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Whence came so utter a confusion of the senses? The Canyon is its
own answer. It fills the soul of all responsive persons with awe.
Explain it as one will, deny it if one will, sensitive souls are fille
with awe at its superb majesty, its splendor, its incomprehensible
sublimity. And in these factors we find the great source of its
attractiveness, for, in spite of the awe and terror it inspires in
the hearts of so many at first sight, it allures, attracts and holds
those who have once gazed into its mysterious depths. Indeed, is it
not to its very vastness, mystery, solitude and awe-inspiring
qualities we owe its power over us? The human mind is so constituted
that such qualities generally appeal to it. Hence the never-ceasing
call the Canyon will make to the soul of man, so long as a
susceptible mortal remains on earth. Its Physical Features. Seen at any time it is bewildering and appallin
to one's untrained senses; but especially in the very early morning,
during the hours of dawn and the slow ascent of the sun, and equally
in the very late afternoon and at sunset, are its most entrancing
effects to be witnessed. At midday, with the sun glaring through into
its depths, the reds and chocolates of the sandstones (which are the
predominating colors) are so strong, and the relieving shadows so
few, that it seems uninteresting. But let one watch it as I did last
night, between the hours of seven and ten, and again this morning
from five until eight of the clock. What revelations of forms, what
richness of colors; what transformations of apparently featureless
walls into angles and arches and recesses and facets and entablatures
and friezes and facades. What lighting up of towers and temples and
buttes and minarets and pinnacles and ridges and peaks and pillars of
erosion! What exposures of detached and isolated mountains of rock,
of accompanying gorges and ravines, deep, forbidding, black and
unknown, the depths of which the foot of man has never trod! Turner
never depicted such dazzling scenes, Rembrandt such violent and yet
attractive contrasts. Here everything is massive and dominating. The
colors are vivid; the shadows are purple to blackness; the heights
are towering; the depths are appalling; the sheer walls are as if
poised in mid-air; the towers and temples dwarf into insignificance
even the monster works of man on the Nile. Here are single mountains
of erosion standing as simple features of the vast sight spread out
for miles before you, that are as high as the highest mountains of
the Eastern States. A score of Mt. Washingtons find repose in the
depths of this incomprehensible waterway, in the two hundred and
seventeen miles of its length. In width it varies from ten to twenty
miles, and at the point where I now sit writing, where the Canyon
makes a double bow-knot in a marvelous bend, the north wall (which,
in the sharp bend of the river, becomes the south wall of the reverse
of the curve) is completely broken down, so that one has a clear and
direct view across two widths of canyon and river to a distance of
from thirty-five to forty miles. Who can really "take in" such a
view? I have gazed upon the Canyon at this spot almost yearly, and
often daily for weeks at a time, for about twenty years, yet such is
the marvelousness of distance, that never until two days ago did I
discover that a giant detached mountain, fully eight thousand feet
high, and with a base ten miles square, which I had photographed from
another angle on the north side of the Canyon, stood in the direct
line of my sight and, as it were, immediately before me. The
discovery was made by a peculiar falling of light and shadow. The
heavens were filled with clouds which threw complete shadows on the
far north wall. The sun happened to shine through the clouds and
light up the whole contour of this Steamboat Mountain (so called
because of its shape), so that it stood forth clearly outlined
against the dark field behind. In surprise I called to my companion
and showed her my discovery. Yet, such is the deceptiveness of
distance that, to the unaided eye, and without being aware of the
fact, even my observant faculties had never before perceived that
this gigantic mass was not a portion of the great north wall, from
which it is detached by a canyon fully eight miles wide.
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