profound! yet they may be rising or sinking before our very eyes,
and we detect no sign. Only on exceptional occasions, during
earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, is their dreamless slumber rudely
disturbed.

Geologists tell us that from the great plateau in which the Grand
Canon is cut, layers of rock many thousands of feet thick were cut
away before the canon was begun.

Starting from the high plateau of Utah, and going south toward the
canon, we descend a grand geologic stairway, every shelf or tread of
which consists of different formations fifty or more miles broad,
from the Eocene, at an altitude of over ten thousand feet at the
start, across the Cretaceous, the Jurassic, the Triassic, the
Permian, to the Carboniferous, which is the bottom or landing of the
Grand Canon plateau at an altitude of about five thousand feet. Each
step terminates more or less abruptly, the first by a drop of eight
hundred feet, ornamented by rows of square obelisks and pilasters of
uniform pattern and dimension, "giving the effect," says Major
Dutton, "of a gigantic colonnade from which the entablature has been
removed or has fallen in ruins."

The next step, or platform, the Cretaceous, slopes down gradually or
dies out on the step beneath it; then comes the Jurassic, which ends
in white sandstone cliffs several hundred feet high; then the
Triassic, which ends in the famous vermilion cliffs thousands of
feet high, most striking in color and in form; then the Permian
tread, which also ends in striking cliffs, with their own style of
color and architecture; and, lastly, the great Carboniferous
platform in which the canon itself is carved. Now, all these various