Photograph by U.S.G.S.
Grand Canyon of the Colorado.
Showing the nature of the apparently impossible obstacles found in traversing it.
The topographer nodded.
"But what you will find still more strange," he said, "is that it is never twice the same. If you move a few yards away"—he suited the action to the word—"it looks quite different, and even if you stay still, under the changing light new shapes appear."
"That's right," affirmed the boy. "From where we stood before, I could see a huge fortress, only it was a vivid purple, and now it's gone. And I suppose those really aren't richly carved churches over there," pointing with his finger, "but a fellow would bet that they were."
"Churches without any congregations, and whose only preacher is the thunder, but they do look like temples and are so named. But truly they have been carved, though not by human hands."
"By what, then?" asked the boy.
"By wind and water," was the reply, "which have made and unmade many a thousand square mile of the earth's surface. If you will notice," he went on, "jagged and pointed as those peaks are, from this side clear across to the other, not one of them rises above the level on which you are standing or rather, above the level of the opposite side of the Canyon, which is a little higher, the slope being continued across. So, you see, you must not think of these like mountains as being built up, but of gorges as being cut down."
"And has the river cut it all down?"