ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 205 



when they first sank to their present resting place. Along 

 the edge of the rocky blnffs they may be still partly cov- 

 ered with the overlying standstone and partly protruding 

 into the excavated valley. 



The genesis of this old forest is thus preserved by the 

 testimony of the rocks. 



The Santa Fe Railway passes through Adamana and 

 Holbrook, from five to twelve miles away, and the traveler 

 across the continent has the easy opportunity to see the 

 greatest scenic wonder in the world, the Grand Canyon of 

 the Colorado in Arizona, and the greatest natural curios- 

 ity, the Petrified Forest of Arizona. Under the turquoise 

 sky of the desert the scenery is doubly beautiful. 



There are other petrified forests, but this is The Petri- 

 fied Forest of the World. Yellow, red, blue, white, black, 

 brown, pink, purple, green, gray, in fact all the colors of 

 the rainbow are found in these old trees. Many of them 

 are five feet in diameter and one hundred and forty feet 

 in length, and lie just as they were originally deposited 

 imbedded a few inches in the desert sand. 



In another place the old sea bottom has been eroded 

 below its original level and there the trees have been 

 broken into short logs and have rolled into great con- 

 fusion. 



The "Natural Bridge" is a beautiful specimen, where a 

 tree still lies imbedded in the sandstone at each end, and 

 a deep ravine, forty-five feet wide, has been washed away 

 beneath it. The winds and the rain have worn away the 

 sandstone, but the petrified trees are as hard and endur- 

 ing as the eternal adamant. 



Coleridge describes the great arches of a Gothic cathe- 

 dral as a "petrified religion." 



As hard almost as the diamond, as brilliant in colors 

 as the flowers of the field, this ancient forest, which was 

 transformed into stone perhaps before man appeared on 



