The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-04-30

The forest includes an area of ten miles square, in the northwestern sec ton of the Apache country, and only a few miles from the town of Holbrook. Adamana, a small settlement on the Santa Fe railroad, is the nearest rail- way station, from which a majority of sight-seers go to the forest. It is named after an old man, Adam Hanna, the ionly inhabitant noted in it's immediate vicinity, upon whom falls the duty of guiding and sheltering in his humble home those desiring to see the curiosi- ties of the forest. Were it not for the small sums the old man picks up in this way, it would be impossible for him to exist, for the land is wholly unsuitable for grazing, nor is it capable of sup porting any vegetation whatever. The bed of the forest is a vast desert of sandstone, and worthless except as a government reservation.
 Professor Lester F. Ward, paleontol- bgist of the Smithsonian Institution, who has recently returned from an ex- animation of the forest, says that after leaving the station one gradually as cends slope to height of five or six thousand feet, crossing over canyons, gulches and ravines from twenty to fif- ty feet deep. The region leading up to the principal mineral fields is exceed
 ngly rugged, and indeed, when finally reaching the topmost point, sort of ta- bleland, the ground is rough and cut up with gulches and basins which makes it difficult to drive over in Adams wagon At one of the highest points, as far as the eye can reach, quantities of huge silicified logs and fragments are seen scattered about in the ravines and over the fields, which, intermingled with the red, brown, white and purple layers of sandstone on the edges of the cliffs, present an odd, pie turesque view. This region may be rightly classed among the natural won- ders of the American continent and it's petrified wood is of more perfect mine- raj formation than that found in Wyo- ming and the Yellowstone and Yosemite parks. It has attained a degree of radnesss almost equal to that of the d- amond, making an excellent quality of emery, and is very similar in compost tion to jasper or onyx.
 For a long time after the forest was discovered, in 1853, carloads of the silici- fled wood were shipped to the east for the purpose of manufacturing emery, but this industry was discontinued, and it is now used principally for ornaments, such as clocks, tables, lamps, etc., os is onyx. If tastity designed and highly polished, so as to bring out to advan- tage it's varied colors, the silicifed wood can be made into attractive ornaments which sell at comparatively large prices, considering the quantities which have lain there for so maiM years. Some regard it as among the precious stones of the American conti- nent and a collection of it's choicest specimens has been obtained by a jew eler's firm in St Paul, who will manu- fracture the agatized wood into unique designs and exhibit them at the Paris exposition, A similar exhibition was for the worlds fair at Chicago.
 This region is also marked by the ru- ins of, number of ancient Indian vil~ lages, the walls of some of which can now be recognized, and arrow heads and other Indian relics are frequently found after hard rains. While there are no