482 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



rock. This is to-day the floor of the basin, and in it are wrapped 

 the thousands of insects which at the time disported in the sub- 

 tropical sunshine, and whose lives were involved in the catas- 



A EocKr Mountain " Park," across the Florissant Basin, Colorado. 



trophe. Fish remains are still occasionally met with, but they 

 do not appear to be in any way abundant. The heated waters 

 flooded portions of the adjacent dry land, and destroyed the 

 stately forest that grew down to the banks — the forest of giant 

 redwoods (Sequoia) which already then clothed this portion of 

 the North American continent, and whose extension is to be 

 found in the forest heaps of Patoot and Atanekerdlook on the 

 western coast of Greenland, almost under the seventieth parallel 

 of north latitude. It was a different climate then. The Sequoias 

 do not, perhaps, teach us much, since they, or a closely allied 

 species, are still a part of the vegetative product of California, 

 and are to-day a wonder in their own land ; but when they 

 reared their majestic trunks above the plains of Florissant, they 

 did so in association with palms and with other representatives 

 of the southern climes. They fell together, and together have 

 their remains been preserved. 



The silicified trees of the Florissant Basin are a marked curi- 

 osity of the United States. They are less known than the " stone 

 forest " of Arizona, or than the similar mausoleum of the Yellow- 

 stone region, but it is only because they have not yet been 

 brought to the attention of the tourist. The trees are at the 

 present time represented only by their stumps. In wandering 

 over the green meadow the eye here and there rests upon a seem- 



