sandstone or limestone precipices of the cañon that I have seen or heard
of approaches in smooth, flawless strength and grandeur the granite face
of El Capitan or the Tenaya side of Cloud's Rest. These colossal cliffs,
types of permanence, are about three thousand and six thousand feet high;
those of the cañon that are sheer are about half as high, and are types
of fleeting change; while glorious-domed Tissiack, noblest of mountain
buildings, far from being overshadowed or lost in this rosy, spiry cañon
company, would draw every eye, and, in serene majesty, "aboon them a'" she
would take her place--castle, temple, palace, or tower. Nevertheless a
noted writer, comparing the Grand Cañon in a general way with the glacial
Yosemite, says: "And the Yosemite--ah, the lovely Yosemite! Dumped down
into the wilderness of gorges and mountains, it would take a guide who
knew of its existence a long time to find it." This is striking, and shows
up well above the levels of commonplace description; but it is confusing,
and has the fatal fault of not being true. As well try to describe an eagle
by putting a lark in it. "And the lark--ah, the lovely lark! Dumped down
the red, royal gorge of the eagle, it would be hard to find." Each in its
own place is better, singing at heaven's gate, and sailing the sky with
the clouds.

Every feature of nature's big face is beautiful,--height and hollow,
wrinkle, furrow, and line,--and this is the main master furrow of its
kind on our continent, incomparably greater and more impressive than
any other yet discovered, or likely to be discovered, now that all the
great rivers have been traced to their heads.

The Colorado River rises in the heart of the continent on the dividing
ranges and ridges between the two oceans, drains thousands of snowy
mountains through narrow or spacious valleys, and thence through cañons
of every color, sheer-walled and deep, all of which seem to be represented