Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1898: Volume 54, November 1898Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1898: Volume 54, November 1898
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
In other places in this same locality huge volcanic masses had been
pushed mysteriously, in remote geological time, here and there through
the strata of sandstones, and the layers of water-made rocks having
been subsequently cut away by the rains, the harder fire-made rocks
offering more resistance were left behind in tall spires, towers, and
various fantastic shapes. To one of them, revealing from the mountains
above it a central mass with winglike dikes spreading out on each side,
the Navajos have applied the name of _Tsebetai_, "The Stone Bird," and
by this name it is now known to all who enter the barren and peculiar
country. Gazing down upon it one day from the crest of the Tunicha
Plateau, I was instantly impressed by the felicity of the Indian title,
for there it lay upon the plain exactly like a great buzzard petrified
with wings outstretched for flight.
As a rule, it is not the volcanic rocks that furnish the close images
of bird, beast, or building. The sedimentary or water-made rocks yield
the greatest number and the closest resemblances. Even in towers
and pinnacles the water-made rocks, though softer, come out ahead,
frequently sending up their splendid shafts to hundreds of feet, or to a
full thousand, like the "Captains" in De Chelly Cañon, Arizona (Fig. 5).
Minarets and spires from one hundred to three or four hundred feet high
might be counted by thousands in the cliff and cañon country.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--THE CAPTAINS.]
In far-away Greenland Dr. Kane came upon the red sandstone, "dreamy
semblance of a castle flanked with triple towers, completely isolated
and defined," which he named the "Three Brothers Turrets" (Fig. 6). Not
far from this he found a still more singular and impressive shaft, whose
poetical symmetry caused him to name it "Tennyson's Monument" (Fig. 7).
This he describes thus: "A single cliff of greenstone, marked by the
slaty limestone that once incased it, rears itself from a crumbled base
of sandstones, like the boldly chiseled rampart of an ancient city. At
its northern extremity, on the brink of a deep ravine which has worn its
way among the ruins, there stands a solitary column or minaret tower, as
sharply finished as if it had been cast for the Place Vendôme. Yet the
length of the shaft alone is four hundred and eighty feet, and it rises
on a plinth or pedestal itself two hundred and eighty."
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