I Married a Ranger | Page 6

there was a particularly dangerous task or one requiring sound judgment and a clear head, Ranger West was selected.
He and Ranger Fisk and Ranger Winess were known as the "Three Musketeers." They were the backbone of the force.
Sometimes I think my very nicest neighbor was the gardener at El Tovar Hotel. He saw me hungrily eying his flowers, and gave me a generous portion of plants and showed me how to care for them. I planted them alongside my little gray house, and after each basin of water had seen duty for cleansing purposes it went to water the flowers. We never wasted a drop of water. It was hauled a hundred miles in tank cars, and cost accordingly. I sometimes wondered if we paid extra for the red bugs that swam around in it so gaily. Anyway, my flowers didn't mind the bugs. They grew into masses of beautiful foliage and brilliant blossoms. I knew every leaf and bud on them. I almost sat up nights with them, I was so proud of their beauty. My flowers and my little gray kitten were all the company I had now. The fire guard girl had gone home.
One of my neighbors asked me to go with a group of Fred Harvey girls to visit the Petrified Forest, lying more than a hundred miles southeast of the Canyon. As I had been working exceptionally hard in the Park Office, I declared myself a holiday, and Sunday morning early found us well on the way.
We drove through ordinary desert country to Williams and from there on past Flagstaff and eastward to Holbrook. Eighteen miles from there we began to see fallen logs turned into stone.
My ideas of the Petrified Forest were very vague, but I had expected to see standing trees turned to stone. These big logs were all lying down, and I couldn't find a single stump! We drove through several miles of fallen logs and came to the Government Museum where unique and choice specimens had been gathered together for visitors to see. It is hard to describe this wood, that isn't wood. It looks like wood, at least the grain and the shape, and knotholes and even wormholes are there; but it has turned to beautifully brilliant rock. Some pieces look like priceless Italian marble; others are all colors of the rainbow, blended together into a perfect poem of shades.
Of course I asked for an explanation, and with all the technical terms left out, this is about what I learned: "These trees are probably forty million years old! None of them grew here. This is proved in several ways: there are few roots or branches and little bark."
The ranger saw me touch the outside of a log that was covered with what looked to me like perfectly good bark! He smiled.
"Yes, I know that looks like bark, but it is merely an outside crust of melted sand, et cetera, that formed on the logs as they rolled around in the water."
"Water?" I certainly hadn't seen any water around the Petrified Forest.
"Yes, water. This country, at one time, was an arm of the Pacific Ocean, and was drained by some disturbance which brought the Sierra Mountains to the surface. These logs grew probably a thousand miles north of here and were brought here in a great flood. They floated around for centuries perhaps, and were thoroughly impregnated with the mineral water, doubtless hot water. When the drainage took place, they were covered by silt and sand to a depth of perhaps two thousand feet. Here the petrifaction took place. Silica was present in great quantities. Manganese and iron provided the coloring matter, and through pressure these chemicals were forced into the grain of the wood, which gradually was absorbed and its cell structure replaced by ninety-nine per cent silica and the other per cent iron and manganese. Erosion brought what we see to the top. We have reason to believe that the earth around here covers many thousand more."
After that all soaked in I asked him what the beautiful crystals in purple and amber were. These are really amethysts and topazes found in the center of the logs. Formed probably by resin in the wood, these jewels are next hardest to diamonds and have been much prized. One famous jeweler even had numberless logs blown to splinters with explosives in order to secure the gems.
The wood is very little softer than diamond, and polishes beautifully for jewelry, book-ends, and table tops. The ranger warned us against taking any samples from the Reserve.
We could have spent days wandering around among the fallen giants, each one disclosing new beauties in color and formation; but we finally left, reluctantly, each determined to come back again.
It was quite dark when we reached the Canyon, and