In this arid region much of the vegetation is set with thorns, and some of the animals are made to match the vegetation.

A knowledge of this forbidding area, now robbed of some of its old terrors by the facilities in transportation, has been finally gained only by a long series of persistent efforts, attended by dangers, privations, reverses, discouragements, and disasters innumerable.

The Amerind,* the red man, roamed its wild valleys.

Some tribes built stone houses whose ruins are now found overlooking its waters, even in the depths of the Grand Canyon itself, or in the cliffs along the more accessible tributaries, cultivating in the bottoms their crops.

Lands were also tilled along the extreme lower reaches, where the great rock-walls fall back and alluvial soils border the stream.