So these architectural forms that result from the perennial battle between the dry land and the sea, no matter what their size, are charming in majesty, in proportion, in harmony of color, and in variety and grace of outline. Our imaginations are constantly in search of resemblances, and it is not strange, therefore, that every land presents to human curiosity numerous specimens, though it must be admitted that the mind is sometimes taxed to discover the likeness. On the other hand, some are so evident as to have acquired a world-wide celebrity. The Natural Bridge of Virginia (Fig. 1) is not only a resemblance, it is a reality. In the Rocky Mountain region are numerous other bridges formed thus naturally. In the Cañon of Desolation, Green River, Utah, far above the water are many natural arches in the thinner salients of the monster cliffs. These perforations are often two thousand feet above the river, looking like enormous windows opening on some other world. In one a pine tree that must have been at least a hundred feet high was growing, and its top was many feet below the crown of the arch. Wherever this particular formation is exposed, these arches or bridges occur in all stages of development. The sandstone of this formation has the peculiarity of fracturing conchoidally, and when the face of a cliff contains one of these fractures (due to weathering) and is not thick, some crevice is sure to open a path to the enemy, which is soon widened to a highway for the frost and rain, and a cascade in shower-time pours down, picking up sand as it goes to help in the attack. The weathering becomes more rapid, the arch opens up, and in time a natural bridge (Fig. 2) spans the air where once there was but solid stone. The process continuing, the bridge will disappear, a vacancy will take its place, and far off in the river bottom, or still farther in the sea, will rest the disintegrated material that once made part of the continuous cliff. Where the cliff is too thick to be perforated (Fig. 3), the arch breaks back into a deep cavern whose roof falls and falls till the blue sky takes its place. Thus has a natural bridge, like a flower, its birth, its growth, perfection, and decay. Wind erosion also plays a part, but the chief work is due to water.
Fig. 3.—Middle Stage of a Bridge or Arch.
Besides bridges there are numberless other forms. Who has not seen Castle or Pulpit Rocks, or Devil's Slides, or Palisades, etc.? But it is in the West, perhaps, that the most remarkable rain carvings and wind carvings occur, and especially in that part called the Southwest, that "land as old as time is old," that strange, weird land of red rocks, of tall, long cliff lines like mountain ranges split asunder to span the desert in their nakedness; that land of labyrinthine cañons, where the bloom of morning lingers to kiss the gloom of night; land of isolated buttes that frown in lofty silence on the lower world like monuments belonging to some cemetery of giants; land of mesas, plateaus, pinnacles, and peaks.
Fig. 4.—Garden of the Gods.
STEEPLE ROCK COLORADO
The massive red-and-yellow buttes at Green River, Wyoming, are familiar to passengers on the Union Pacific Railway, and have been beautifully rendered on canvas by Thomas Moran. Visitors to Colorado Springs will not forget the superb "Steeple" and "Cathedral" rocks in the Garden of the Gods (Fig. 4), whose gorgeous vermilion is thrust vertically into the Colorado blue; and many there are who have seen the wonders of the Yellowstone and the Yosemite. In all these places there are architectural forms that have justly received the admiring tribute of thousands, yet in more remote regions are forms quite as remarkable that have seldom been seen by the eyes of white men.
While riding northward across the Navajo Indian Reservation from Fort Defiance, I well remember seeing, at a distance of a mile or so, which may have "lent enchantment to the view," an immense arch in red sandstone, and, more interesting still, one of the most perfect suggestions of a building I have ever seen. To go closer at the time was not practicable, nor even to stop for a more deliberate study, but they were in sight from the slow-moving cavalcade for a considerable time, and I have always remembered them as about the most perfect architectural forms I have seen in all the West.
Pinnacles and multitudinous other forms were also there, and a close inspection would doubtless have discovered many quite as near perfection as those which attracted us from afar.