Dama Margaret Smith

“ The ruins of quite a castle stand on the crest of a hill overlooking the plains, and one can almost visualize the first dwellers in this mystic land. See them laboriously carrying the heavy blocks of petrified wood to the top of the hill where they are laid out in orderly rows to form rooms. ”

“ The outstanding features of the Rainbow Forest are the logs themselves, which may be seen in all stages of preservation, some not entirely uncovered, some lying on the sides of the marl hills waiting their time to be let down by erosion, to the levels below, some almost at the top of the sandstone cap, and others in fragments at the bottoms of ravines; the Government Museum, which 7 is free to the public, located half a mile from the highway. In this building the Government has collected outstanding specimens of wood from all sections of the Reservation. ”

“ Here many 9 logs are filled with crystals and the range of coloring found in the chips strewn over the landscape is marvelous. Many pebbles bear the impression of seashells, and deep in the heart of a section of petrified log was found a fossilized mussel.
Courtesy National Park Service
At one place in the First Forest a slender column of rock rises to the height of thirty or forty feet. This is the Eagle Rock.
There is little of the sandstone cap in this area, and the logs lie in the blue-gray marl formation. Here we find larger trees in greater masses than elsewhere. ”

“ Many of the Petrified Forest visitors are intensely interested in the Painted Desert, lying only a few miles from Adamana. On U. S. Highway 66, six miles from the Rio Puerco, one comes to a sign: “Painted Desert Inn”. A mile from the highway this inn is stationed. But before reaching the building, an abrupt climb brings one to the top of the mesa, and spread out before the eyes is the world’s most magnificent palette, with the colors ready mixed,—The Painted Desert. ”

“ Here too, are Indian relics found in the prehistoric ruins scattered throughout the area. Many of the sections of wood here surpass the very finest Italian marble both in coloring and composition. One huge section of a log, weighing a ton, holds all the colors of the rainbow and the intermediate tints. One may trace woodland scenes, Japanese landscapes, city skylines, outlines of animals and trees in the polished surface of this tree. This specimen was shipped to Denver and polished there, and required many days of grinding with carborundum and diamond dust. No visitor fails to admire it. ”

“ Here, the rattlesnake lies coiled in the shade of the sombre hued cones, and scarcely troubles to sound his warning when visitors intrude. Overhead a tireless buzzard hangs suspended. No other signs of life are seen in this dead gray waste, the burial plot of the Dark Ages. ”

“ Petrified logs are found over a wide area, more than a hundred square miles being covered with varying amounts of the “stone” trees. This fossilized “forest” is greater in area, more highly colored, and contains more petrified wood than any like deposit in the world.
Many visitors who have heard of the “forest” drive through miles of the Reservation and ask at the Museum where they can find the Petrified Forest. Inquiry discloses that they expected to find an area of standing trees, trunks merely turned to stone, branches and all. ”

“ This something was a proclamation by President Roosevelt on December 8, 1906, declaring the area to be a National Monument.
Prehistoric Dwellers
Throughout Arizona can be found traces of a vanished people. In and around the Petrified Forest, prehistoric dwellings and “picture writings” are plentiful, and of great antiquity and high development. Probably nowhere have such pictographs been so well preserved. The soft smooth sandstone was an ideal surface for the artist to work upon, and nowhere in the world, in that age, could such suitable tools be found to work with. ”

“ The sand underfoot is light, almost like burnt earth, but the colors are there, mixed by the Super Artist.
This Painted Desert is a fitting frame for the Petrified Forest.
How To Reach The Petrified Forest
The Petrified Forest is one of the most popular and accessible units of the National Park Service, open every day in the year. Westbound tourists traveling by automobile may choose between two great continental highways that will lead directly to the “Forest”.
U. S. Highway No. 66 passes on the north and tourists may enter the Forest either from Adamana or Holbrook. ”

“ In another place a long line of human figures clasp their hands and drag one another up a steep incline. In the heart of the Reservation lies a mesa almost entirely surrounded by a steep cliff that has broken and fallen in ruins. ”

“ One authority says cavities in the logs caused by decay, are filled by mineral crystals, there being no wood fiber to absorb. Other geologists offer the theory that the resin and sap forced to the center formed into tangible shape by being crystalized. Be that as it may, the semi-precious stones were very much sought after, and a great jewelry concern in the East had a crew of men working in these “forests” blasting the precious work of nature to pieces in search of the jewels. ”

“ The country ten miles square is covered by the trunks of trees, some of which measure over two hundred feet in length and from seven to ten feet in diameter.
Ruthless curiosity seekers are destroying these huge trees and logs by blasting them in pieces in search of crystals, which are found in the center of many of them, while carloads of the limbs and smaller pieces are being shipped away to be ground up for various purposes. ”

“ Some pictures, however, represent animals that could never have been seen on land and sea, and existed only in the fevered imagination of the artist. Perhaps there were futurist artists even among those primitive men. ”

“ As travel became more plentiful over the Santa Fe Railroad and across country, great amounts of the fossilized wood were carried away or destroyed, and the people of the Territory became alarmed about their unprotected treasure. ”

“ Because it is against the United States Law. After that comes consideration of future visitors to the Petrified Forest National Monument. When one reflects that there are about eighty thousand visitors here annually and that if each visitor took what pleased him, it is an unrefutable fact the best specimens would speedily disappear. A visitor would not be satisfied with one small piece. There would be the home folks to consider ”