he Wasatch Plateau we have the Fish Lake Plateau, the Awapa Plateau,
and the Aquarius Plateau, which separate the waters flowing into the
Great Basin from the waters of the Colorado, which here constitute the
boundary of the Plateau Province. Awapa is a Ute name signifying "Many
waters."

All three of these plateaus are remarkable for the many lakelets found
on them. To the east are the Henry Mountains, a group of volcanic domes
that rise above the region. The rocks of the country are limestones,
sandstones, and shales, originally lying in horizontal altitudes; but
volcanic forces were generated under them and lavas boiled up. These
lavas did not, however, come to the surface, but as they rose they
lifted the sandstones, shales, and limestones, to a thickness of 2,000
or 3,000 feet or more, into great domes. Then the molten lavas cooled in
great lenses of mountain magnitude, with the sedimentary rocks domed
above them. Then the clouds gathered over these domes and wept, and
their tears were gathered in brooks, and the brooks carved canyons down
the sides of the domes; and now in these deep clefts the structure of
the mountains is revealed. The lenses of volcanic rocks by which the
domes were upheaved are known as "laccolites," _i. e.,_ rock lakes.

Looking southwestward from the Henry Mountains the Circle Cliffs are
seen. A great escarpment, several thousand feet in height and 70 or 80
miles in length, faces the mountain. It is the step to the long, narrow
plateau. The streams that come down across these cliffs head in great
symmetric amphitheaters, and when first seen from above they present a
vast alignment of walled circles. The front of the cliffs, seen from
below, is everywhere imposing. On the southwest the Escalante River
holds its course. It heads in the Aquarius Plateau and flows into the
Colorado. Its course, as well as that of all its many tributaries, is in
deep box-canyons of homogeneous red sandstone, often with vertical walls
that are broken by many beautiful alcoves and glens. Much of the region
is of naked, smooth, red rock, but the alcoves and glens that break the
canyon walls are the sites of perennial springs, about which patches of
luxuriant verdure gather.

The Kaiparowits Plateau is an elevated table-land on the southwestern
side of the Escalante River. It is long and narrow, extending from the
northwest to the southeast approximately parallel with the Escalante. It
rises above the red sandstone