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courtship of the pran-ie chickens, and th e

imngo m t h its singularnests

Such

groups

are not only adheti cally more

attractive than the ordmarymounted bird

on

a

plain perch, but theyconvey to thebeholder

some idea of the blrd’s habit s and natur al ur-

roundings,

so

th at th e most careless can hard-

ly go away wlthout learnmg something new.

Excellent esamples of this sort of mounting

may beseen

rn

th e Ameri can Museum of Na-

tural

Hlsbory at

Central Park, and in the ri-

tish Museum, Kennngt on; but he restrict ed

space and th e small amount of

money

avail-

able at Washmgton have hitherto prevented

the NationalMuseum from exhndmg

o

birds

the treatment which has been so successfully

applied to he arger mammals. The sublect

of

fish

and 6sheries was so well exempliEed at

Phdadelpha that the result

t

Chicago is some-

thi ng of a disappomtment. Excepti ng for the

fisheries

of

North America, the exhibition is

small and mostly unimportant. The reason is

not far toseek. TheUnltcdStates andCanada

collectively have nothing to learn a t present

from foreigncmmtnes, and no foreign dealers

in

fish products have

ny

reason f or supposing

that theycan gain a foothold m our markets,

excep t for sun dry pecialtles like cod-liver oil.

Consequently the commercial lncentlve

is

lack-

ing, and, apa rt from such conntrles as New

Bouth Wale5 and Japan, which have made an

exhibit as a matter of nat ional pride a nd in

evidence o  the stat e of their industries, the

forelgn fisheries are very mperfect ly repre-

though less promine nt than

m 1876,

and the

sented. The Government exhibit good,

prach cal rathe r th an the scientific side of the

Fish

Commission’s work 1s emphasized. The

familiar salt-waterishes

o

he Western isltor,

aquar ia are seful in showmg a good many un-

but the resh-water aquarla havouffered from

virulent attacks f the&hfungu s (Saprolegwia)

and are esssuccessful. This exhlbit, as ahole,

is that f tanks

of

wate r with ish

m

them, and

not aquaria

in

the strict sense of the word,

mh ch Implies

a

balance of c onht ions between

the water plants

nd

the animals,

as

in

a

state

of nature.

Many

of the

State

ef i b i t s show

more or less dilapidated stuffed fishes as

a

parti

of their faunal exhlbit, but Callform a has an

excellent series of models, by Denton’s method,

of her chief economic species. These ar e well

colored andproperly labelled. New South

Wales has a good series of alcoholic fishes in

the same excellent order

as

the rest of her

exhibits The collection shown by apa n is

moremteresting rom the economlc or au-

thropological side than s llust rati ng he

ichthyology of the empire The hell &h-

erie s re almost unrepresented m theEx-

few unlabelled

and poorly preserved shells

position except

by he canned roduct

A

appear in the Bramlian exhibit,

a

few

oys-

ters and pearl shells in thecollections of New

SouthWalesand Mexico, Wisconsin shows

a

pretty series of fresh-water p e d s i n (of

all places) the Mining Buildmg; and

T ~ a n y

has a h e eries of pea rls in the=natural

stat e, beside those worked i n t o ornaments-but

this is about all that s vlsible in thls h e ,

cepting the series of shells contamed in the

Ward exhibit in the nthropologwal Budding.

There are

a

few interestmg mod&

of

fish

traps and wers

n

the collection shown by the

Sultan of Johore

in

the Plaisance, these

oblects belong-under th e liead of Anthropology

rather than thatf Ichthyology.

Entomology is admirably illustrated by the

collections in the Government Building made

by

he Entomological Bureau

of

the Agricul-

tural Department.Probably

no

porbon of

the whole Exposltl?n bette r dlust rate s the c1-

enti6c modern method of prese nting such ma t,

ter s o he public eye The insect is shown

fully labelled in all stages and varieties,

with ts food plant and cocoons, m t h dlus-

trations

of

its ravages when inprious,r bene-

ficial methods of work when useful, supple-

mented by small map howing its geographi-

cal range, andoften, when of economxc impor-

tance, accompamed by enlarged anatomlcal

models Nothing more clear, instructive ,and

ment stationsof

the

several States

rn he Agri-

satisfactorycan be Imagined. The experi-

cultural

Budding

show a collective exhibit

which is very

creditable,

though less efficiently

dlsplayed than that made the Government;

and there are the

usual

mscellaneous collec-

tions of attr act ive butterflies, etc

o

be found

in

many of the State exhlbits and

in

those

shown by foreign governments. W. H.

