RUINS OF PAYUPKI, SIX MILES NORTHWEST OF MASHONGNAVI, TUSAYAN.
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 of the Escalante region from 2,000 to 4,000 feet by a front of storm-carved cliffs. From the southeastern extremity of this plateau, at an altitude of 7,500 feet, an instructive view is obtained. One of the great canyons of the Colorado River can be seen meandering its way through the red-rock landscape. In the distance, and to the north, the Henry Mountains are in view, and below, the canyons of the Escalante and the red-rock land are in sight. Across the Colorado are the canyons of the San Juan, and below the mouth of the San Juan is the great Navajo Mountain. Still to the south the Grand Canyon of the Colorado is in view, and in the west a vast mesa landscape is presented with its buttes and pinnacles. Still to the southward Paria River is seen heading in a plateau on the margin of the province and having a course a little east of south into the Colorado.
The region of country which has been thus described, from the Tava-puts Plateau to the Paria River, was the home of a few scattered Ute Indians, who lived in very small groups, and who hunted on the plateau, fished in the waters, and dwelt in the canyons. There was nominally but one tribe, but as the members of this tribe were in very small parties and separated by wide distances the tribal bonds were very weak and often unrecognized. The chief integrating agency was religion, for they worshiped the same gods and periodically joined in the same religious ceremonies and festivals. A country so destitute of animal and vegetal life would not support large numbers, and the few who dwelt here gained but a precarious and scant subsistence. To a large extent they lived on seeds and roots. The low, warm canyons furnished admirable shelter for the people, and their habitual costumes were loincloths, paints, and necklaces of tiny arrowheads made of the bright-colored agates and carnelians strung on snakeskins.