1923] EDWARDS, THE PETRIFIED FORESTS 165 



of Adamana and continue in a curved line to a point eighteen miles 

 south of Carrizo station. Just north of the monument and southeast 

 of Adamana lies another area of petrified wood which has been called 

 the "Blue Forest" from the color of its rocks. The sixth, the "Black 

 Forest," is north a distance of about three miles from Adamana. It 

 lies at a lower horizon than the other five, and the trees being replaced 

 with a different material, lack the brilliant colors which distinguish 

 the other forests. 



Aside from the abundance of petrified wood, these forests are 

 chiefly remarkable by reason of the great variety of color in the silica 

 which has replaced the woody matter of the trunks. They are the 

 oldest of all known forests of this kind, dating from a period much 

 farther back in the world's history than the petrified forests of Yellow- 

 stone National Park and of the region about Cairo, Egypt. None 

 of the trunks are standing where they grew, but now lie prostrate on 

 the ground and in most cases not even in the formation in which they 

 were preserved. At one time they formed a forest of small trees be- 

 longing to a group of plants which are relatives and ancestral forms 

 of the modern cone-bearing trees. These were doubtless destroyed 

 by a flood or perhaps an earthquake. The trunks floated down the 

 rivers of that time and were buried in the coarse gravel and sand of 

 these streams. After being long buried, the surrounding material 

 was hardened in a coarse conglomerate and the woody matter of the 

 trunks was replaced by deposits of quartz, producing the petrified 

 wood. After their long burial they have once again been brought to 

 light by the erosion of the rocks. Throughout the greater part of the 

 forest, these rocks have been entirely eroded away and the trunks 

 have been left behind and usually washed far down the slope from 

 their original position. This accounts for the fact that most of the 

 trunks are broken up into short lengths and smaller fragments. 



Those now visiting the Petrified Forests, usually leave the train 

 at Adamana, a station on the Santa Fe Railway which derives its 

 fantastic name from that of Adam Hanna, who was at one time the 

 only settler in this immediate vicinity. Here is located a little cluster 

 of buildings; a post office and store, a hotel, one or two residences, 

 a railway station, a water tank and a coal chute. To the north the 

 rolling hills are covered with sage brush, and to the south across the 

 valley of the Rio Puerco with its fringe of cottonwood trees are more 

 sage-covered plains which lead to higher hills far away in the distance. 

 On the east the cliffs come nearer and form a line of low bluffs stretch- 

 ing from north to south and about a mile and a half from the station. 



