In Forests Of Stone

"I had a quccr experience once," a gentleman who had been examining tho collection of trees and woods in the oíd Arsenal building, Central Park, said, "and these hardwoods remind me of it. I was prospecting in Arizona with a party of friends.and we had rough luck. We had a young Irishman as oook that I liad picked up in Omaha, who was worth more than any ten men I ever saw in keeping up the spirits of the crowd. The lower the provisions the more jovial he was, and I'm hanged if he didn't seem to have the blues one day when we shot a bear and were on the edge of starvation. One day when he had been out picking up wood for flre he carne to me and said: 'Beggin' ■-# , i i - 4 ii I l 1 !■ 'ii y 1,1 1 , i J ■ ■ TT I t . i il I I the same I'd like to take the back traek.' " 'What's the trouble?' I asked. ■"'Itmoight be that I be af raid av gettin' so fat I couldn't walk back, but divil a bit o' that,' said he solemnly. 'Bnt did ye ever hear teil o' the shtory av Ara-bayen Noights? Sorrer the toime I've heard Father Clineby relate it in the ould country. It's all about a country where the men, women and childer turned to stone. I always took it to be a iokn. the result of too niuch larnin'. but divilabitwhenwe'vestruck the self same placo. Ye laugh, is it? Cast yer eye on that,' and he held out a perfect limb of a tree of hard rock, while in the other hand he had a large petrifled oyster. " 'Why, that's petrifled wood I exclaimod.' "'Yes,1 rejoinod Pat, 'and we'll all be in the same fix if we kape on. I'm for the back trail.1 "Itwas a long time before we could make him understand the situation. But it was a curious sight. We had camped on the edge of a torest that had actually üirned to stone. All about were the great stumps that at first we taken for stones.but found, on closer examination, to be trees turned into stone. Some were flat on the ground, others i i. _ .. i i i i V . _ ï_ ;i _ DroKen mto hunüreüs ot pieces, wmic all around were bones and shells all turned to stone also. How long they had been there no one knows. Stone forests are in many parts of the world. A number of stony trees have been recently received at the Sniithsonian Institute from the west. In many cases they are hardened by the peculiar atmosphere as they stand, and in others they are buried, the parts being replaced by mineral matter. The Little Colorado River in Arizona has long been a famous locality for such finas. At one place more than 1,500 cords of trunks and sections of logs Were found by government surveyors; Most of them were silicified. Manyare 7 feet or more in diameter and 20 to 70 feet in height. The greater part of them have probably been covered in the marl that originally was 1.000 feet thick Someof the trees are changedto jasper, assuming numerous hues, while others rcsemble opal, and, when broken open the core is often found lined with crystals of the most beautifiil tints. Louisiana and Ohio are noted localities for fossil trees. In the former state ai years ago, in turning up tne grouna an aneient forest layor was unearthed, and in succession two others below it; and scicntists judge, from the size of the trees, that from the time of the lirst layer to the last 50,000 years must have elapsed. In the remains of the glacial drift in Ohio oíd foresta are often discovered. Some have been buried beneath the water by the sinking of the land. Some of the Ohio trees are not entircly chauged into stone, being yet soft, while others are found in all stages from rock to porous sponge matter. The fossil palma are the most remurkable of all these stony forms. They general ly have a cylindrical stem. Some wonderful stono foresta have been unearthed by the workers in the building-stone quarries of the Isle of Portland from which comes the famous building stone. The workmen had out down to what they termed a dirt bed, and suddenly carne to a stony forest standing upright. There were hundreds ot trees a few feet apart. The tops appeared to have been wrenched oft, but many were forty feet in height. On somc of the limbs were the delicate sterns, and here and there leaves and twigs. In VanDieman's Land similar forests are known, the great trunks being calcified and partly silicified, while others are changed into chalcedony. They were found in most cases erect, witli the branches and limbs seattered about their roots. So natural were man}r of these that a newly arrived labon-r sent out to colloct wood brought in a load, complaining of its heaviness. They are usea, however, being burned into lime.