Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-02-02
ARIZONA.
WORLDS WONDERLAND.
By Frederic ]. Haskin.

Arizona is wonderland. For the
| geolog1st, the archeologist and the his
| torian, no less than for the nature lover
| or the mere tourist, it offers opportunities
| not to be found in any other American
| state.
Arizona has the largest and by far the
most beautiful of all petrified forests. In
one there are several hundred square
| miles of surface fairly carpeted with
| chips of agate and dotted with agate tree
trunks two to four feet in diameter, the
whole preserved as a national monument
| by the federal government, an action
| taken just In time to stop the depreda-
lions of those who were taking out tho
agate for commerce. Just across valley
from this agate forest is another where
the buried tree trunks are silicified in
stead OF being agatized. The stony logs
show their ends under fifty feet of sand
stone. Through ages and ages the min
eral-laden waters flowed over these an
c1ent trees, impregnating them with the
stony substances that set and preserved
for all time the most minute details Of
their once living tissues
Arizona has the largest natural bridge
| In the world. 1t is 200 feet high, has a
span OF more than 500 feet, 1t is GOO feet
l '" .NOp ~ nos q OTCIldIO Oh lOp anu
labyrinths OF caves under its abutments
Arizona has the largest variety and dis
| play of recent volcanic action in this
continent the
Volcanoes Are Recent word re
in Arizona's History. used 5 in Its its
geologic sense There is a sixty-mile
lava flow, blankets of tufa deep enough
| to be cut through by canyons, hundreds
| of cold craters and thousands of square
miles of lava beds. There is a great
abundance of the so-called volcanic glass,
the obsidian that was used by the Aztecs
| and the prehistoric Arizonans for
weapons in war and for tools in peace.
Arizona has the largest and most inter-
esting cave dwelling villages in the world,
although competing with Europe, Asia
and Africa in this respect. The many
storied cliff dwellings are of more than
passing interest to the tourist and they
present an absorbing problem to the
architectural historian and the archeolO-
gist. Arizona and New Mexico have
twenty-SiX pueblos, curious communal re-
publics, inha bited by the descendants of
the cliff jewellers, some OF them placed in
fertile valleys and some perched on bar
rem mountain tops.
But more than this, and above all and
beyond everything, Arizona has the
Grand Canyon, by far the most sublime
of all earthly spectacles.
Charles +. Lummis, the famous explor
er and author, has said ''the Grand
Canyon is just the Grand Canyon, and
that is all you can say. I never have
seen any one who was prepared for it.
I have seen people rave over it; better
people struck dumb with 1t; even strong
men who cried over it; but 1 have never
yet seen the man or woman that expect
ed 1t.
lit adds seriously to the scientific won
der and the universal impressiveness of
this unparalleled chasm that it Is not in
some stupendous mountain range, but in
vast arid, lofty floor of nearly hun
dred thousand square miles. There is no
preparation for it. Unless you have
been told, you would no more dream that
out yonder, amid the pines, the fiat earth
is slashed to it's very bowels. than you
would expect to find an iceberg in Broad
way. With a running jump from the
spot where you get your first glimpse of
the canyon, you could go down 1900 feet
without touching. 1t is as sudden as
we'll.
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