Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 1, Number 10, DeMotte, Jasper County, 29 September 1932 — Place of Beauty Beyond All Words [ARTICLE]

Place of Beauty Beyond All Words

Almost every one who has seen the Grand canyon has attempted to describe it, in words or in paint; all have failed and will forever fail; high-falutin writing should especially be avoided. The Grand canyon is a national park (since 1919) through and at the bottom of which flows a river, the Colorado. Geologists tell as (and a geologist, like an astronomer, will say anything) that the action of this river in cutting its way through 100 miles of stone for millions of years has created a canyon, a gorge, a valley, so immense in size and so beautiful in color as to be unlike anything else in the world. I have seen it described as “a

mountain chain reversed” that is to say, if this great work of nature were to be used as a mold and a plaster cast made therein, when it was taken out and set up it would be like a chain of mountains 100 miles long, from one to ten miles wide, and, in places, one mile high; then all you would have to do would be to paint it in every color you could conceive of, and you would have the Grand canyon in reverse. --A. Edward Newton in the Atlantic Monthly.