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