168 YEARBOOK, PUBLIC MUSEUM, MILWAUKEE [Vol. III. 



stones of reddish color, which contain frequent layers of pure white 

 gypsum. The logs are buried in a rather coarse sandstone, and in 

 many cases are still in place. Wherever the end of a log is exposed, 

 as in figure 90, the fragments broken from it can be traced down the 

 slope of the hill and show conclusively that the scattered pieces now 

 lying over the surface of the ground once belonged to similar entire 

 trunks. The wood is nearly all black and lacks that beauty which 

 characterizes the petrified wood from the other forests of this area. 

 The subdued color of the wood is, however, amply compensated by 

 the beautiful coloring of the rocks which contain it. The area of 

 ''bad lands" stretches to the north, east and west as far as can be seen, 

 but eventually gives place to the relatively even surface of the Painted 

 Desert. 



Nothing could be more of a surprise than the contrast in color 

 between the Black and Blue Forests. The latter is the nearest to 

 Adamana of those accumulations of petrified wood south of the Rio 

 Puerco. The road leads across the river and in a winding course over 

 the sage-covered flat past two rounded hills called the Haj^stacks, 

 shown in figure 91. These hills are outlying buttes about a mile from 

 the main wall of the escarpment against which the road ends abruptly. 

 This line of hills marks the edge of a plateau, composed of shale rocks 

 varying in color from a light sky blue to a deep purplish hue, which 

 colors usually run in bands as can be seen plainly in the photograph 

 in figure 92. The edge of the plateau has here been carved into an 

 elaborate system of "bad lands" covering two or three square miles 

 and drained by a number of intermittent streams, which very fre- 

 quently flow beneath the surface for short distances. Entrance to 

 the Blue Forest is by way of the valley of one of these streams. It is 

 very narrow and winding at first, but eventually widens into a broad 

 interior basin, from which other similar valleys can be seen leading 

 outward. Here is the petrified wood, but usually not in immense 

 logs as in the Black Forest. It has been much more roughly used by 

 the weather and is now broken into thousands of fragments. The 

 most remarkable of these resemble the piles of chips which result 

 from the chopping of wood and have been nick-named "fossil wood 

 piles." The many curious forms of weathered rock and the maze of 

 little waterways are almost as interesting as the petrified wood itself, 

 and the color banding in the rock is all that an artist can desire. Frag- 

 ments of the plates of armor from extinct reptiles are of frequent oc- 

 currence in these beds and a little search cannot fail to reveal a few 

 guch specimens. 



