PANORAMA FROM THE EDGE OF MOUNT TAYLOR MESA.

lend a strange aspect to the landscape. Besides these necks, there are a few volcanic mountains that tower over all the landscape and gather about themselves the clouds of heaven. Mount Taylor, which stands over the divide on the drainage of the Rio Grande del Norte, is one of the most imposing of the dead volcanoes of this region. Still later eruptions of lava are found here and there, and in the present valleys and canyons sheets of black basalt are often found. These are known as coulees, and sometimes from these coulees cinder cones arise.

This valley of the Little Colorado is also the site of many ruins, and the villages or towns found in such profusion were of mueh larger size than those on the San Francisco Plateau. Some of the pueblo-building peoples yet remain. The Zuñi Indians still occupy their homes, and they prove to be a most interesting people. They have cultivated the soil from time immemorial. They build their houses of stone and line them with plaster; and they have many interesting arts, being skilled potters and deft weavers. The seasons are about equally divided between labor, worship, and play.

A hundred miles to the northwest of the Zuñí pueblo are the seven pueblos of Tusayan: Oraibi, Shumopavi, Shupaulovi, Mashongnavi, Sichumovi, Walpi, and llano. These towns are built on high cliffs. The people speak a language radically different from that of the Zuñi, but, with the exception of that of the inhabitants of Hano, closely allied to that of the Utes. The people of Hano are Tewans, whose ancestors moved from the Rio Grande to Tusayan during the great Pueblo revolt against Spanish authority in 1680-96.

Between the Little Colorado and the Rio San Juan there is a vast system of plateaus, mesas, and buttes, volcanic mountains, volcanic cones, and volcanic cinder cones. Some of the plateaus are forest-clad and have perennial waters and are gemmed with lakelets. The mesas are sometimes treeless, but are often covered with low, straggling, gnarled cedars and pifions, trees that are intermediate in size between the bushes of sage in the desert and the forest trees of the elevated regions. On the western margin of this district the great Navajo Mountain stands, on the brink of Glen Canyon, and from its summit many of the stupendous gorges of the Colorado River can be seen. Central in the region stand the Carrizo Mountains, the Lukachukai

PANORAMA IN THE VALLEY OF THE PUERCO.

Mountains, the Tunitcha Mountains, and the Chusca Mountains, which in fact constitute one system, extending from north to south in the order named. These are really plateaus crowned with volcanic peaks.

But the district we are now describing, which stretches from the Little Colorado to the San Juan, is best characterized by its canyons. The whole region is a labyrinth of gorges. On the west the Navajo Creek and its tributaries run in profound chasms. Farther south the Moencopie with its tributaries is a labyrinth of gorges; and all the streams that run west into the Colorado, south into the Little Colorado, or north into the San Juan have carved deep, wild, and romantic gorges. Immediately west of the Chusca Plateau the Canyon del Muerta and the Canyon de Chelly are especially noticeable. Many of these canyons are carved in a homogeneous red sandstone, and their walls are often vertical for hundreds of feet. Sometimes the canyons widen into narrow valleys, which are thus walled by impassable cliffs, except where lateral canyons cut their way through the battlements.

In these mountains, plateaus, mesas, and canyons the Navajo Indians have their home. The Navajos are intruders in this country. They belong to the Athapascan stock of British America and speak an Athapascan language, like the Apaches of the Sierra Madre country. They are a stately, athletic, and bold people. While yet this country was a part of Mexico they acquired great herds of horses and flocks of sheep, and lived in opulence compared with many of the other tribes of North America. After the acquisition of this territory by the United States they became disaffected by reason of encroaching civilization, and the petty wars between United States troops and the Navajos were in the main disastrous to our forces, due in part to the courage, skill, and superior numbers of the Navajos and in part to the character of the country, which is easily defended, as the routes of travel along the canyons present excellent opportunities for defense and ambuscade. But under the leadership and by the advice of Kit Carson these Indians were ultimately conquered. This wily but brave frontiersman recommended a new method of warfare, which was to destroy the herds and flocks of the Navajos; and this course was pursued. Regular troops with volunteers from California and New Mexico went into the Navajo country and shot down their herds of half-wild horses,

CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.

