Sullivan republican. [volume] (Laporte, Pa.) 1883-1896, 1892-09-09

Solid Stone-Myriadso OF Precious
Gems-An Enchanted Spot.
r T G. HOvEY describes in the
M Scientific American a trip to
Chalcedony Park in Arizona.
He says: From the very
start the road was lined by specimens of
agatized wood. Now and then petr-
fed log, or solitary stump, were harbin-
gers of what was to be seen further on.
The term ''park" is misnomer; for
there is no natural park here, nor has
the hand of man done anything but to
shatter the marvellous relics of dateless
antiquity. The people OF the vicinity
always speak of it as "the Petrifled
Forest" But that again is misleading;
for there is no forest, whatever there may
have been fifty centuries ago. It GER
tainly seems as if the place ought to be
made National park, and should be
both better protected and more easy Of
access. As it is, the enchanted SPOT
lies at the mercy of vandals, the only
precaution against spoliation being a
railroad rule against shipping specimens
from it in bulk.
How shall the Chalcedony Park be
describeda At first one gets the i'm
preston that it is a small affair, of per-
haps fifty acres. Then he says that it
must be hundred. And after riding
over its amazing ruins for many hours
in succession, he concludes that the area
includes thousand acres; and finally he
hardly questions the bold estimate of
Mr.. O. +. Lummis that the extensive
forest now hardened into stone formerly
covered "hundreds of square miles,"
and accepts without dissent the assertion
of Mr.. G. f. Kuaz, that there may here
precious stones. A matter ffact
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-soakcd and moss-g grown. The
trees when standing were fully two
hundred feet high; for even now their
prostrate trunks measure, when uu-
broken, from one hundred to one hun
dred and fifty feet. The popularity
already limited at is that these mighty
trunks are as regularly severed into
sections as if the work had been done by
cross-cut saw. The lengths vary from
disks like cart wheels to logs twenty or
thirty feet long, or longer. Twigs are
found an inch through, and trunks ten
feet thick. They lie at every angle;
parallel to eass ether, and at right
angles; singly and in great groups; down
in gulleys and perched like cannon on
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 gems of almost every
known variety. Those that remain in
tact have been weathered to dark red,
rich brown. or sober black. But Times
relentless ak, aided by the geologist's
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 ducal coronet, 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), but the amethyst abounds,
aud the red and yellow jasper, chalce-
dony of every hue, the topaz, the onyx,
the carnelian, and every imaginable
variety of agate. Nor log, nor frag-
ment, is limited to single kind of gem.
Many are massive mosaics of all the
kinds named above. The material breaks
pretty easily into cubieal forms, but it is
extremely hard, and takes a brilliant and
durable polish.