The Grand Canyon of Arizona does not look like a real place. It seems like a place for giants, everything is so huge and wonderful. It is as though some great giant had dug his house out of solid rock. He did not make the walls smooth, but chiseled them out in strange shapes like castles and towers and temples, and he made the sides so steep that for thousands of years no human being dared to go down into his cellar. Instead of leaving the walls gray, he stained them with purples and pinks and browns and reds, and yellows, so that Joaquin Miller, the California poet, called the Grand Canyon a "paint pot 218 miles long and 15 miles wide." Our giant was a thirsty old fellow, so he let the Colorado river flow through his cellar. When you stand on the rim of the canyon, the river looks like a little thread of silver ribbon, but if you were to descend 6000 feet, you would discover that the Colorado is a wild, dashing, terrible river—so wild that only a few men have ever tried to launch their boats on it, and some of those few have lost their lives in the attempt. The Indians found several trails leading into the canyon, but they did not tell their secret to the pale-face. However, when the white men =did= discover the trails, they spread the good news and now you can go to the very rim of the canyon in a Pullman car, can stay at a splendid hotel, and can make the descent to the bottom of the canyon in perfect safety, for there are guides to lead the way and sure-footed little donkeys to carry you. The "hurricane deck" of one of these mules is not the most comfortable place to spend a day, but the views one gets on the trip are worth all the trouble. These pictures can only give you a faint idea of the wonders of the Grand Canyon. It would be foolish for us to try to describe the scenery because grown-ups have tried it and failed, but we would like to tell about the Hopi Indians who live in their funny little huts near the hotel and who may be seen weaving baskets, making jewelry and pottery, and dancing their queer dances, but this page will not hold any more words. [Illustration: OIL FIELDS OF TEXAS Opening a Gusher] It must have been a pretty dark old world before people found out about making kerosene from petroleum, for candles and queer little lamps burning lard, sperm-oil, or camphine, furnished all the light there was at night. All that time there were great lakes of petroleum down deep in the earth, but when it oozed out to the surface, people thought it was a nuisance and often abandoned their greasy farms. Later these same farms were worth a fortune.