Williams news., 1913-03-29
A NATURAL WONDER
 RECENTLY EXPLORED

lOullS1 III UL1C ShllCo CIdlCo.
 A party composed of Frank Der rick and sons, Linn and Venn, and Ed Murphy, all living at Sedona left Saturday morning for "The Devils Kitchen" three miles from the Cypress ranch, They took rope, axes, nails and wire and in two days time succeeded in placing a ladder into the strange pit.
 They found the pit to be over two hundred feet long and 125 feet wide, and from the rim to where the ladder was placed it was found to be 60 feet deep, the opposite end being over 100 feet deep.
 The walls of the pit recede from the top, except on the east side, which is perpendicular. Owing to the great depth of the receding north wall the effect is like that of an arched cathedral.
 The bottom is composed of huge boulders and debris that fell from the top and choked the subterra- mean entrance to what had been a cavern. The rock falling in mass choked the opening or the depth might have been thousands of feet.
 The walls are frescoed with lime, precepitated in the form of stalig- tites and stalignites, which assume queer shapes, while many beautiful fragments are to be found in the de- bris at the bottom.
 A lone cedar tree has grown in the bottom, with a few stray shrubs since the formation of the hole, and gives an idea when the promontory of rock became undermined and fell in.
 Oldtimers heard the roar and saw a cloud of dust rise seventeen years ago, and they say that they rode horseback over the spot that now is so famous.
 MT. Frank Derrick is the second man who ever ventured into the mysterious den and Edward Mur- phy third.
 This is the second time a human being ever ventured into the forbid den place and the experience of Clayton Dykes and Charles Stem mer year ago last September was somewhat singular, MT. Dykes be- ing the first human lowered into the den.
 The two above mentioned took 215 feet of rope with them. One piece 15O feet long was made fast to tree on the rim and knotted every foot. The rope lacked four feet of touching the highest tip of huge boulder, which lay in the shallow est point of. the inclosure.. Hand over hand Dykes let himself down until his feet firmly sat upon the upturned rock. He no sooner at tempted to turn around when he was startled by the loud whirr of a rattlesnake Having no club Stem mer procured one above and threw it to Dykes, who picked it up and killed the snake. No sooner done than another rattled and the noise of hundreds of rattlers sounded from the rocks. He killed a second and by vigilance kept on the heaps of debris around the base of the walls until he had gone entirely around the bottom.
 He gathered two beautiful speci- mems of stalagnites that Stemmer lauleu up Dy rope. lie became somewhat sick from the odor and rattling of snakes and said he want ed to get out. Stemmer let down 65 feet of rope looped on one end. Dyke slipped his leg in the loop and began to climb hand over hand, Stemmer resting line at intervals. Dykes shouted, ''Let me down, the loop hurts my leg and I can't go any farther" Stemmer let him down. Again they tried it by Dykes sitting in the loop and a third time Dykes got half way up and Stemmer could neither get him up nor down, as the ropes became twisted ewing to their being let