August 12.--The rocks above camp are rust-colored sandstones and conglomerates. Some are very hard; others quite soft. They all lie nearly horizontal, and the beds of softer material have been washed out, leaving the harder forming a series of shelves. Long lines of these are seen, of varying thickness, from one or two to twenty or thirty feet, and the spaces between have the same variability. This morning I spend two or three hours in climbing among these shelves, and then I pass above them and go up a long slope to the foot of the cliff and try to discover some way by which I can reach the top of the wall; but I find my progress cut off by an amphitheater. Then I wander away around to the left, up a little gulch and along benches, climbing from time to time, until I reach an altitude of nearly 2,000 feet and can get no higher. From this point I can look off to the west, up side canyons of the Colorado, and see the edge of a great plateau, from which streams run down into the Colorado, and deep gulches in the 243 powell-canyons-156.jpg ADOBE WALLS, ZUÑI 244 CANYONS OF THE COLORADO. escarpment which faces us, continued by canyons, ragged and flaring and set with cliffs and towering crags, down to the river. I can see far up Marble Canyon to long lines of chocolate-colored cliffs, and above these the Vermilion Cliffs. I can see, also, up the Colorado Chiquito, through a very ragged and broken canyon, with sharp salients set out from the walls on either side, their points overlapping, so that a huge tooth of marble on one side seems to be set between two teeth on the opposite; and I can also get glimpses of walls standing away back from the river, while over my head are mural escarpments not possible to be scaled. Cataract Canyon is 41 miles long. The walls are 1,300 feet high at its head, and they gradually increase in altitude to a point about halfway down, where they are 2,700 feet, and then decrease to 1,300 feet at the foot. Narrow Canyon is 9 1/2 miles long, with walls 1,300 feet in height at the head and coming down to the water at the foot. There is very little vegetation in this canyon or in the adjacent country. Just at the junction of the Grand and Green there are a number of hackberry trees; and along the entire length of Cataract Canyon the high-water line is marked by scattered trees of the same species. A few nut pines and cedars are found, and occasionally a redbud or Judas tree; but the general aspect of the canyons and of the adjacent country is that of naked rock. 244 The distance through Glen Canyon is 149 miles. Its walls vary in height from 200 or 300 to 1,600 feet. Marble Canyon is 65 1/2 miles long. At its head it is 200 feet deep, and it steadily increases in depth to its foot, where its walls are 3,500 feet high. 245 powell-canyons-157.jpg 246 powell-canyons-158.jpg AT THE MOUTH OF THE LITTLE COLORADO. 247 CHAPTER XI. FROM THE LITTLE COLORADO TO THE FOOT OF THE GRAND CANYON.