The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-12-04

Marceau, the geOlOglst or the survey
 made collection of specimens, and ex-
 tensive mention is made of it in the
 Government reports. The tourist and
 vandal did not get at it until near 1880,
 when the Atlantic and Pacific, or Santa
 Fe, Railroad was built. The first speci-
 mems of the wood was seen by the gen.
 eral public was at the New Orleans Ex-
 position in 1885, A display was made in
 Paris in 1889, and again in Chicago in
 1893. The only place where the stone is
 polished and manufactured is at Sioux
 Falls S. D., and a recent news paper
 article says this company is engaged in getting out $1,00O000 worth of orna-
 ments and jewelry for sale at the Paris
 exposition of 1900. The cost of cutting
 and polishing the petrihcation ap-
 breaches that of treating diamonds, as
 1t Is calculated to be seven- tenths the
 hardness of diamond
 The scientific theory concerning the
 petrIfication is to the effect that after
 the forest of pines and cedars was estab-
 l1shed, the basin, or valley, became a
 lake. This valley has an area, approx
 imately of 100 by 80 miles, and it Is
 surrounded by extinct volcanoes. These volcanoes emptied themselves into the
 lake, and the trees became soaked with
 the silicious water. Silicia took the place of every fibre and atom of wood.
 The colors of red, brown, yellow and purple came from the iron and mang- anese in solution in the water All this | took place before the existence of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. When nature formed that big ditch the lake was drained, and the water, in it's rush to the northwest, leveled the stone trees, breaking them off as smooth as of they had been sawed. This sustains the theory that the trees were purified where they grew.
 The fact that nearly all the fallen trunks lie in one direction, and to the northwest sustans the theory that the lake emptied to the northwest and into the Grand Canyon. A few ages of erosion after the praining of the lake brings the forest down to the present day, and has left some strange freaks. One big tree trunk protrudes over the brow of a cliff, looking like cannon on a fort. Another has been left balanced on column of stone, presenting great 'T."
 S. J. Holsinger, special agent of the Government Land Office has recently returned from the perified forest where he went to investigate the advisabiity of forming national park of the reg ion. He will report favorably on the project, and will advise that a territory eighteen miles by nine miles be includ- ed In the park In this area lie four different groups, or forests, of fallen trees, although it does not include all | of the groups of petrifcations in the valley MT. Holsinger says there are | millions of tons of the agatized wood in the proposed park territory. He measured many tree trunks which were 165 feet long and as large as four feet in diameter. He says one group of qualifications, locally known as Rain bow Park" Is the most remarkable spectacle of color he has ever seen, and so dazzzling was the effect of the sun shine on the brilliant confusion of stone fragments that dizziness of his head him to sit down. At Carrizo the station on the Santa Fe nearest the petrlfications, he learned that the Sioux Falls conmany had ordered carload of the stone to be shipped to the factory
 J. W. Benham, of Phoenix who Is well acquainted with the9 country of the forest, says there Is a fine group of big ogs in the foothills, about twelve miles east of Winslow, and probably forty i've miles distant from the agate bridge. He was hunting lost horses in the neigh oorhood when he came upon group of perhaps fifteen lourishing pine trees, growing on little table-land The con- lition was so unusual for the desert country that he rode to the trees and ound the ground about covered with ,etrlfied logs, many of them as high as lis shoulders. This ground had been To- 'ated as cattle ranch in 1886, by Hull Swinburne two Englishmen, who dug well near the pines. Benham & Barnes bought the cattle of the English nen, and founded the Esperanxa Cattle Company, but they allowed the "lo- ation' to lapse. It Is to be hoped that "Chalcedony Park" will become reality as soon as ( possible after Agent Holsinger has sub- nitted his report. While there may be I
 million tons of the precious stone on ! in the park to-day, the next will not find a pound of it | here If the National Government does [ ot rigidly protect it.-Arizona Graphic, 5
 T