D

THE MOSTSUBLLME

OF

EARTHLY

SPECTACLES.

Oregon,

1893.

TENhours and aalf after leaving lagstaff,

we reached he Grand CafionSt atlon, which

at

present consists of

a

log-cabin (stored with

bacon, hams, canned goods, and

antidotes

t o

thirst), besldes a number of tents-a large one

for kitchen anddinmg-room, and smallerones

for visitors, each tent havinga board floor and

a

comfortable bed. The tents cost a dollar a

day, and the same

um is

charged for a meal,

whch mll be found

as

good as can be expect-

ed under the circumstances. Through

a

lucky

the Cadon’s

brink were found rightere, where

coincidence,

two of the few

springs on

the scenery

s

at its best. Standlugbeside them

one cannot avoid recalling the sad stones of

men who wanderedalong he edge of th e

Cafion for days

and finally

perished of thirst,

with in sigh t of the inaccessible rive r below,

mockmg themwith hedista nt oar of its

turbulent waters.

n

peakmg of the Wa hn t a6on

I

said tha t

one comes across It unexpectedly and without

same

tr ue of the Grand Caiion. The forest

warning, m the midst of the pine forest. The

grows up to its very edge, and although he

camp is

on y

a hundred yards from the rink

of the colossal abyss, one might ive here a

yearwlthout suspecting Its presence. The

superintendent

o

  the camp told

me

a sto ry of

a Chinaman who was brough t there as cook

He saw how people constantly came a nd went,

staymg half a week

or

longer, an d ab he could

not see anything extraordmary about theent

nllage, he finally,

at

the end of

f i s t

week,

asked the w aiter what broughto many people

to such an out-of-the-way place. Tho waiter

promised t o tellhimafter he dishes were

washed; then he took hun

u p

the W-only

a

mmute’s walk from the tent.

A r r i m g

at the

brink, the Chmaman threw

up h s

hands

m

astonishment and awe; he could not fathom

for ?” burst fromhis

lips

Thereafter he dady

the

mystery, nd

the

exclamatlon,

“What

sat here for

an

hour. Yet

no one

needs t o

envyheChinaman

lus surprise:

though yon have read

a

dozen descriptions of

th e Caiion, and seen

a hundred photographs,

your astonishment-I had almost said conster-

nation-wlll not be ess tha n his. I have read

somewhere of t w o Englishmen, one of whoni,

on reachmg thls point, exclam ed, Well, I’ll

be-damned while the other sat down and

wept W e a child. Their emotion was the

they merely had M e re n t ways of expressing

it.

ST

Lessmg intunate6

in

h1s

‘Laokobn’ hat

Homer gives one a more v m d idea of Helen’s

beauw by otmg the d e e t It had on the Tro-

an elders tha n he could have done a leugfhy

enumeration of her charms. I feel mcbned to

follow thls Homeric example, and not attempt

a

description of the GrandCaiion, after notmg

its effect on

the

Chmaman and the English-

men. If you will look at photographs of

different part s of the Cadon, you

mll

under-

stand how ut ter ly hopeless such

a

task must

be. The best and large st photog raphs f these

scones appe ar blur red and wantlng

m

perspec-

tme and details, the reason being tha t the

tances and dimensions are so glgantic , and the

detads

so

inh i te , tha t

o

camera canposslbly

condense hem, un l ss

you

take

one

detail at

a

time

and afterwards enlarge It

as

the

minub?

kodak port raits are ometimes enlarged to life-

size Wh at th e camera cannot do,

it

is useless

for the pen toattempt A fewhintsmay

nevertheless be gwen as to whatvisitors may

expect.

prepared to eep

down between two

dark,

pre-

Many persons,

on arriving at the

brink,

are

cipitous walls, only

a

ew hundred feet apart,

with he Colorado

River

flowmg a mile

or

more below

as

far as

eye

can reach on either

side.

The

Grand Cafion is

no

such thmg,

at

least from

this

point of mew; It

IS

instead a

stupendous abyss, almost circular in appear-

ance, more than welve miles across from

where you stand to thepposlte brink, andex-

tendmg

t o

the ightand eft ndehitely,

of view.

