Copyright by W. These Titanic terraces and palisaded plateaus, more particularly the flaming canyons and jeweled amphitheatres cut from their color-saturated rock layers, form scenic spectacles without peer or rival on the globe. Nothing else is comparable to these wonderlands. To see them is both a thrilling adventure and an artistic delight.
It is not so long since the forts along the way actually repelled Indian attacks; it is not so far to fastnesses where cougars come forth to prey on deer, or to desert valleys where wild mustangs range. On the edge of the plains are ruins of primitive dwellings of which the modern Indian knows nothing; in many a secluded canyon are the more inscrutable habitations of the 6 cliff dwellers.
The indomitable ranchers have built quaint, poplar-shaded villages with homes of adobe, and their farms are often fenced with stone. It is a mysterious land of purple sage and empurpled distances, of incredible color, of sun-magic and the wizardry of wind and water.
It is a place to drink in beauty, to form new conceptions of the divine. Geologists recognize three subdivisions of the region from north to south: the High Plateaus; the Terraced Plateaus; the Grand Canyon Platform.
The country reveals fascinating chapters of geologic history. It is a region that has undergone great transitions, alternately sea bottom and mountain top; a region broken and tilted by tremendous displacements; a region scorched and branded by intense volcanic action; but more than all else, from the viewpoint of human interest, a region profoundly sculptured and given its most distinctive character by the beauty-creating genius of erosion.
