Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. BATTLE OF THE ELEMENTS. The Gran Barranca or Grand Canyon of Sonora is without contradiction one of the great natural wonders of the earth. It is not known to the outside world; it has no place in the guide books or in the geographies of Mexico, and is seldom visited by men possessed of a sense of admiration for the sublime or appreciation for the wonderful works of God. The Arctic explorer, Lieutenant G. A. Schwatka, in his "Cave and Cliff Dwellers," devotes a chapter to the awesome region, and, so far as I know, is the only writer who has ever visited and recorded in English his impressions of the great canyon and its' stupendous setting. Nor is this absence of information to be considered something surprising. Sixty years ago the Grand Canyon of Arizona was practically unknown to Europe and indeed to the United States. Few ever heard of the stupendous gorge, and of these few there were those who deemed the reports of its wonders greatly exaggerated. Indeed, Arizona itself half a century ago was an unexplored and unknown land to the great mass of the American people. Even to-day there are regions of the immense territory as savage and unknown as they were one hundred years ago. Back of the mining camps in the gulf districts and the river lands under cultivation, Sonora to-day is an unsurveyed and indeed an unexplored land. The fighting Yaquis are yet in possession of vast regions of Sonora, and until they surrender or are conquered by the Mexicans there will be no civilization for the state. Tf we accept the Grand Canyon of Arizona as it was fifty years ago, there is not upon the earth any formation like that of the Gran Barranca. The railroad, the modern hotel and the endless procession of mere and very often vulgar sightseers, have commonized the Grand...