killed hundreds of thousands of sheep, cut down their peach orchards which were scattered about the springs and little streams, destroyed their irrigating works, and devastated their little patches of corn, squashes, and melons; and entirely neglected the Navajos themselves, who were concealed among the rocks of the canyons. Seeing the destruction wrought upon their means of livelihood, the Navajos at once yielded. More than 8,000 of them surrendered at one time, coming in in straggling bands. They were then removed far to the east, near to the Texas line, and established on a reservation at the Bosque Redondo. Here they engaged in civilized farming. A great system

RUINS AT THE HEAD OF MCELMO CANYON.

of irrigation was developed; but the appropriations necessary for the maintenance of so large a body of people in the course of their passage from savagery to civilization seemed too great to those responsible for making grants from the national treasury, and just before 1870 the Navajos were permitted to break up their homes at the Bosque Redondo and return to the canyons and cliffs of their ancient land. Millions were spent in conquering them where thousands were used to civilize them, so that they were conquered but not civilized. Still, they are making good progress, and have once more acquired large flocks and herds. It is estimated that they now have more than a million sheep. Their experience in irrigation at the Bosque Redondo has

MESAS AND BUTTES.

not been wholly wasted, for they now cultivate the soil by methods of irrigation greatly improved over those used in the earlier time. Originally they dwelt in hogans, or houses made of poles arranged with much skill in conical form, the poles being covered with reeds and the reeds with earth; now they are copying the dwelling places of civilized men. They have also acquired great skill in the manufacture of silver ornaments, with which they decorate themselves and the trappings of their steeds.

Perhaps the most interesting ruins of America are found in this region. The ancient pueblos found here are of superior structure, but

A NAVAJO HOGAN.

they were all built by a people whom the Navajos displaced when they migrated from the far North. Wherever there is water, near by an ancient ruin may be found; and these ruins are gathered about centers, the centers being larger pueblos and the scattered ruins representing single houses. The ancient people lived in villages, or pueblos, but during the growing season they scattered about by the springs and streams to cultivate the soil by irrigation, and wherever there was a little farm or garden patch, there was built a summer house of stone. When times of war came, especially when they were invaded by the Navajos, these ancient people left their homes in the pueblos and by the streams and constructed temporary homes in the cliffs and canyon

CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.

walls. Such cliff ruins are abundant throughout the region, intimately the ancient pueblo peoples succumbed to the prowess of the Navajos and were driven out. A part joined related tribes in the valley of the Bio Grande; others joined the Zuñi and the people of Tusayan; and stall others pushed on beyond the Little Colorado to the San Francisco Plateau and far down into the valley of the Gila.

AN ANCIENT COILED VASE FROM TUSAYAN.

Farther to the east, on the border of the region which we have described, beyond the drainage of the Little Colorado and San Juan and within the drainage of the Rio Grande, there lies an interesting plateau region, which forms a part of the Plateau Province and which is worthy of description. This is the great Tewan Plateau, which carries several groups of mountains. The western edge of this plateau is known as the

Nacimiento Mountain, a long north-and-south range of granite, which presents a bold facade to the valley of the Puerco on the west. Ascending to the summit of this granite range, there is presented to the eastward a plateau of vast proportions, which stretches far toward Santa Fe and is terminated by the canyon of the Rio Grande del Norte. The eastern flank of this range as it slowly rose was a gentle slope, but as it came up fissures were formed and volcanoes burst forth and poured out their floods of lava, and now many extinct volcanoes can be seen. The plateau was built by these volcanoes--sheets of lava piled on sheets of lava hundreds and even thousands of feet in thickness. But with the floods of lava came great explosions, like that of Krakatoa, by which the heavens were filled with volcanic dust. These explosions came at different times and at different places, but they were of enormous magnitude, and when the dust fell again from the clouds it piled up in beds scores and hundreds of feet in thickness. So the Tewan Plateau has a foundation of red sandstone; upon this are piled sheets of lava and sheets of dust in many alternating layers. It is estimated that there still remain more than two hundred cubic miles of this dust, now compacted into somewhat coherent rocks and interpolated between sheets of lava. Everywhere this dust-formed rock is exceedingly light. Much of it has a specific gravity so low that it will float on water. Above the sheets of lava and above the beds of volcanic dust great volcanic cones rise, and the whole upper region is covered with forests interspersed with beautiful prairies. The plateau itself is intersected with many deep, narrow canyons, having walls of lava, volcanic dust, or tufa, and red sandstone. It is a beautiful region. The low mesas on every side are almost treeless and are everywhere deserts, but the great Tewan Plateau is booned with abundant rains, and it is thus a region of forests and meadows, divided into blocks by deep, precipitous canyons and crowned with cones that rise to an altitude of from 10,000 to 12,000 feet.

