|
In 1699, the Spaniard Juan Manje may have been the first to use the name Colo-rado to refer to the river but many years would pass before the name took hold. Explorer John Wesley Powell is credited with promoting the name Grand Can-yon, which he may have borrowed from General William J. Palmer\'s 1868 rail-road survey map. Powell and his crew endowed the canyon with many romantic and descriptive names. Geologist Clarence Dutton had a fondness for architec-tural and oriental terms. The topographers Francois Matthes and Richard Evans carried on the heroic nomenclature by using mythical, classical, and religious names including those from Arthurian legends. Turn of the century travelogue writers, the National Park Service, and visitors have also added a wide variety of names to the Grand Canyon\'s features.
By the 1890's, Grand Canyon was recognized as one of America's most scenic wonders. President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed the area the Grand Canyon Forest Preserve in 1893, but miners, stockmen, and settlers were quick to voice their opposition. In 1903, President Roosevelt visited the Grand Canyon for the first time and stated, "In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which, so far as I know, is in a kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world.in your own interests and in the interests of the country.keep this great wonder or nature as it is now.". And although Roosevelt established Grand Canyon National Monument by presidential proclamation, not until 1919 did Congress finally pass legislation to create Grand Canyon National Park.
The statistics - one -half to eighteen miles wide, a mile deep, 277 river miles long - hardly begin to convey the awesome spectacle that is the Grand Canyon. The canyon is the epitome of the geologic forces at work on the Colorado Pla-teau. A third of the Earth's geologic history is exposed in its walls and slopes that stair-step from boreal forests on the North Rim to Sonoran-like desert at its bottom. And while geologists have unravaled many of the intricacies of each individual layer of rock, the details of the formation of the great canyon are still shrouded in mystery. Likewise, biologists have recorded and studied the diver-sity of plants and animals within its walls but have barely begun to understand the interrelationships of the canyon's dynamic and complex ecosystems.
|
