Paulo is analyzing “The Grand Canyon of Arizona.” Which choice would best complete his analysis?
Under the subheading ________, George Wharton Jones primarily uses commentary to explain the Grand Canyon’s magnificence.
A. Wonder of the Grand Canyon
B. Impression on beholders
C. Its physical features
Wonder of the Grand Canyon
The United States has seven magnificent natural wonders: Niagara Falls, Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Natural Bridge, Mammoth Cave, the Petrified Forest, and the Grand Canyon. Those who have carefully studied the Grand Canyon, however, do not hesitate for a moment to pronounce it the most sublime of all earthly spectacles. It is 217 miles long, from 5 to 12 miles wide, and from 5,000 to 6,000 feet deep. While there are valleys in the world that are longer and a few that are deeper, the Grand Canyon as a whole is truly the most awesome thing on earth.
Impression on Beholders
Because of its vastness, its sublimity, and its grandeur, the canyon is unique and stands alone in nature. Within its depth and length, it expresses within that distance more than any one human mind yet has been able to comprehend or interpret for the world, for famous writers have attempted it and great painters have tried it, but all alike have failed. The Grand Canyon is one of the few things that a person is utterly unable to imagine until actually coming into direct physical contact with it.
Its Physical Features
Seeing the canyon at any time is bewildering and breathtaking, but it is especially so in the early morning, during the hours of dawn and the slow ascent of the sun, and equally so in the very late afternoon and at sunset, when its most entrancing effects can be witnessed. At midday, with the sun glaring into its depths, the reds and chocolates of the sandstones are so strong and the relieving shadows so few that the canyon almost seems uninteresting. But watch it in the morning and evening light! What revelations of forms; what richness of colors; what transformations of apparently featureless walls into angles, arches, recesses, facets, friezes, and facades; what lighting up of towers, temples, buttes, pinnacles, ridges, peaks, and pillars of erosion! The colors are vivid, and the shadows range from purple to black; the heights are towering, and the depths are appalling; the sheer walls are poised giants in the air. Who can really take in such a view?
