The Arizona champion., 1888-02-04
WEEKLY CHAMPION.
  SATURDAY. FEBRUARY 4, 1888.
CHALCEDONY PARK.
A MARVELLOUS DEPOSIT OF GEM STONES
 IN APACHE COUNTY.
THs GREAT PETRIFIED FOREST OF ARIz- oNA, RIvALING IN INTEREST THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD.

oNA, RIvALING IN INTEREST THE
 SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD.
 The petrified forest of Arizona has no rival as a mammoth field of pre- cious stopes and land of natural curi. ositles. The visitors, who desire to see this marvellous freak of nature finds it necessary 10 make TIolbrook, Apache County, A. T., theIr point of departure, where they are agreeably entertained and well accon.m ndated at the Holbrook hotels. ....
 Our tourist having enjoyed gooG nights rest, arises before the sun, and having made arrangements with some of the several parties who make . business of conveying visitors to the parks, has ride of about as miles to make over good road, the landscape, consisting of sandy mesa5, intersected by dry courses of mountain torrents, occasionally passing over beds of lava and volcanic ash or tufa, every foot Of which presents some evidence of volcanic action, which, according to Prot. Newbury. of New York City, took Piacs some thirty five thousand years ago.
 The chalcedonized wood is scatter. ed in endless profusion over some a,34o acres of territory, being divid. cd into three immense deposits, em- bracing respectively sSo, 66o and 1,3oo acres, all lying from 20 to as miles southeast of'Holbrook.
 After about five hours rIde from Holbrook our visitor suddenly comes In sight of the cliffs of a tufa mesa isnd valley of volcanic disturbances hslow it, which resembles vas, wood choppers camp. On every side as far sS the eye can reach the sides of the mesa and canon or gulches are GOV cred with broken sections and pieces oi cbalcedonized wood, composed of amethyst, jasper, calcete, etc., which at short distance look as though re- cently felled and cut into suitable s'Ee for shingles and slaves, some projecting from the sides of the mesa, others having rolled half way down and lodged, an ] others, innumerable, are scattered over the valleys and gull. Ches in endless profusion.
 The ground itself, except in the dry bed of streams, is covered with small chalcedonic pieces, all of which before transformation by the filtration Of selica, iron, manganese, calcite, copper, etc., were undoubtedly wood. The fragments are as thick as chips, jas If some prehistoric forester had been TJing his axe.
 Wonder the mesa juts out in a bold promon'ory and from the point gre. "g points down the valley like au enormous Quaker Gun" IL nas beer psmed Fort fritle, as a con plImen, to sx Governor. F. A. Trltle, of Pres. colt, Arizona.
 On entering this vast field of beau. tiful stone, one is lost in wonder and sdmlTation, all dcubt is lost as to whether the wonderful material WIS really wood. Here are fallen giants, perhaps of some distant cline in all their original outline, In many places are seen vast trunks of transformed trees hundred or more feet in length and broken into sections of almos, uniform length, like some mighty monument which had been oyer ,hroSr, Tut which may have been huileo 10 the ground by a volcanic cDnVulsion, after having been sub. merged and treated for ages in na tuie's labialory. Tie sudden reactir n from the internal furnace to the cold atmosphere caused it to crack and iitak, the same as piece of volcanic glass. In many instances the giant ti h, fo est in former days, waslscat hhtd 10 the four winos, while, with .t'hers, the reaction moi being so sud- oen or violent, it simply cracked at various loibts ross the grain. While the general tendency seems to have been to break np in sections, lhoes innumerablc are broken into every conceivable shape and slze.
 lhsiinctively enc begins to load h mself wiih specimens. He can hardly siep win, ui putting his foot ppon some fragment of genuine beau y, but he soon finds they have weight also and so he unwillingly be cones more critical, and throws away ashe gathers, still thinking each gem mole beautiful than the one over which It las gone into raptures. Is he walking Tn a dreamP Can all this be liut1 ft is scene of beauty and bril- lisncy such as magician's wand might conjure up, but such as mortal eve srldom has beheld. Its vasrness impie,ses the visitor and he falls to wondering how many millions or bil- lions of tons of this gorgeous stone Is lurItd in the tufa, and under the saId stone mesas.
 He always finds more than he can attend 10 at the first deposit in a sin.