ered. The river
meanders in great curves, which are themselves broken into curves of
smaller magnitude. The streams that head far back in the plateau on
either side come down in gorges and break the wall into sections. Each
lateral canyon has a secondary system of laterals, and the secondary
canyons are broken by tertiary canyons; so the crags are forever
branching, like the limbs of an oak. That which has been described as a
wall is such only in its grand effect. In detail it is a series of
structures separated by a ramification of canyons, each having its own
walls. Thus, in passing down the canyon it seems to be inclosed by
walls, but oftener by salients--towering structures that stand between
canyons that run back into the plateau. Sometimes gorges of the second
or third order have met before reaching the brink of the Grand Canyon,
and then great salients are cut off from the wall and stand out as
buttes--huge pavilions in the architecture of the canyon. The scenic
elements thus described are fused and combined in very different ways.

We measured the length of the Grand Canyon by the length of the river
running through it, but the running extent of wall cannot be measured in
this manner. In the black gneiss, which is at the bottom, the wall may
stand above the river for a few hundred yards or a mile or two; then, to
follow the foot of the wall, you must pass into a lateral canyon for a
long distance, perhaps miles, and then back again on the other side of
the lateral canyon; then along by the river until another lateral canyon
is reached, which must be headed in the black gneiss. So, for a dozen
miles of river through the gneiss, there may be a hundred miles of wall
on either side. Climbing to the summit of the black gneiss and following
the wall in the variegated quartzite, it is found to be stretched out to
a still greater length, for it is cut with more lateral gorges. In like
manner, there is yet greater length of the mottled, or alcove, sandstone
wall; and the red wall is still farther stretched out in ever branching
gorges. To make the distance for ten miles along the river by walking
along the top of the red wall, it would be necessary to travel several
hundred miles. The length of the wall reaches its maximum in the banded
sandstone, which is terraced more than any of the other formations. The
tower limestone wall is less tortuous. To start at the head of the
Grand Canyon on one of the terraces of the bande