For many centuries the Tewan Plateau, with its canyons below and its meadows and forests above, has been the home of tribes of Tewan Indians, who built pueblos, sometimes of the red sandstones in the canyons, but oftener of blocks of tufa, or volcanic dust. This light material can be worked with great ease, and with crude tools of the

CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.

harder lavas they cut out blocks of the tufa and with them built pueblos two or three stories high. The blocks are usually about twenty inches in length, eight inches in width, and six inches in thickness, though they vary somewhat in size. On the volcanic cones which dominate the country these people built shrines and worshiped their gods with offerings of meal and water and with prayer symbols made of the plumage of the birds of the air. When the Navajo invasion came, by which kindred tribes were displaced from the district farther west, these Tewan Indians left their pueblos on the plateau and their dwellings by the rivers below in the depths of the canyon and constructed cavate homes for themselves; that is, they excavated chambers in the cliffs where these cliffs were composed of soft, friable tufa. On the face of the cliff, hundreds of feet high and thousands of feet or even miles in length, they dug out chambers with stone tools, these chambers being little rooms eight or ten feet in diameter. Sometimes two or more such chambers connected. Then they constructed stairways in the soft rock, by which their cavate houses were reached; and in these rock shelters they lived during times

A TYPICAL CLIFF DWELLING.

A ROOM IN A PUEBLO.

CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.

of war. When the Navajo invasion was long past, civilized men as Spanish adventurers entered this country from Mexico, and again the Tewan peoples left their homes on the mesas and by the canyons to find safety in the cavate dwellings of the cliffs; and now the archaeologist in the study of this country discovers these two periods of construction and occupation of the cavate dwellings of the Tewan Indians.

North of the Rio San Juan another vast plateau region is found, stretching to the Grand River. The mountains of this region are the La Plata Mountains, Bear River Mountains, and San Miguel Mountains on the east, and the Sierra El Late, the Sierra Abajo, and the Sierra La Sal on the west, the latter standing near the brink of Cataract Canyon, through which the Colorado flows immediately below the junction of the Grand and Green. Throughout the region mountains, volcanic cones, volcanic necks, and coulees are found, while the mountains themselves rise to great altitudes and are forest-clad. Some of the plateaus attain huge proportions, and between the plateaus labyrinthian mesas are found. Buttes, as stupendous cameos, are scattered everywhere, and the whole region is carved with canyons.

Grand River heads on the back of Long's Peak, in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado. At the foot of the mountain lies Grand Lake, a sheet of emerald water that duplicates the forest standing on its brink. Out of the lake flows Grand River, gathering on

A NAVAJO READY FOR A JOURNEY.

MESAS AND BUTTES.

its way the many mountain streams whose waters fill the solitude with perennial music--a symphony of cascades. In Middle Park boiling springs issue from depths below and gather in pools covered with con-fervae. Leaving Middle Park the river goes through a great range known as the Gore's Pass Mountains; and still it flows on toward the Colorado, now through canyon and now through valley, until the last forty miles of its course it finds its way through a beautiful gorge known as Grand River Canyon. In its principal course this canyon is a bright red homogeneous sandstone, and the walls are often vertical and of great symmetry. Farther down, its walls are rugged and angular, being composed of limestones.

The principal tributaries from the south are the Blue, which heads in Mt. Lincoln, and the Gunnison, which heads in the Wasatch Mountains. These streams are also characterized by deep canyons and plateaus, and mesas abound on every hand. Between the Grand River and the White River, farther to the east, the Tavaputs Plateau is found. It begins at the foot of Gore's Pass Range and extends down between the rivers last mentioned to the very brink of Green River, which is in fact the upper Colorado. Between the Grand River and the

A NAVAJO BOY.

CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.

foot of this plateau there is a low, narrow valley with mesas and buttes. Then the country suddenly rises by a stupendous line of cliffs 2,000 or 3,000 feet high. These cliffs are composed of sand stones, limestones, and shales, of many colors. The stratification in many places is minute, so that they have been called the Book Cliffs.

GARDENS OF ZUÑI.

From the cliffs many salients are projected into the valleys, and within deep re-entering angles vast amphitheaters appear. About the projected salients many towering buttes, with pinnacles and minarets, are found. The long, narrow plateau is covered with a forest along its summit, and, though it rises abruptly on the south side from Grand River Valley, it descends more gently toward the White River, and on

MESAS AND BUTTES.

A TUSAYAN LADDER.

this slope many canyons of rare beauty are seen. Plateaus and mesas and canyons and buttes characterize the region north of White River and stretch out to the Yampa. The Yampa itself has an important tributary from the northwest, known as Snake River. Just below the affluence of the Snake with the Yampa a strange phenomenon is observed. Right athwart the course of the river rises a great dome-shaped mountain, with valley stretches on every side, and through this mountain the river runs, dividing it by a beautiful canyon, through which it flows to its junction with the Green. This canyon is in soft, white sandstone, usually with vertical walls varying from 500 to 2,000 feet in height, and the river flows in a gentle winding way through all this stretch. To the east of this plateau region, with its mesas and buttes and its volcanic mountains, stand the southern Rocky Mountains, or Park Mountains, a system of north-and-south ranges. These ranges are huge billows in the crust of the earth out of which mountains have been carved. The parks of Colorado are great valley basins enclosed by these ranges, and over their surfaces moss agates are scattered. The mountains are covered with dense forests and are rugged and wild. The higher peaks rise above the timber line and are naked gorges of rocks. In them the Platte and Arkansas rivers head and flow eastward to join the Missouri River. Here also heads the Rio Grande del Norte, which flows southward into the Gulf of Mexico, and still to the west head many streams which pour into the Colorado waters destined for the Gulf of California. Throughout all of this region drained by the Grand, White, and Yampa rivers, there are many beautiful parks. The great moun-

A ZUÑÍ STOOL.

CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.

tain slopes are still covered with primeval forests. Springs, brooks, rivers, and lakes abound, and the waters are filled with trout. Not many years ago the hills were covered with game--elk on the mountains, deer on the plateaus, antelope in the valleys, and beavers building their cities on the streams. The plateaus are covered with low, dwarf oaks and many shrubs bearing berries, and in the chaparral of this region cinnamon bears are still abundant.

From time immemorial the region drained by the Grand, White, and Yampa rivers has been the home of Ute tribes of the Shoshonean

A TUSAYAN FIELD SHELTER.

family of Indians. These people built their shelters of boughs and bark, and to some extent lived in tents made of the skins of animals. They never cultivated the soil, but gathered wild seeds and roots and were famous hunters and fishermen. As the region abounds in game, these tribes have always been well clad in skins and furs. The men wore blouse, loincloth leggins, and moccasins, and the women dressed in short kilts. It is curious to notice the effect which the contact of civilization has had upon these women's dress. Even twenty years ago they had lengthened their skirts; and dresses, made of buckskin, fringed with furs, and beaded with elk teeth, were worn so long that they trailed

MESAS AND BUTTES.

on the ground. Neither men nor women wore any headdress except on festival occasions for decoration; then the women wore little basket bonnets decorated with feathers, and the men wore headdresses made of the skins of ducks, geese, eagles, and other large birds. Sometimes they would prepare the skin of the head of the elk or deer, or of a bear or mountain lion or wolf, for a headdress. For very cold weather both men and women were provided with togas for their protection. Sometimes the men would have a bearskin or elkskin for a toga; more

ANOTHER TUSAYAN FIELD SHELTER.

often they made their togas by piecing together the skins of wolves, mountain lions, wolverines, wild cats, beavers, and otters. The women sometimes made theirs of fawnskins, but rabbitskin r,obes were far more common. These rabbitskins were tanned with the fur on, and cut into strips; then cords were made of the fiber of wild flax or yucca plants, and round these cords the strips of rabbitskin were rolled, so that they made long ropes of rabbitskin coils with a central cord of vegetal fiber; then these coils were woven in parallel strings with cross

VIEW OF HANO, ONE OF THE SEVEN PUEBLOS OF TUSAYAN.

