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Article: The rainbow that never fades. (Bryce Canyon, Utah)
- Article from:
- The Saturday Evening Post
- Article date:
- September 1, 1985
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1985 Saturday Evening Post Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Mormon pioneer Ebenezer Bryce, for whom Bryce Canyon in Utah was named, described it as "a h--of a place to lose a cow"; other Mormons, who tilled the fertile Virgin River Valley, were moved by the "towering temples of stone" and named the area "Zion," which means "the heavenly city of God." Indians were differently impressed--they referred to southern Utah's vivid countryside as the "Land of the Sleeping Rainbow."
The region's tilted layers of rock disclose a geological journal tediously written during the past 200 million years. The "plate tectonics" theory says southern Utah, composed of swamps and marshes and inhabited by giant reptiles and dinosaurs, ...