1922] EDWARDS, GEOLOGICAL WORK AT GRAND CANYON 89 



GEOLOGICAL FIELDWORK AT THE GRAND 

 CANYON, ARIZONA 



By Ira Edwards^ 



In the last week of August, 1922, tieldwork was commenced in Ari- 

 zona by the Department of Geology. It had for its purpose, the mak- 

 ing of careful studies and another environmental group model of a 

 character similar to the one which had already been constructed at Mt. 

 Rainier. This group was to show a panorama from some point on the 

 rim of the Grand Canyon. Nowhere else in the world can the work of 

 river erosion be illustrated on so gigantic and perfect a scale. It was 

 recognized at the start that such an undertaking was a very large task 

 and would require a considerable amount of fieldwork, perhaps greater 

 than could be accomplished in one season. In this work, the Museum 

 received the cooperation of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Rail- 

 way and of Fred Harvey, Inc., without which it would have been well 

 nigh impossible for us to undertake such a large and expensive pro- 

 duction. 



The first stop which the party made beyond Chicago, was at Flag- 

 staff, Arizona, the county seat of Coconino County. This city occupies 

 the site where a pole was set up by a party of immigrants who encamped 

 here on one Fourth of July. The pioneers afterwards had the custom 

 of meeting one another at "The Flagstaff" and hence arose the name 

 of the place. It was at one time a point of departure for stages to the 

 Grand Canyon, which is sixty miles to the northwest of the city, but 

 when the railroad was constructed, this service was discontinued, and 

 at present relatively few people take this route. Nevertheless, it is one 

 of the most interesting of the roads leading to the Grand Canyon, as it 

 passes around the side of the San Francisco Mountains and crosses a 

 very interesting expanse of desert. It is especially to be recommended 

 to people visiting the National Park in their own automobiles. 



Here the party spent two days in a reconnaissance, exploring some 

 interesting archeological sites near the city. At first a trip was taken 

 to the eastward of the town, where, in a very short distance, the road 

 entered the Coconino National Forest, which is the source of the lum- 

 ber so extensively manufactured in Flagstaff. This forest is one of 

 two government reservations which include the greater part of the 

 growth of yellow pine covering this high part of Arizona, known as the 

 Coconino Plateau. At low altitudes in this region no trees at all are 



'Curator of Geology, Milwaukee Public Museum. 



