To the west rose a series of detached buttes, presenting forms of castles, towers, and minarets, which looked more like the handiwork of man than the pueblo itself.

There were piles of variegated sandstone, some of them four hundred feet in height, crowned by a hundred feet of sombre trap.

Internal fire had found vent here; its outflowings had crystallized into columnar trap; the trap had protected the underlying sandstone from cycles of water-flow; thus had been fashioned these sublime donjons and pinnacles.
They were not only sublime but beautiful.

The sandstone, reduced by ages to a crumbling marl, was of all colors.

There were layers of green, reddish-brown, drab, purple, red, yellow, pinkish, slate, light-brown, orange, white, and banded.