Explore "The Green World" by Hal Clement on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Ndomi Sulewayo had pursued his occupation on terraces of Earth's Grand Canyon, on cliffsides of Fomalhaut Four's highest range and in badlands on the dimly lighted Antares Twelve. The physical hazards of his present position troubled him little. McLaughlin had agreed that the ledge where the paleontologist had been left was inaccessible to the larger carnivores, and had merely issued a final warning about poisonous "lizards. " The primary danger, as nearly as Sulewayo could see, was that something might happen to the helicopter. He certainly could not rejoin the others on foot. He was facing a sheer wall some sixty feet high. A score of yards behind him the terrace ended in another straight drop of several hundred feet. A quarter of a mile on either side, the flat surface ended; to the west, by narrowing until the two walls became one; at the other end, it was cut off as far as he was concerned by a joint penetrating apparently the full depth of the canyon.
There were several other cracks in the wall facing him. Like those in the tributary canyon explored by Krendall and Mitsuitei, these were packed with volcanic detritus. This was hard to reconcile with the suggestion that erosion had been long at work. In such a case, the higher portions should have washed away long before the material found at the canyon bottom.