About eight miles from Headquarters, and three miles from the Second Forest, is the most noted tree in the Monument, the Natural Bridge. This sleeping giant lies where it was abandoned as a plaything by the waters that carried it here. Each end is firmly embedded in the sandstone rock, which was formerly the sand at the bottom of the sea. In the process of erosion, which finally carried away all of the material above this log, it ultimately came to lie on the surface of the ground. As the land rises somewhat to the south of it, water gathered there with the big log forming a natural dam. This water tended to soften the sandstone, and after a period of time it forced its way through under the log. Soon this became a free passage for the water, and resulted in the formation of the gorge which the prostrate trunk spans today.
The Natural Bridge log is about four feet in thickness at the largest point in sight. Part of the log is still encrusted with the sandstone which wrapped it about, before wind and rain unshrouded it. The canyon is twenty-five feet deep, and this one hundred and eleven foot log measures forty-four feet between the points at which it rests on the sides of the arroyo.
From the canyon beneath it, cedar, juniper and cottonwood trees have sprung to life and grown up to furnish shade for this comrade of another Age. They must seem mere upstarts to this old veteran!
A hundred yards or so to the east, down over the rim of the mesa, is another freak of erosion, called the Pedestal Log. It is a large section, resting upon a support of sandstone, ten or fifteen feet above the level of the surrounding plain. It forms a protective cap which has kept the softer material immediately under it from washing away.
The First Forest
Here, again, were I choosing a suitable name for this portion of the Reservation I should not hesitate to call it “The Vandal’s Paradise”. It has been badly denuded of its finest specimens, and the big trees demolished by vandals. Here the despoiler has had full sway. Great trees are blown to atoms by searchers for the semi-precious jewels. Choice specimens have been hauled away by the carload. There was no law, other than one’s own individual decency to protect these jeweled timbers lying near Adamana, which for years was the nearest railroad station and the only entrance to the Reservation. This “forest” is located five miles south of Adamana, and is about half a mile from the Natural Bridge. It is composed of trees, which are geologically speaking, “all out of place”. That means they have all, by the work of erosion, been let down from higher levels. They are badly shattered, but, nevertheless beautiful, on account of the vivid coloring found in the fragments. Another feature of this area is the carving of the rocks into beautiful and fantastic shapes by the elements. At one place a slender column of sandstone rises to the height of twenty-five or thirty feet, and broadens at the top into a platform perhaps ten feet across. Here, for years, an eagle has nested, and the rock bears the official name of “Eagle Rock.” Quite close to this rock is the “Snow Lady”, a statuesque pillar against the background of an imposing cliff.
After an extended visit in 1889, Prof. Lester F. Ward, an eminent paleobotanist, on the staff of the United States Geological Survey, recommended that this area be made a National Park, or Reservation, in order to preserve it from destruction and oblivion. Local leaders brought pressure to bear upon their representatives in Washington, and at least one of Holbrook’s leading men, Mr. W. H. Clark, made a trip to Washington in the interest of preserving the Petrified Forest. He saw President Roosevelt in person and for half an hour talked with him concerning the reasons no action had been taken by Congress to protect the Forest. He left with the President’s assurance that something would be done. This something was a proclamation by President Roosevelt on December 8, 1906, declaring the area to be a National Monument.
Prehistoric Dwellers
Throughout Arizona can be found traces of a vanished people. In and around the Petrified Forest, prehistoric dwellings and “picture writings” are plentiful, and of great antiquity and high development. Probably nowhere have such pictographs been so well preserved. The soft smooth sandstone was an ideal surface for the artist to work upon, and nowhere in the world, in that age, could such suitable tools be found to work with. Here at hand were sharp pointed chisels already prepared by the fracturing of wood. These chisels were hard enough to cut glass. Rounded pieces of the same material made excellent mallets. Hundreds of these have been found in the Reservation. With these rude instruments, this unknown people left for us a record of their existence graven deep in the sandstone in sheltered places. These pictures today are a lasting monument to the race that roamed this region in the gone-by centuries.
These sketches depict different kinds of animals, such as antelope and mountain sheep, snakes and turtles. They are grotesque and out of proportion, but doubtless they represent, for the most part, animals that formerly roamed the western plains. Some pictures, however, represent animals that could never have been seen on land and sea, and existed only in the fevered imagination of the artist. Perhaps there were futurist artists even among those primitive men.