The Coconino weekly sun., 1895-10-24


 Needles, town just over the line in California, that is said to be the hottest place on the Pacific coast. But here the physical conditions, to which we have before referred, come in to soften or modify the climate of the valleys, the great pine forest on the north and the lofty mountains to the south send ing down their distinctive individual influences to meet in the valley and blend with the hot rays of the sun and other conditions there found and make Q climate and atmosphere all their own. peculiar to that locality, and which cannot be excelled.
 The scenery is also distinctive and beautiful, so unusual that one finds himself lost in revery. looking, wonder ing and admiring. Wonder are the towering mountain peaks, away in the distance, with their snow crowned crests breaking through the clouds and send ing the fragments floating off to join with others or may be to gradually fade away, dissolve and show in the background others totally different in form and color. Then there are multitude of small peaks shooting up here and there of ali shapes and vary ing heights, one is made up of high rocks, as though thrown together by some wild force in the most irregular, chaotic way, with it's naked sides and bald skull standing in resolute defiance of storm and time. Another is covered with a thick coating of evergreen trees and shrubs dressed with richest foliage from the base to the summit, and all around are bursting springs and rippling water. Then there is the box-ike canyons, whose walls are a thousand feet high, cut out of the solid rock to make way for Oak creek to run through in playful cas- cades. Back to the north is the pri- meval forest. with scattering trees whose giant forms, with kinglike majesty, sway in the wind far above all the rest
 In the valley are groves of sugar naples, lonely beech, walnut, an ironwood and poplar standing like sentinels on guard over their wild haunts of nature. Then there is a grove of grand old oaks around whose trunks the ivy has entwined its stems and branches in caressing fondness, then the queer meadows stretching away to the eastward as far as the eye can relch, carpeted with wild flowers, whose fragrance ladens the air with sweetest perfume. And yet with all these charms of massive wild scenery and delicate beauty, there are men so dull of appreciation or so wrapped up in themselves that they would pass through those valleys and see nothing to enjoy or admire, not flower or a tree, unless they stumbled up against one. Such men are like swine in a flower garden, unconscious of the beau ties with which they are surrounded. But the consolation is, such men are few.
 Here, too, are the "reminiscences of prehistoric race, and they Were stu perior people to any of the Indian tribes that have inhabited this region. They were extinct before the Indians found their way here and the evidences they left behind show clearly that they were an agricultural people, in dustrions, domestic and religious ac. cording to their lights. The ruins of adobe and stone houses, temples, idol trous gods, utensils for agricultural and domestic uses, the long, well. constructed artificial waterways, are conclusive proof of their character. habits and skill. It is Mmentable that history is silent on so interesting a subject, and it is equally lamentable that history commences with the un- justifiable raids, falsely styled expio ratIons, of that Spanish outlaw, Coro. nado, remorscless, pitiless, brutal | He wandered through the country in 1889 at the head of band of ruthless marauders, who stayed their vandal hands at the verge of no crime, but were guilty of all, murder, theft and rape. Ultimately an outraged mustang very properly kicked him in the head i and finally put an end to his infamous career. Recent excavations have