MESA VERDE.

strands of fiber. The robe when finished was usually about five or six feet square, and it made a good toga for a cold day and a warm blanket for the night.

The Ute Indians, like all the Indians of North America, have a wealth of mythic stories. The heroes of these stories are the beasts, birds, and reptiles of the region, and the themes of the stories are the doings of these mythic beasts--the ancients from whom the present animals have descended and degenerated. The primeval animals were wonderful beings, as related in the lore of the Utes. They were the creators and controllers of all the phenomena of nature known to these simple-minded people. The Utes are zootheists. Each little tribe has its Shaman, or medicine man, who is historian, priest, and doctor. The lore of this Shaman is composed of mythic tales of ancient animals. The Indians are very skillful actors, and they represent the parts of beasts or reptiles, wearing masks and imitating the ancient zoic gods. In temples walled with gloom of night and illumed by torch fires the people gather about their Shaman, who tells and acts the stories of creation recorded in their traditional bible. When fever prostrates one of the tribe the Shaman gathers the actors about the stricken man, and with weird dancing, wild ululation, and ecstatic exhortation the evil spirit is driven from the body. Then they have their ceremonies to pray for the forest fruits, for abundant game, for successful hunting, and for prosperity in war.

MOUNT MORAN, TETON RANGE, WYOMING.

CHAPTER III.

MOUNTAINS AND PLATEAUS.

GREEN RIVER has its source in Fremont's Peak, high up in the Wind River Mountains among glacial lakes and mountain cascades. This is the real source of the Colorado River, and it stands in strange contrast with the mouth of that stream where it pours into the Gulf of California. The general course of the river is from north to south and from great altitudes to the level of the sea. Thus it runs "from land of snow to land of sun." The Wind River Mountains constitute one of the most imposing ranges of the United States. Fremont's Peak, the culminating point, is 13,790 feet above the level of the sea. It stands in a wilderness of crags. Here at Fremont's Peak three great rivers have their sources: Wind River flows eastward into the Mississippi; Green River flows southward into the Colorado; and Gros Ventre River flows northwestward into the Columbia. From this dominating height many ranges can be seen on every hand. About the sources of the Platte and the Big Horn, that flow ultimately into the Gulf of Mexico, great ranges stand with their culminating peaks among the clouds; and the mountains that extend into Yellowstone Park, the land of geyser wonders, are seen. The Yellowstone Park is at the southern extremity of a great system of mountain ranges, the northern Rocky Mountains, sometimes called the Geyser Ranges. This geological province extends into British America, but its most wonderful scenery is in the upper Yellowstone basin, where geysers bombard the heavens with vapor distilled in subterranean depths. The springs which pour out their boiling waters are loaded with quartz, and the waters of the springs, flowing away over the rocks, slowly discharge their fluid magma, which crystallizes in beautiful forms and builds jeweled basins that hold pellucid waters.

To the north and west of Fremont's Peak are mountain ranges that give birth to rivers flowing into the great Columbia. Conspicuous among these from this point of view is the great Teton Range, with its towering facade of storm-carved rocks; then the Gros Ventre Mountains, the Snake River Range, the Wyoming Range, and, still beyond the latter, the Bear River Range, are seen. Far in the distant south, scarcely to be distinguished from the blue clouds on the horizon, stand the Uinta Mountains. On every hand are deep mountain gorges where snows accumulate to form glaciers. Below the glaciers throughout the entire Wind River Range great numbers of morainal lakes are found. These lakes are gems--deep sapphire waters fringed with emerald zones. From these lakes creeks and rivers flow, by cataracts and rapids, to form the Green. The mountain slopes below are covered with dense forests of pines and firs. The lakes are often fringed with beautiful aspens, and when the autumn winds come their golden leaves are carried over the landscape in clouds of resplendent sheen. The creeks descend from the mountains in wild rocky gorges, until they flow out into the valley. On the west side of the valley stand the Gros Ventre and the Wyoming mountains, low ranges of peaks, but picturesque in form and forest stretch. Leaving the mountain, the river meanders through the Green River Plains, a cold elevated district much like that of northern Norway, except that the humidity of Norway is replaced by the aridity of Wyoming. South of the plains the Big Sandy joins the Green from the east. South of the Big Sandy a long zone of sand-dunes stretches eastward. The western winds blowing up the valley drift these sands from hill to hill, so that the hills themselves are slowly journeying eastward on the wings of arid gales, and sand tempests may be encountered more terrible than storms of snow or hail. Here the northern boundary of the Plateau Province is found, for mesas and high table-lands are found on either side of the river.