Unlike

theYosemte

Valley,

this

according

to he eleva tion of

your

pomt

huge opening

in

thegroundhas

no

snow

peaks,

C M S , or

domes along

its

sides, but

has a level brink s fa r as eyesight

tends, nor

are

thevertical walls adorned

withwaterfalls, as at he Pose mit eex cept

after

showers. In stea d of having ts moun-

tams and clSs and other arclutectural orna-

ments a long its rim, the Grand Cadon seems

to have

swallowed all

and there they

stand, rismg from the evel of the nver,which

is

almost seslevel,

t o

where you stand, more

than 7 000 feet above the sea. This 1s one of

pects of the

Grand Caiion-that

I t a

conglo-

the un ique the marvellous, the amazing as-

meratlon

of

scenic features such as you

expect to

s

from

a

mountain top, whde here

you k d hem buriedn a big

hole in

the ground,

so

that

you

have t o come

t o

the very brmk s

fore you

see

them.

mens1ons of all the i navld ual fac tors

m

thls

No less

unique and marvellous are the di-

scene, whch dwarf everything the most

rlenced travelle r

can

have beheld before. Ye t

what theeyes show.us of t l u s grandeur is but

a fraction of thereah ty We have no standard

of measurement fo r such cyclopean scenes

if

we should pile the Hudson Rwer pahsades

So much, however, is obvious at a glance that

would add

no

more

t o

tsapparent height than

on

top of t he

precipitous

wall opposlte

us,

they

a

single bn ck would add to the tallest building

m

New

York.

And

N r

Charles Dudley War-

ner &d not exaggerate when he wro te of

the

mountainlyingm theforegroundbelowus, that

“the great

San

FrancEco mountam, mt h Its

snowy crater , which we had passed

on

the way,

might have been set down m the place of this

one, and

it

would have been only onein a mul-

titude of 2uch forms that met the eye which-,

ever way looked”; of the Yosemlte, that,

umped down into thi s dde rne ss f gorges

and mountams,

it

would t,ake

a

who knew

of Its existence

a

long tim e t o k d

t.”

The

river, too, aids

our

magina tion m grasping the

grandeur which

our senses

cannot measure

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aided. Far of

 

t o the righ t we see two short

streaks of

it

They seem like sections of

a

trout brook, but

we

h o w hat they

re

part of

a big nver, and those who have been on its

bank say hat I t is here

as

rapid andwild as the

Niaga ra whirlpool. These two streaks are all

we see from thls pom t f tho Colorado, which,

for the rest f Its sinuous course, 1s either hid-

den between the Carion mountain s

o r sunk

far

ou t of sigh t m he bowels of the ear th.

Curiously sloping, terraced,and pinnacled

tempted

t o

call them-forwe have

only

to

are these subterranean mountams,

one

feels

imagine a roof ove r the Cafion to convert I t

into the blggest cave in the world Fo rh at e-

l y it IS not a cave, else we should lose the

viem the consta nt changes of aspect

produced by the varymg fluminatx on of sun

and moon, an d the exqulslte eoloreffectswhich

add the touchof beauty to a l l t h i s s ub lmty

The diEerent rock str ata , wluch here reveal the

secrets

of

earth-budd ing, have each thew

own

and layers

lverse

Close by, to your left, IS

a

color-red,

gray,

purpl~sh,

n

streaks

patch of b rillian t red rock, whlchfor all the

world looks like one of the pictu resque beds of

crowded flowers one sees

on

the Callfornia foot-

hills in

spring The purphsh

or

brown colors pre-

vad

in

the upper layers, h le the lower slopes

seem covered mt h.gre en

moss;

but thw

moss is

really a orest of shrubs and trees of respec

able size As he hour of sunset approaches,

a

bluish mi s t or atmosphere, 1s cast over the

whole, and modlfies all he ints o a

more

sombre aspect. The abysmal mountam sto he

left cast their ong shadows, and thei r ummits

the antasti c orms of tcmples and

houses and castles of

a

rac e of glants-pagodas

a n d Walhal las so decephve and complete th at

little is left for the maginationo add t o what

the y s can see.

