METEOR MOUNTAIN 



383 



neigfhborhood. A worse trouble is total absence of water for many 

 miles, while a fourth difficulty is the terrible heat in the bottom of the 

 pit, as the writer can testify ffom experience; the vertical walls, six 

 hundred feet high, shutting off all air currents, and the clear sky of 

 the Arizona desert working terrific effects with the brilliant sun of 



Fig. 103. — An abandoned shaft in the bottom of the crater. 



the southwest. Very many fragments of the meteoric rock were 

 examined by the author, the largest weighing eighteen hundred 

 pounds, being so heavy that three strong men were unable to turn 

 it over. These are carefully kept under guard by the mining com- 

 pany, which still controls the spot, and except on the rarest oc- 

 casions are nearly all locked in a heavy stone building on the north 

 rim of the crater. The photographs accompanying this article 

 show this remarkable phenomenon from various points on the inside 

 and outside of the crater. 



