Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1892-09-10
TIE PETRIFIED FOREST
THE WONDERS OF CEALCEDOEY
PARK IN ARIZONA.
Thousandso of Mighty Trees Turned tn
Solid Stone-Myriads OF Precious
Gems-An Enchanted spot.

Gems-An Enchanted spot
TT c. HOVEY describes IL the
H. 49,: ~: ::::: := +; : s. !: !: i: : +: !: s: !: !;
star, the road was lined b. specimens of
agatized wood. Now aud then q petri-
fed log, or solitary stump, were Aarbln-.
gers Of what was TO be seen further on
The term "park' is q misnomer; for
there is no Da,ura! park here, nor has
the hand Of man done anything but TO
sha,.er the marvellous relics Of dateless
antiquity. The people Of the vicinity
always speak Of it as 1.-the Petrifed
Forest" But that again is misleading;
for there is no forest, whatever there nay
havc been fifty centuries ago. II GER
tainly seems as if the place ought TO be
made a National park, and should be
both better protected and more easy OF
access. AS it is, the enchanted snot
lies at the mercy OF vandals, the only
precsution against spollatlon being a
railroad rule against shipping specimens
from it in bulk.
How shall the Chalcedony Park be
described At first one gets the in
preston that it is a small affair, OF per-
haps fifty acres. Then he says that it
must be u hundred. And after riding
over its amazing ruins for many hours
in succession, he concludes that the area
includes a thousand acres; and finally he
hardly questions the bold estimate Of
Mr.. G. F. Lummls that the extensive
fo.1,% 49,, nxJ~l i,t< Ito-a A-r,nrt
covered ~"hundredS Of square miles
and accepts without dissent the assertion
Of Mr.. g. +. kunz, that there may here
be seen at a glance q million tons of
precious stones. 4 matter-of-fac
visitor might say that the scene reminded
him of a vast logging camp, where the
lumbermen had tossed the huge logs
from their sleds at random, and then
had gone away, leaving them to become
rain-soaked and mOss-grovn. The
trees when standing were fully W
hundred feet high; for even nov their
PROSTATE trunks measure, when I'M
broken, from one hundred to one hun
dred and fifty feet. The popularity
already limited at is SHAT those mighty
trunks are as regularly severed into
sections as if the work had been done by
a cross-cut saw. The lengths vary from
disks like cart wheels to logs twenty or
thirty feet long, or longer. Twig5 are
found an inch through, and Trucks ten
feet thick. They lie at every angie;
parallel to each other, and at right
angles; singly and in great groups: down
- ~,ll,r, o-1 -nrotnI I,I,o o,,1 ~,
hill tops.
And all these myriads Of trunks,
stumps, logs, branches and tiny twigs
are solid stone. And on inspection they
prove to be precious gensof almost every
known variety. Those that remain il
tact have been weathered to a dark red,
rich brown. or sober black. But Time
relentless ak, aided by the biologists
hammer, has made havoc with so many
of them that the Ground is thickly strewn
with their fragments, from rocks like
powders down to chips and minute
%splinters, that show their brilliant colOrs
under the fierce Arizona sun with
Kaleidoscope effect. At every football
you tread on gems, some Of which might
grace a ducal %corouet, while the most
plain and least attractive would be worthy
Of an honored place in the finest cabinet.
There are no rubies, sapphires nor
diamonds here (as has been incorrectly
reported), bat the amethyst abounds,
and the red and yellow jasper, chalce-
dony of every hue, the topaz, t1e onyx,
the %carnelian, and every imaginable
variety of agate. Nor log, nor frag-
ment, is limited to a single kind Of gem.
Many are massive mosaics OF all the
kinds namel above. The material breaks
pretty easily into cubical forms, but it is
extremely hard, and takes a brilliant and