On the east side of the Green, mesas and plateaus have irregular escarpments with points extending into the valleys, and between these points canyons come down that head in the highlands. Everywhere the escarpments are fringed with outlying buttes. Many portions of the region are characterized by bad lands. These are hills carved out of sandstone, shales, and easily disintegrated rocks, which present many

MARBLE BASINS, MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, YELLOWSTONE PARK.

TERRACED BASINS, MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, YELLOWSTONE PABK.

fantastic forms and are highly colored in a great variety of tint and tone, and everywhere they are naked of vegetation. Now and then low mountains crown the plateaus. Altogether it is a region of desolation. Through the midst of the country, from east to west, flows an intermittent stream known as Bitter Creek. In seasons of rain it carries floods; in seasons of drought it disappears in the sands, and its waters are alkaline and often poisonous. Stretches of bad-land desert are interrupted by other stretches of sage plain, and on the high lands gnarled and picturesque forests of juniper and piñón are found. On the west side of the river the mesas rise by grassy slopes to the westward into high plateaus that are forest-clad, first with juniper and piñon, and still higher with pines and firs. Some of the streams run in canyons and others have elevated valleys along their courses. On the south border of this mesa and plateau country are the Bridger Bad Lands, lying at the foot of the Uinta Mountains. These bad lands are of gray, green, and brown shales that are carved in picturesque forms--domes, towers, pinnacles, and minarets, and bold cliffs with deep alcoves; and all are naked rock, the sediments of an ancient lake. These lake beds are filled with fossils,--the preserved bones of fishes, reptiles, and mammals, of strange and often gigantic forms, no longer found living on the globe. It is a desert to the agriculturist, a mine to the paleontologist, and a paradise to the artist.

The region thus described, from Fremont's Peak to the Uinta Mountains, has been the home of tribes of Indians of the Shoshonean family from time immemorial. It is a great hunting and fishing region, and the vigorous Shoshones still obtain a part of their livelihood from mesa and plain and river and lake. The flesh of the animals killed in fall and winter was dried in the arid winds for summer use; the trout abounding in the streams and lakes were caught at all seasons of the year; and the seeds and fruits of harvest time were gathered and preserved for winter use. When the seeds were gathered they were winnowed by tossing them in trays so that the winds might carry away the chaff. Then they were roasted in the same trays. Burning coals and seeds were mixed in the basket trays and kept in motion by a tossing process which fanned the coals until the seeds were done; then they were separated from the coals by dexterous manipulation. Afterwards the seeds were ground on

mealing-stones and molded into cakes, often huge loaves, that were stored away for use in time of need. Raspberries, chokecherries, and buffalo berries are abundant, and these fruits were gathered and mixed with the bread. Such fruit cakes were great dainties among these people.

In this Shoshone land the long winter night is dedicated to worship and festival. About their camp fires scattered in forest glades by brooks and lakes, they assemble to dance and sing in honor of their gods--wonderful mythic animals, for they hold as divine the ancient of bears, the eagle of the lost centuries, the rattlesnake of primeval times, and a host of other zoic deities.

The Uinta Range stands across the course of Green River, which finds its way through it by series of stupendous canyons. The range has an east-and-west trend. The Wasatch Mountains, a long north-and-south range, here divide the Plateau Province from what is known among geologists as the Basin Range Province, on the west. The latter is the great interior basin whose waters run into salt lakes and sinks, there being no drainage to the sea. The Great Salt Lake is the most important of these interior bodies of water.

