204 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



market in Canada, and the emery factory proved un- 

 profitable, greatly to the disappointment of these com- 

 mercial vandals. 



This same genius of greed that has been converting 

 ancient Egyptian mummies into paints and fertilizer will 

 make short work of this marvelous forest if some use can 

 be found that will transform it into money. 



Nothing short of permanent reservation by law will 

 preserve it from destruction. Dynamite has been used 

 in order to blow some of the finest trees into suitable frag- 

 ments for ' ' specimens. ' ' 



This forest is without doubt the greatest natural curi- 

 osity in America. 



Ages ago, so long that it makes one dizzy to think of it, 

 these trees were alive and growing in the Southwest. 

 They were coniferous, as shown by microscopic examina- 

 tion of their texture. The species is now extinct and the 

 nearest resembling species now found exists in Asia 

 Minor. 



The geological history of this forest is very easy to 

 read. The trees have fallen down and floated around in 

 some old arm of the sea until the roots and limbs were 

 worn and rounded just as we see like examples on the 

 sandbars of the Mississippi. The trees became heavy and 

 water-logged and settled to the sea bottom. They were 

 slowly covered by a deposit of sandstone of forty to fifty 

 feet, or more, in thickness, and under this deposit below 

 the old sea bed they were slowly transformed into chal- 

 cedony of such beautiful and varied colors as has been 

 nowhere else equaled. Afterwards the land slowly rose 

 until it became an elevated plain 7,000 feet above the 

 present sea level. 



Erosion by wind and water has done its work and un- 

 covered several thousand acres of this antediluvian plain. 

 The great logs lie, many of them, just as they appeared 



