craving of the mind for art and history, no portion of our globe can
equal the North American continent in certain forms of natural
scenery which reach the acme of sublimity. Niagara, the Yosemite, the
Yellowstone National Park, and the Grand Cañon of the Colorado in
Arizona are the four great natural wonders of America. Niagara is
Nature in the majesty of liquid motion, where, as the outlet of vast
inland seas, a mighty river leaps in wild delirium into a gorge two
hundred feet below, and boils and seethes tumultuously till its
heart is set at rest and its fever cooled by the embrace of Lake
Ontario. The Yosemite is Nature pictured, in a frame of granite
precipices, as reclining on a carpet woven with a million flowers,
above which rise huge trees three centuries old, which, nevertheless,
to the spectator, gazing from the towering cliffs, appear like waving
ferns. The Yellowstone Park is the arena of an amphitheatre in which
fire and water, the two great forces which have made our planet what
it is, still languidly contend where formerly they struggled
desperately for supremacy. But the Grand Cañon of Arizona is Nature
wounded unto death, and lying stiff and ghastly with a gash, two
hundred miles in length and a mile in depth, in her bared breast,
from which is flowing fast a stream of life-blood called the
Colorado.

[Illustration: A PETRIFIED FOREST, ARIZONA.]

[Illustration: PACK-MULES OF THE DESERT.]

[Illustration: EVIDENCES OF EROSION.]

[Illustration: THE NAVAJO CHURCH.]