All this, however, is less difficult than to give any idea of the
impression of wild, primeval beauty and power one receives in merely
gazing from its brink. The view down the gulf of color and over the
rim of its wonderful wall, more than any other view I know, leads us
to think of our earth as a star with stars swimming in light, every
radiant spire pointing the way to the heavens.

But it is impossible to conceive what the cañon is, or what impression
it makes, from descriptions or pictures, however good. Naturally it is
untellable even to those who have seen something perhaps a little like
it on a small scale in this same plateau region. One's most extravagant
expectations are indefinitely surpassed, though one expect much from what
is said of it as "the biggest chasm on earth"--"so big is it that all
other big things,--Yosemite, the Yellowstone, the Pyramids, Chicago,--all
would be lost if tumbled into it." Naturally enough, illustrations as to
size are sought for among other cañons like or unlike it, with the common
result of worse confounding confusion. The prudent keep silence. It was
once said that the "Grand Cañon could put a dozen Yosemites in its vest
pocket."

The justly famous Grand Cañon of the Yellowstone is, like the Colorado,
gorgeously colored and abruptly countersunk in a plateau, and both are
mainly the work of water. But the Colorado's cañon is more than a thousand
times larger, and as a score or two new buildings of ordinary size would
not appreciably change the general view of a great city, so hundreds of
Yellowstones might be eroded in the sides of the Colorado Cañon without
noticeably augmenting its size or the richness of its sculpture. But it
is not true that the great Yosemite rocks would be thus lost or hidden.
Nothing of their kind in the world, so far as I know, rivals El Capitan
and Tissiack, much less dwarfs or in any way belittles them. None of the