Forty-Five Miles North, At The Grand Canyon, These Same
Beds Are Only Six Thousand Four Hundred Feet Above Sea Level, While At The
Vermilion Cliffs, Another Forty-Five Miles To The North, They Are But Four
Thousand Four Hundred Feet Above The Sea.
Yet in spite of this northward tilt, when the eye ranges over the country
to the south and west, from the upper porch of El Tovar, a large area of
depression can clearly be seen, showing that surface erosion has planed
away much of the upper crust.
The Plateau Region. Now we are ready to take a look at the borders of the
plateau region. On the north, it extends into Utah, where still higher
plateaus bound it. To the west, it extends by gigantic steps into the
desert region. The main step is along the Grand Wash, near the one hundred
and fourteenth meridian. To the south, there is one glorious step, known as
the Mogollon Escarpment (locally the Red Rock Country), some three thousand
feet high, which extends for a number of miles east and west, and then
breaks down. This step and broken levels lead to the irregular lands of
Central and Southern Arizona. On the east, the plateau extends to the Echo
Cliffs beyond Marble Canyon, and as far as the ridge of the Continental
Divide, where the Santa Fe crosses the Zuni Mountains, east of Gallup, N.
M.
Present Conditions. With this general view of the great plateau in our
mind's eye, we are prepared to examine present conditions at any given spot
in the Canyon.
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