two walls would seem so narrow at such an immense distance that
the sky above would have the appearance of nothing more than a
narrow streak of blue. Yet these huge chasms have not been made
by any violent breaking apart of the rocks or convulsion of an
earthquake. No, they have been gradually, silently, and steadily
cut through by the river which now glides quietly in the wider
chasms, or rushes rapidly through the narrow gorges at their feet.

"No description," says Lieutenant Ives, one of the first
explorers of this river, "can convey the idea of the varied and
majestic grandeur of this peerless waterway. Wherever the river
turns, the entire panorama changes. Stately facades, august
cathedrals, amphitheatres, rotundas, castellated walls, and rows
of time-stained ruins, surmounted by every form of tower,
minaret, dome and spire, have been moulded from the cyclopean
masses of rock that form the mighty defile." Who will say, after
this, that water is not the grandest of all sculptors, as it
cuts through hundreds of miles of rock, forming such magnificent
granite groups, not only unsurpassed but unequalled by any of
the works of man?

But we must not look upon water only as a cutting instrument, for
it does more than merely carve out land in one place, it also
carries it away and lays it down elsewhere; and in this it is
more like a modeller in clay, who smooths off the material from
one part of his figure to put it upon another.

Running water is not only always carrying away mud, but at the
same time laying it down here and there wherever it flows. When
a torrent brings down stones and gravel from the mountains, it