Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1891-07-22
The Apache Crater.

hht AHsths
 ST. JOINS, July l3, Special cor respondence. Fl wish to say some thing more about that "hole in the ground which seems to puzzle those Philadelphia scientists. Also, m re- lation to how and when it was dis covered.
 During part of the year 1873, the undersigned was employed as guide for party No. ?, of Lieut., Wheelers exploring expedition west of the Tooth meridian. The Wheeler ex- petition was subdivided into four parties. Lieut.. Hoxie had charge of party No. l." Lieut.. Russell of "party No. 2" Lieut.. Wheeler of "partw No. l." and Mir. Glett, Lieut.. Wheeler's chief clerk, had charge of party No. 3," which, however, was more of a supply or relief party than one of explorations. Parties one, two and three rendezvoused near to Fort Wingate, New Mexico, from which point the expedition started on the 3d day of July, 1873. Party No. ?, to which l was acting guide, were ordered to take in the country as far west as the most western of the Moqui's villages, thence south across the painted desert, striking the Little Colorado river at what is now called the Black Falls. From these falls begins the great canyon of the Little Colorado river, and 1t Is only exceeded in grandeur by tho Grand Canyon itself. The falls are about li0feet high and during the wet weather are very pretty to look at. From the falls our party proceeded south to the celebrated Cocouino caves. which are situated at the east ern base of the San Francisco mount aims. wish to say, by way of paren- thesis, that the expedition was ac- companied by full corps of scient- ists, and they were, as one of the parties remarked, ''yery good sort of people. but Jerusalem, how green" From Coconino caves our course was twenty degrees south which brought us out on the wagon road running from Sunset crossing (near Winslow,l via Sunset pass and Chavez pass to Camp Verde. While our party were encsmped at Jaycox Tanks (named after Camp Nerie's local guidel the topographer for the expedition, a Mir Summers. one soldier and my self, were ordered to make thorough reconnaissance of the Canon Diablo to its confluence with the Little Colorado. Canon Diablo has its source near the eastern base of Look out mountain. After following the tortuous devil" until we reached the open plains southwest by yves; uf Sunset crossing, as We rode along the eastern rim of the canyon l saw of to the eastward what l supposed to be row of low hills. remarked to MT. Summers that 1 would ride to the top of those hills and take an observation" But what was my sur prise and wonder upon reaching the top of the supposed knoll, to find at my very feet the biggest hole in the ground l had ever before seen. l made rude examination of the hole or crater, as also did Mir. Summers. and we were of the opinion ai the time that it was the crater of an eX- tinct water-yolcano. We also ap- proximated the distance across the top to be no, less than mile or per haps a mile and half. carried government needle-gun and with 1t made an approximate test of the dis tance across the mouth of the crater by firing three shots. The first shot fired the gun was held horizontally and the ball fell at the bottom of the crater; with the second shot l elevated my gun so as to 'carry up" 1000 or l,20 yards. and this time the ball struck against the opposite side but only few yards above the bottom: at the third shot my gun was elevated at an angle of fort ytive degrees. and at such an elevation an ordinary needle-gun will throw a ball fully mile. This time. the ball struck the opposite side of the crater about one-third or perhaps half way mp from the bottom. By this test I calculated the crater to be nearly q mile and half across the mouth. Mir Summers located the ''hole"--in connection with other points by triangulation, and called it in his journals, "Franklin's hole" The discovery was made in August. about eighteen years ago. There are no igneous rocks in the vicinity of the crater and the formation Is prin- cipally sandstone. All the indica tions about the crater's mouth show that at one time water had been spurted ont along with loose sand and sand stone.
 Yours truly.
 ALBERT F. BANTA.