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Updated: May 29, 2025
The Carboniferous. During this latter period, more than three thousand feet of strata were deposited. The largest is the red-wall limestone, which constitutes the base of nearly all the architectural forms found in the Canyon, and is the thickest of all the strata. It presents the "tallest" wall of the series.
In reality, it is a rich creamy lime, but only where the red strata above have been degraded and washed away does the natural color of this wall appear. The Plateau. Below the red-wall limestone, there are several strata of red and gray and olive rocks that slope to the plateau.
The strata that have the longer course, on account of their greater extent of terracing, are those that make an eight-hundred-feet-wide band of gray and bright red sandstone, which rests above the red-wall limestone. Angel Plateau and Indian Garden. Now let the eye fall upon the plateau beneath. This is named Angel Plateau. The green near its centre has the first claim.
That, however, is only the length of the river, as it runs its winding way along. But the walls cannot thus be measured. Take the red-wall limestone and follow it on its devious way, in and out of deeply alcoved recesses, up side gorges and down again, around the curves of cloisters and along the bases of the great buttes. The aggregate distance followed will be many thousands of miles.
It rests upon a massive block of the red-wall limestone, which presents a bold face to the east. Its elevation is six thousand one hundred and fifty feet. Osiris Temple. Behind Shiva is Osiris Temple, with an elevation of six thousand six hundred and thirty-seven feet.
As it appears along the Grand Canyon it is always stained a brilliant red, for immediately over it there are thin seams of iron, and the storms have painted these limestones with pigments from above. Altogether this is the red-wall group. It is chiefly limestone. Let it be called the red wall limestone.
When the "blue lime" the top of the red-wall limestone is reached, one may study a fine piece of real canyon trail-making, locally called Jacob's Ladder. Here steps have been cut in the slippery and solid rocks, in some places built up with timbers, and thus made perfectly safe. It is customary for everybody to dismount here, so as to lighten the load.
The world still slept, with the exception of a few saucy jays who flew about us loudly claiming the heavens, the earth, and the waters beneath, should there be any. Two hours of steady descent brought us to the base of the red-wall limestone. In that two hours we had passed from the belt of pine and shrub to the one of sagebrush and cactus.
First there is the band of cherty limestone, from which a sloped talus leads to the creamy sugary sandstone. Immediately below this begins the "red," which descends in strata of varying width and color down to a rather narrow-appearing slope of red talus, which leads the eye to the widest member of all the Grand Canyon strata. This is the so-called red-wall limestone.
Now, immediately before us, the majestic pile known as the Battleship presents itself with new power. The ship itself is composed of the red sandstone. The base upon which it rests is the red-wall limestone.
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