A fracture
of wall would show the true colour of the rock, beneath the stain;
lime crystals studded its surface, like gems glinting in the sunlight;
beautifully tinted jasper, resembling the petrified wood found in
another part of Arizona, was embedded in the marble wall,--usually at
the point of contact with another formation,--polished by the sands of
the turbid river.
All this told us that we were coming into our own. Four of the seven
notable divisions of rock strata found in the Grand Canyon were now
represented in Marble Canyon, and soon the green shale, which
underlies the blue limestone, began to crop out by the river as the
walls grew higher and the stream cut deeper.
One turn of the canyon revealed a break where Stanton hid his
provisions in a cave--after a second fatality in which two more of
this ill-fated expedition lost their lives--and climbed out on top.
Afterwards he re-outfitted with heavier boats and tackled the stream
again.
Just below this break the scene changed as we made a sharp turn to the
left. Vasey's Paradise--named by Major Powell after Dr. Geo. W. Vasey,
botanist of the United States Department of Agriculture--was disclosed
to view. Beautiful streams gushed from rounded holes, fifty yards
above the river. The rock walls reminded one of an ivy-covered castle
of old England, guarded by a moat uncrossed by any drawbridge. It was
trellised with vines, maidenhair ferns, and water-moss making a vivid
green background for the golden yellow and burnished copper leaves
which still clung to some small cottonwood trees--the only trees we
had seen in Marble Canyon.
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