south by the Vermilion
Cliffs. The Vermilion Cliffs that face the south are of surpassing
beauty. The rocks are of orange and red above and of chocolate,
lavender, gray, and brown tints below. The canyons that cut through the
cliffs from north to south are of great diversity and all are of
profound interest. In these canyon walls many caves are found, and often
the caves contain lakelets and pools of clear water. Canyons and
re-entrant angles abound. The faces of the cliffs are terraced and
salients project onto the floors below. The outlying buttes are many.
Standing away to the south and facing these cliffs when the sun is going
down beyond the desert of the Great Basin, shadows are seen to creep
into the deep recesses, while the projecting forms are illumined, so
that the lights and shadows are in great and sharp contrast; then a
million lights seem to glow from a background of black gloom, and a
great bank of Tartarean fire stretches across the landscape.

At the foot of the Vermilion Cliffs there is everywhere a zone of
vigorous junipers and pinons, for the belt of country is favored with
comparatively abundant rain. When the clouds drift over the plateaus
below from the south and west and strike the Vermilion Cliffs, they are
abruptly lifted 2,000 feet, and to make the climb they must unload their
burdens; so that here copious rains are discharged, and by such storms
the cliffs are carved and ever from age to age carried back farther to
the north. In the Pink Cliffs above and the Gray Cliffs and the
Vermilion Cliffs, there are many notches that mark channels running
northward which had their sources on these plateaus when they extended
farther to the south. The Rio Virgen is the only stream heading in the
Pink Cliffs and running into the Colorado which is perennial. The other
rivers and creeks carry streams of water in rainy seasons only. When a
succession of dry years occurs the canyons coming through the cliffs are
choked below, as vast bodies of sand are deposited. But now and then,
ten or twenty years apart, great storms or successions of storms come,
and the channels are flooded and cut their way again through the
drifting sands to solid rock below. Thus the streams below are
alternately choked and cleared from period to period.

To the south of the Vermilion Cliffs the last series or zone of plateaus
north of the Grand Canyon is found. The summits of these plateaus are of
cherty limestone. In the far west