A PERMIAN BUTTE.
VERMILION CLIFFS AT KANAB.
running over quicksands. Sometimes the streams in their curving have cut under the rocks, and overhanging cliffs of towering altitudes are seen; and somber chambers are found between buttresses that uphold the walls. Among the Indians this is known as the "Rock Rovers' Land," and is peopled by mythic beings of uncanny traits.
Below the Gray Cliffs another zone of plateaus is found, separated by the north-and-south faults and divided from the Colob series by the Gray Cliffs and demarcated from the plateaus to the 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.