212 THE FORESTS AND DESERTS OF ARIZONA 



bloom ; there are magnificent carmine Gilias and Pentstemons, 

 the dark purple and golden Primula imrryi, the yellow columbine, 

 and a host of others changing off through the season and mak- 

 ing this plateau a veritable flower-garden. 



The rains hardly ever corneas land rains, but their nature and 

 quantity are very variable. A short shower each afternoon is 

 said to be the regulation rain, but the season of 1895 excelled 

 in terrific downpours, with most boisterous thundering and bril- 

 liant lightning, not even respecting the nightly rest of the tentless 

 camper. Yet the dry air soon obliterates the dampness. The 

 temperature, however, is kept at a most delightful, uniform de- 

 gree, never much above 75° or 80°, and the sunsets after a late 

 thunderstorm are the most gorgeous to be seen anywhere. The 

 nights are cool, toward morning occasionally even cold. Alto- 

 gether the summer climate in the pines is ideal. 



While preparing for our trip of exploration there are many 

 points of interest around Flagstaff to visit. We may descend 

 into Cosnino or Walnut canon, a deep, narrow cut, with its long 

 rows of cliif-dwellings built into the limestone walls reminding us 

 of bygone millenniums, when a teeming population must have 

 lived here. These dry ridges and plateau portions are wooded 

 Avith the low trees, rarely over 30 feet high, often shrublike in 

 form, of the piiion or nut pine (Plnus ediolis), whose sweet seeds 

 are gathered for food by the Indians, and the western juniper 

 (Junipenis utahensis), fit only for firewood, interspersed with 

 shrubs of striking form and foliage, almost always spin}'- and of 

 peculiar interest. Among these are the pink-flowered locust, the 

 yellow-flowered, prickly-leafed barbeny, the fruit making ex- 

 cellent jam, the trifoliate, red-fruited squawberry, of delicious 

 acid taste, and the snowy, white-tufted cliff rose, which is not a 

 rose at all, yet fills the air with a rare fragrance. 



An inspection of the logging operations gives an opportunity 

 to make measurements of the rate of growth of the pines and to 

 observe the differences in their development, giving rise to the 

 lumberman's classification into jack pines, the younger or quickly 

 grown, and yellow pines, the older or slowly grown, which are 

 from 250 to 300 years and more old. 



Presently we start southward, looking back on the hospitable 

 town of Flagstaff and its grand mountain and forest entourage, 

 across the waste which the logger and the unavoidable forest fire 

 have made, and the natural prairie or glade south of it. Such 

 glades, from a few acres to several square miles in extent, are 



