they accept the half-truth. The other canyons they see are
great enough in themselves to claim their closest study, and worthy
to have distinctive names bestowed upon them. But, as Clarence
Dutton, the eminent geologist, has well said in his important
scientific monograph written for the United States Geological Survey:
"The name Grand Canyon repeatedly has been infringed for purposes of
advertisement. The Canyon of the Yellowstone has been called 'The
Grand Canyon.' A more flagrant piracy is the naming of the gorge of
the Arkansas River 'The Grand Canyon of Colorado,' and many persons
who have visited it have been persuaded that they have seen the great
chasm. These river valleys are certainly very pleasing and
picturesque, but there is no more comparison between them and the
mighty chasm of the Colorado River than there is between the
Alleghanies and the Himalayas. Sublimity of the Grand Canyon. "Those who have long and carefully
studied the Grand Canyon of the Colorado do not hesitate for a
moment to pronounce it by far the most sublime of all earthly
spectacles. If its sublimity consisted only in its dimensions, it coul
be set forth in a single sentence. It is more than two hundred miles
long, from five to twelve miles wide, and from five thousand to six
thousand feet deep. There are in the world valleys which are longer
and a few which are deeper. There are valleys flanked by summits
loftier than the palisades of the Kaibab. Still the Grand Canyon is
the sublimest thing on earth. It is so not alone by virtue of its
magnitudes, but by virtue of the whole its tout ensemble." What, then, is this Grand Canyon, for which its friends dare to make s
large and bold a claim? It is a portion--a very small portion--of the waterway of the
Colorado River, and it is so named to differentiate it from the
other canyons of the same river. The canyon system of the Colorado
River is as vast in its extent as is the Grand Canyon in its quality o
sublimity. For it consists of such a maze of canyons--the main
canyons through which the river itself runs; the canyons through
which its tributaries run; the numberless canyons tributary to the
tributary canyons; the canyons within canyons, that, upon the word of
no less an authority than Major Powell, I assert that if these
canyons were placed end for end in a straight line they would reach
over twenty thousand miles! Is it possible for the human mind to
conceive a canyon system so vast that, if it were so placed, it would
nearly belt the habitable globe? Impression on Beholders. And the principal member of this great
system has been named The Grand Canyon, as a conscious and
meaningful tribute to its vastness, its sublimity, its grandeur and it
awesomeness. It is unique; it stands alone. Though only two hundred
and seventeen miles long, it expresses within that distance more than
any one human mind yet has been able to comprehend or interpret to
the world. Famous word-masters have attempted it, great canvas and
colormasters have tried it, but all alike have failed. It is one of
the few things that man is utterly unable to imagine until he comes
in actual contact with it. A strange being, a strange flower, an
unknown reptile, a unique machine, or a strange and unknown anything,
almost, within the ken of man, can be explained to another so that he
will reasonably comprehend it; but not so with the Grand Canyon. I
had an illustration of this but a few days ago. A member of my own
household, keenly intelligent and well-read, who had heard my own
descriptions a thousand and one times, and had seen photographs and
paintings, without number, of the Canyon, came with me on her first
visit to the camp where I am now writing. As the carriage approached
the rim at Hotouta Amphitheatre and gave her the first glimpse of the
Canyon, she drew back terrified, appalled, horror-stricken.
Subsequent analysis of her emotions and the results of that first
glimpse revealed a state of mind so overpowered with the sublimity,
vastness, depth and power of the scene, that her impressions were
totally inadequate, altogether lacking in detail and accuracy, and at
complete variance with her habitual observations.
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