To the righ t the view is even more varied

and Imposmg, with

more

mountains ismg

- from he Cafion, moredlzz ypahsade walls, and

Beyond

the brink of the CaEon, too, there 1s

the two

k e a h of the river before mentioned.

here a sight which, just before sunset, rme ts

the attenlxon and makes an indehble mpres-

sion. Far

off

in the distance are the faint

ut-

lines

of

the

Navajo Mountain, m the shape of

a watermelon; t o its left, nearer theCafion, a

range of mountains of almost a chalky whlte,

and between this and the

afion

liesa streak f

desert which anyne who &d not know to tho

contr ary mould swear was a large lake, and

wluch gives one a good Idea of w ha t a lake

miragemust be hke After e sun has set,

-these phantoms dsappear, but new rosy hue

is daus ed over everything, lllre the Swm Al-

pme

glow. Wl th he too, disappears a

slght, only a hundred feet t o

your

right, to

I have never seen any reference, b ut

which IS more remarkable than the prone In

the White Mountains, o r any other rock-por-

trat I

have ever seen-the m ag e of

a

long-

bearded old

man

witha most kmdly nd

fed, and theace st rh n pl y resembles Michael

thoughtful expression. Every feature is per-

Angelo’s Moses

No visitor to this region should fall t o place

hmself for a day or two under the guidance

of Mr. John Hance, who has for nine years

made the

Cafion lus

home, and knows every

accessible part of it as well as you b o w your

own house. He has asbestos, copper, and sd-

ve1’

nme+-aty-eighfi m number-in0 various

parts of it, has one cabin

on

the brink, another

pa rt may down, and another by the river,ith

plenty of burros

for

lumself and those who

in-

trust themselves to

his

care; some of these

enimak were born iu he Ca6on and have never

been o u t of it There are nom two

roads

to

the river, and though requiring innmuscles

and a steady head, even ladies have been down

them In winter Hauce makes the bottom

his home, iu

summer

the brink. Do wn there

he has seen butterfies and hzards play about

him in the warm air when a storm bad Just

only a few-stray

flakes of whch

reached the

deposited a thick

layer

of snow on the rim,

bottom. MaJor Powell,on his daring expedi-

tlon down the iver

in

1869,

encountered

a

temperature as high as 115 degrees in t h s

abyss; and on September .13 lSS9 Dr. Mer-

r1am found 80 degrees

at

the bottom, while

at the t op of the

C G o n

Cluck ice formed

on a

bucket of water. ‘(In descending f rom he

plateau level to the bottomf the Cafion,”says

the same writer

iu

a Government publication,

tered quivalent to those

stretching rom

‘‘

a succession of tem pera ture

zones is encoun-

the conlferous

forests of

northern Canada t o

the cactus plains

o

 Meslco.” And of the in-

terior

of

the Cafion he says

:

LLI tas ledges, terraces, and mesas, bar ren

crags and grassy slopes, lofty mountains a nd

deep valleys, cool hllsides clad in forests of

tropicallucliets; it has arid tretch es of

balsam f i s , and hot bottoms filled m t h sub-

sand bearmg scattered

growth

of cactus and

yucca, and marshes an d springs ha t never be-

multitude of plants requnm g

a

moisture-laden

come dr y an d ar e hidden by the verdure

01 a

atrnosphcre fo r he r

existence.

Its nlmal

hfe s as sharply varied and contrasted’

If

you

lack tnne

o r

strength

t o

follow Mr

Hance

m t o

this strang e abyss,

you

must not

fad, at any rate to go mth him t o Bissell’s

Point, five miles east of tho camp, or better

SM,mde less, to

a

s o r t of isolated buttress

or rocky projection, whence you see straight

down the abrupt wall and get a much more

vlvld lmpress~onof th e dep th of

the

CaEon than from the point near the camp.

O n

t h s rocky projection a re sh ll seen fragme nts

of pottery an d other end ences thatt was used

by the Indians as a habitation of some sort.

It could hardly have been a fortress, isolated

though

it

for where could the water have

come from in case

of

a siege? Perhaps

it

mas

a

place of “ religi ous” resort- . Hance has

hear d t radh ons f the In&ans bringmg t h er

prisoners t o this hor rible precipice,

them over

it,

to gratdy then love of torture,

and then droppmg them, to be dashed into a

thousand pieccs, hke tho rocks he threw over

by wayof illustration.

