Haynes, Photo., St. Paul.
Petrified Trees near Yancey's.
After the cessation of volcanic activity, the eroding agencies of the Quaternary Period carved out the valley of the Lamar River through these accumulated flows, and laid bare the remains of their vegetable growths. To-day the tourist may see upon the slopes of Specimen Ridge, side by side, the living and the dead, the little conifers of present growth and the gigantic trunks of unknown species which flourished there eons ago.
Some of the petrifactions are very perfect. Roots, bark, parts showing incipient decay, worm holes, leaves—all are preserved with absolute fidelity. The rings of annual growth may be counted, and these indicate for the larger trees an age of not less than five hundred years. Some of the stumps are fully ten feet in diameter. Here and there the ponderous roots stand imbedded in the rock face of the cliff, where erosion has not yet undermined them. In one case, a large tree that had fallen before petrifaction lies partly exposed, both ends being still imbedded in the rock. Some hollow trees show interiors beautifully lined with holocrystalline quartz.
How long it took each growth to reach maturity; how long it flourished afterward before destruction; and how long the several lava flows suspended vegetable growth; are matters largely conjectural. But at the very lowest estimate the time represented by these various accumulations can not be less than five thousand years.
That these early trees were of a different species from those which now flourish there, need not excite surprise, for climatic and other conditions are wholly changed. But an equal difference seems also to have prevailed between the successive growths, the trees of which were not only unlike each other, but nearly all were of species hitherto unknown to science. Fortunately the rare perfection of some of the specimens, particularly of the leaves and bark, have greatly simplified their classification, and have given valuable clues to their geologic age.
The products of these petrifactions in time strewed the surface of the ground with such an abundance of specimens as to give the locality its present name. Most of the lighter specimens, and some of the heavier, have been carried away.
Besides the general interest of these old forests to the casual observer, they are of great value to science, for probably in no other part of the globe can a similar chapter of its history be found more clearly recorded.