[8] It may be noted here with reference to the location of Cibola, Tiguex, Tusayan, etc., that too much heretofore has been _assumed_. The explanations presented are often very lame and unsatisfactory when critically examined. So many writers are now committed to the errors, on this subject that it will be a hard matter to arrive at the truth. The Grand Canyon from Bright Angel Hotel. The Grand Canyon from Bright Angel Hotel. 12 miles to opposite rim. Total depth here between 5000 and 6000 feet. Photograph by HALL. Coronado proceeded eastward to about the western line of Missouri, and, finding colonisation anywhere in the regions visited out of the question, he returned in 1542 to Mexico, with his entire army excepting a couple of padres. CHAPTER III. The Grand Canyon—Character of the Colorado River—The Water-Gods; Erosion and Corrosion—The Natives and their Highways—The “Green River Valley” of the Old Trappers—The Strange Vegetation and Some Singular Animals. The stupendous chasm known as the Grand Canyon, discovered by Cardenas in the autumn of 1540, is the most remarkable feature of this extraordinary river, and at the same time is one of the marvels of the world. Though discovered so long ago that we make friends with the conquistadores when we approach its history, it remained, with the other canyons of the river, a problem for 329 years thereafter, that is, till 1869. Discovery does not mean knowledge, and knowledge does not mean publicity. In the case of this gorge, with its immense length and countless tributary chasms, the view Cardenas obtained was akin to a dog’s discovery of the moon. It has practically been several times re-discovered. Indeed, each person who first looks into the abyss has a sensation of being a discoverer, for the scene is so weird and lonely and so incomprehensible in its novelty that one feels that it could never have been viewed before. And it _is_ rather a discovery for each individual, because no amount of verbal or pictorial description can ever fully prepare the spectator for, the sublime reality. Even when one becomes familiar with the incomparable spectacle it never ceases to astonish. A recent writer has well said: “The sublimity of the Pyramids is endurable, but at the rim of the Grand Canyon we feel outdone.”[1] Outdone is exactly the right word. Nowhere else can man’s insignificance be so burned into his soul as here, where his ingenuity and power count for naught. [1] Harriet Monroe, _Atlantic Monthly_, June, 1902. The Grand-Marble Canyon Region. The Grand-Marble Canyon Region. Scale about 30 miles to the inch. This is not as accurate as the map opposite page 41, but is given as an aid to the understanding of that. Compare also map on page 12.