The Great Basin, which lies to the west of the Plateau Province, forms a part of the Basin Range Province. In past geological times it was the site of a vast system of lakes, but the climate has since changed and the water of most of these lakes has evaporated and the sediments of the old lake beds are now desert sands. The ancient lake shores are often represented by conspicuous terraces, each one marking a stage in the height of a dead lake. While these lakes existed the region was one of great volcanic activity and many eruptive mountains were formed. Some burst out beneath the waters; others were piled up on the dry land.

From the desert valleys below, the Wasatch Mountains rise abruptly and are crowned with craggy peaks. But on the east side of the mountains the descent to the plateau is comparatively slight. The Uinta Mountains are carved out of the great plateau which extends more than two hundred miles to the eastward of the summit of the Wasatch Range. Its mountain peaks are cameos, its upper valleys are meadows, its higher slopes are forest groves, and its streams run in deep, solemn, and majestic canyons. The snows never melt from its crowning heights, and an undying anthem is sung by its falling waters.

TABERNACLE CRATER AND LAVA BEDS OF THE BASIN PROVINCE.

VIEW ON GREAT SALT LAKE DESERT, SHOWING MOUNTAINS HALF BURIED BY LAKE SEDIMENTS.

The Owiyukuts Plateau is situated at the northeastern end of the Uinta Mountains. It is a great integral block of the Uinta system. A beautiful creek heads in this plateau, near its center, and descends northward into the bad lands of Vermilion Creek, to which stream it is tributary. "Once upon a time" this creek, after descending from the plateau, turned east and then southward and found its way by a beautiful canyon into Brown's Park, where it joined the Green; but a great bend of the Vermilion, near the foot of the plateau, was gradually enlarged--the stream cutting away its banks--until it encroached upon the little valley of the creek born on the Owiyukuts Plateau. This encroachment continued until at last Vermilion Creek stole the Owiyukuts Creek and carried its waters away by its own channel. Then the canyon channel through which Owiyukuts Creek had previously run, no longer having a stream to flow through its deep gorge, gathered the waters of brooks flowing along its course into little lakelets, which are connected by a running stream only through seasons of great rainfall. These lakelets in the gorge of the dead creek are now favorite resorts of Ute Indians.

South of the Uinta Mountains is the Uinta River, a stream with many mountain tributaries, some heading in the Uinta Mountains, others in the Wasatch Mountains on the west, and still others in the western Tavaputs Plateau.

The Uinta Valley is the ancient and present home of the Uinta Indians, a tribe speaking the Uinta language of the Shoshonean family. Their habits, customs, institutions, and mythology are essentially the same as those of the Ute Indians of the Grand River country, already described. In this valley there are also found many ruins of ancient pueblo-building peoples--of what stock is not known.

The Tavaputs Plateau is one of the stupendous features of this country. On the west it merges into the Wasatch Mountains; on the north it descends by wooded slopes into the Uinta Valley. Its summit is forest-clad and among the forests are many beautiful parks. On the south it ends in a great escarpment which descends into Castle Valley. This southern escarpment presents one of the most wonderful facades of the world. It is from 2,000 to 4,000 feet high. The descent is not made by one bold step, for it is cut by canyons and cliffs. It is a zone several

CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.

miles in width which is a vast labyrinth of canyons, cliffs, buttes, pinnacles, minarets, and detached rocks of Cyclopean magnitude, the whole destitute of soil and vegetation, colored in many brilliant tones and tints, and carved in many weird forms,--a land of desolation, dedicated forever to the geologist and the artist, where civilization can find no resting-place.

Then comes Castle Valley, to describe which is to beggar language and pall imagination. On the north is the Tavaputs; on the west is the Wasatch Plateau, which lies to the south of the Wasatch Mountains and is here the west boundary of the Plateau Province; on the south are indescribable mesas and mountains; on the east is Grand River, a placid stream meandering through a valley of meadows. Within these boundaries there is a landscape of gigantic rock forms, interrupted here and there by bad-land hills, dominated with the towering cliffs of Tavaputs, the bold escarpment of the Wasatch Plateau, and the volcanic peaks of the Henry Mountains on the south. It is a vast forest of rock forms, and in its midst is San Rafael Swell, an elevation crowned with still more gigantic rock forms. Among the rocks pools and lakelets are found, and little streams run in canyons that seem like chasms cleft to nadir