Like glimpses of forgotten dreams."
These lines may, perchance, come echoing around one in the air as he loiters at night on the low, long piazza, while the myriad meteors of Arizona skies blaze their way through the transparent air and a sky full of stars contends with the moon for brilliancy; the unearthly, delicate, ethereal coloring of the "Bad Lands" gleaming resplendent on the distant horizon.
If the wanderer has fallen upon particularly fortunate days in his horoscope and found Miss Wanda Muir—her quaint name coming from her mother, the daughter of a Polish nobleman—to drive him out to this marvellous "forest" of stone, he will have a pleasure enhanced by interesting conversation. A graduate of Berkeley College in California, and the constant companion of her father in his wanderings, Miss Muir is indeed an ideal guide, and under her hand one June morning the two horses sped along over the rough, stony ground at a pace to set every fibre tingling. One of the features of the Arizona desert is the arroyo, a dry stream, a ready-made river, so to speak, minus the water. Some of these even have a stream of flowing water, only it is under the bed of the river rather than on top of it, for Arizona is the land of magic and wonder and of a general reversal of accepted conditions.
"Sometimes in driving out here," said Miss Muir, "a cloudburst comes up while we are in the Petrified Forests, and on returning the horses have to swim this dry stream. Once the water was so high it came into the wagon. Not infrequently, when we go out to the forest, some one comes dashing after us on horseback to warn us to get back as quickly as possible, or the torrents of water from a sudden cloudburst will cut us off altogether, perhaps for a day and a night." The pleasing uncertainty of life in Arizona may be realized from this danger of being suddenly drowned in the arid sands of a desert, and being confronted with a sudden Lodore that descends from the heavens on a midsummer noon. But, as one is constantly saying to himself, Arizona is the land of surprises. No known laws of meteorology, or of any other form of science, hold good here. The mountain peak transforms itself into the bottom of a sea, and the sea suddenly upheaves itself in air and figures as a mountain. Arizona is nature's kaleidoscope; it is the land of transformation.
Of the three petrified forests, each separated by a mile or two, the first is reached by a drive of some six miles, while the third is more than twice as far. The second is the largest and most elaborate, and in the aggregate they cover an area of over two thousand acres. The ground is the high rolling mesas, and over it are scattered, "thick as leaves in Vallombrosa," the jewel-like fragments of mighty trees in deposits that are the wonder of the scientist. From the huge fallen tree trunks, many of these being over two hundred feet in length and of similar proportions in diameter, to the mere chips and twigs, the forests are transmuted into agate and onyx and chalcedony. Numbers of these specimens contain perfect crystals. They are vivid and striking in color,—in rich Byzantine red, deep greens and purples and yellow, white and translucent, or dark in all color blendings. Great blocks of agate cover many parts of the forest. Hundreds of entire trees are seen. When cut transversely these logs show the bark, the inner fibre, and veining as perfectly as would a living tree. And over all these fallen monarchs of a prehistoric forest bends the wonderful turquoise sky of Arizona, and the air is all the liquid gold of the intense sunshine.
At Tiffany's in New York may be seen huge slabs and sections of this petrified wood under high polish. A fine exhibit of it was made at the Paris exposition in 1900, and a specimen of it was presented to Rodin, the great sculptor, who was incredulous of the possibility that this block, apparently of onyx, could have been wood. Through all the forests are these strange rock formations called buttes, rising in the most weird shapes from the sand and stones and sagebrush of the vast desert. What a treasure-ground of antiquity! This region, which seems a plain, is yet higher than the top of Mount Washington, and the altitude insures almost perpetual coolness. Scientists seem to agree in the theory that the petrified forests are a debatable phenomenon whose origin eludes any final conclusion. It is possible that some mighty sea suddenly arose—perhaps as the present Salton Sea in Southern California—and engulfed them. The land is partly the "bad lands" and partly a sandy plain covered with petrifactions. The third forest contains hundreds of unbroken tree trunks, of which some are over two hundred feet in length. Many of these are partly imbedded in the earth.
All around this high plateau rise on the horizon surrounding cliffs to the height of one hundred and fifty and more feet, serrated into ravines and gorges, variegated with the sandstone formations in all their shimmer of colors, and indicating that this basin was once the bottom of a sea.
It is the paradise of the ethnologist as well as of the geologist. Besides cliff ruins and hieroglyphics, almost anywhere, by chance, one may find traces of submerged walls, and following these, a man with an ordinary spade may dig up prehistoric pottery, skeletons, beads, rings, and occasionally necklaces. The pottery, both in design and in scheme of decoration, shows a high degree of civilization. Who were these prehistoric peoples who had built their pueblos and created their implements and pottery and were already old when Plymouth Rock was new? Much of the symbolic creation here still awaits its interpreter.
From these millions of tons of glistening, shining blocks and segments and tree trunks the tourist is not allowed to carry away specimens carte blanche, as formerly. The Petrified Forests are now a government reservation, although not yet one of the government parks. Small specimens, within a reasonable amount, are permitted the tourist as souvenirs.
The Petrified Forests are quarries rather than forests; the great fallen logs, branches, and chips, lying prostrate on the ground, are seen glowing and gleaming like jewels. So far as the eye can reach there is not a human habitation. Over the infinite stretch of sand and rocks bends the bluest of skies, and here and there are prehistoric Indian mines, and one ledge of cliffs on which are strange and as yet undeciphered hieroglyphics. The graves of the prehistoric inhabitants of this region are numerous, each containing rare and choice specimens of pottery which are dug out intact. This region seems to have been once thickly populated. The remains of pueblos are numerous. Skeletons are constantly being found.