A gorge. See quotations 1846, 1850, 1855.

1

1834.  Two cañons run up into the bosom of the ridge—(by the word cañon the Spaniards express a deep, narrow hollow among the mountains).—Albert Pike, ‘Sketches,’ &c., p. 20 (Boston).

2

1846.  The Spanish word “cañon” implies a narrow, tunnel-like passage between high and precipitous banks, formed by mountains or table lands. It is pronounced KANYON, and is a familiar term in the vocabulary of a mountaineer.—Rufus B. Sage, ‘Scenes in the Rocky Mountains,’ p. 111 n. (Phila.).

3

1849.  A cañon is the narrow opening between two mountains, several hundred, and sometimes a thousand feet in depth; rising some of them like perpendicular cliffs on either hand, as if torn asunder by a violent convulsion of nature.—Theodore T. Johnson, ‘Sights in the Gold Region,’ p. 180 (N.Y.). (Italics in the original.)

4

1850.  The word cañon (meaning in Spanish a funnel) has a peculiar adaptation to these cleft channels through which the rivers are poured.—Bayard Taylor, ‘Eldorado,’ xxvii. (N.E.D.)

5

1852.  Were I to go to the kanyons, the whole camp of Israel would follow me there.—Brigham Young, March 4: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ i. 31.

6

1852.  It is an up hill business to go into these kanyons to get wood.—Brigham Young, Oct. 9: id., i. 210.

7

1853.  I am going to the kanyon for a load of wood.—Brigham Young, July 31: id., i. 163.

8

1855.  

        On they came, with a thunderous shout
  That made the rocky cañon ring:
(‘Cañon,’ in Spanish, means tube, or spout,
  Gorge, or hollow, or some such thing.)
F. S. Cozzens, ‘Captain Davis: A Californian Ballad,’ Knickerbocker Magazine, xlv. 334 (April).    

9

1869.  It [Flores] was ribbed with sharp, steep ridges, and cloven with narrow canons.—‘The Innocents Abroad,’ chap. v.

10