Mr. Hance s as proud

of

the Grand Cafion

as if it were hLs own creation, and if he could

write down his experiences, they wouldper haps

make lnterestjng

a

book

as

Mqor Powell’s

long-expected volume on the Cafionm U doubb

less prode

He

rarel y leaves It for more thau

a

fe v days at a time, and then longs for

I t

as

mer and m t e r

it

is

equally

attractive t o hnn

a n exlled Swiss does

f o r

his

avalanches. Sum-

but for visito rs e recommends May and June,

October and November, as th e best months;

for then

all

weather chances are elirmnated,

the

1s

sure to be blue, and ther e usually

brisk breeze Yet midsummer has ts ad-

vantages too especially

m

the cloud phenome-

na

in

the Cafion, m the sand-whrls

spmning

across the adlomin g desert like water-spout,s,

m the sight f ram m the heated n hat never

reaches the parch edground, and the terrific

ram-tor rents that have een compared to vol-

canic ruptions. Oddly enough, wherea5.h

neighbormg Cahfornia the ra m lmost always

falls a t mght, here it rarely comes except m

the daytime. Ye t even m the rainy eason the

am

IS

always

dry,

and meat left exposed to

it

does

not spoil Although heheat by day 1s

[Vol. 57

No.

1472

greater than

m

the tropics, the nights

are usu-

ally comfortable; there arenomosqultoes, and

the arge which are quite troublesome

during he day, vanishmstantly at sunset

Were it not for

these

flies, the Carion camp

wouldbe

a n

excellent sanitarium, except foi;

those whose heart

is

affected by so great an

al-

titud e, causing palpi tabon and oss of sleep

m

be a raf ioad

t o

the

Ca6on an dahotel. If

they

a

prolonged stay

Probably erelong there ll

are

not

built obtrusively, there will be no

harm in hem, for they

wdl

appear like mere

toys a m d nature’s mammoth phenomena. The

lover of dry, bracing

ir

and perfect repose

wdl6 nd this an ideal resort, where sdence 9

never broken except by the arrow-Lke whiz of

a

passmg swallow, or the coomg

of

amorous

tnrtledoves

mmglmg mth

the forest music.

Nowhere 1s man less obtrusive Go a hundred

yards from camp, and youmightwanderabout

for weeks and never encounter human ha b i b

tion.

A

student of t he sublime can profitably

spend a month here He w ~ ll ever get over

the surp rise of gomg

up

that unpromsing hl1

and findmg hnnself suddenly on a mountam-

top, and beneath hun the most subllme of all

earth ly spectacles HENRY T.

VENETIAN PICTURES RE-VIEWED.

VENICE, u ly 28,1893.

AFTER a n absence of fifteen years, I

am

in

Venice agam , ndhave been mdustriously

picture-huntmg for two weeks. Perhaps I

am

now

m a

position t o glve some systemat ic a -

count of

my

impressions of t hepictures of

Venice ; and these Impressions, as those of

a

painter seemg with his

o m eyes

and usjng

such knowledge

as

t raming has ev en hm ,

may not mt ho ut interest for some of the

readers of the

Nahon.

I give them for what

they worth, not supposmg that th ey settle

anythmg, and leave the reader o make hls

own allowances for “per sondequation.”

F u s t of all, then, the earlier men, the Vma,

rin i and hhe rest, and eves Geutlle Bellmi

the much-lauded Carpaccio, may, by

all

but

the

historical

student of

art be

entirely ne-

e u t e r u n g pxture-book,

of lnstorical

glected. Carpaccio’s St Ursula senes

1s an

costumes and documents’’ for ther econs truc

tlon of a past Venice, but the y are

qulte

a rb

less and hildhke m both composition md

dramng, and not very remarkable in color;

and the travellerwho follows

IkIr

Ruskin’s ad-

vice and spends much

time

in reverential

study of them, is likely to lunder his growth In

any eal apprecmtion of wha tpamtmg

The first seriously considerable ar tis t of the

schoolisGlovaum Bellim, and he holdshis own

sam e work, of the somewhat hard and thmly

well. There is no loveher piece of ear ly Renais-

pamted and, han he Frari Madonna, and

the steady, strong growth in breadth nd

tal pieces here, the Madonna, of San Zaccaria

power and

fnln ss

shown

in

his other two cap -

and the

‘‘

G a d s Jerome, Chnstopber, and

gustine ”

of

Sa n Giovamm Crisostomo,1s truly

wonderful The f i s t of

these,

whichcanbe

seen

to advantage only n the l?te afternoon,

when th e westering sun

floods

the church and

hghts up its

dark

corners, I &d not

t r u l y

see

when I was he re before, and th e second I did

not see a t all, and they haveconsiderably mo-

d1fied:my view of

B elh i .

They are noble

works of art and, for the moment, almost

m-

clme one to accept Durer’s

dxt um

tha t Belhm

was, in bis old age, “stiu the best pamter of

them all.” The qualit y of most of the Tltlans

here aids

one

to feel this. But tho ugh Bellini

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