eruptions. On top of this mountain the pines and spruces are merrily growing, unmindful of the buried past-of the tragic tree history beneath. Nature forgets. Ages ago, the lowest

towered. But the volcanoes only slept. Again their fire and ashes filled the sky, and again the forest was overwhelmed. Thus through the ages-th

RESTS IN AME

ONE NATI

n the mountain, and in a layer by itself. The material in these numer

o entombed the others. All were petrified, fossilized, or opalized. During the ages that went by, t

gical stories ever uncovered-twelve illustra

r edges in the precipitous northern face of Amethyst Mountain. T

northeast part of the Park, and perhaps numerous areas elsewhere in the r

so turned to stone. Limbs and tops of trees were broken off by the ashes, cinders, and mud that buried each forest. Many tree-trunks were overthrown, but great

hey distinctly reveal the age of the tree and its rapidity of growth. In many cases the species is readily determined. Strange stories are told by the fallen logs, in many of which old

ighty kinds have been recognized. Many of these would grow only in a mild or subtropical clime, so the former climate of this region m

hese ruined forests set one's mind to exploring the realm of imagination. Here in a subtropical clime, possibly a million years ago, was a luxuriant forest. Beneath was a crowded undergrowth of plants, of shrubbery and waving

on the ruins of those that have gone before. Th

I behind the

long while the W

ce more to fall upon the f

ently upon the fossil forests and the telling ba

ts. You see again the vast floods of lava, red-hot and white-hot, pouring out from gigantic geysers, usurping the basins of lakes and streams, absorbing or driving away their hissing, screaming waters, flowing around hills and ridges, submerging every subordinate feature. Th