oblemen, "Captain
William Owen O'Neill," who crowned his life with immortality, suffering
a soldier's death.

During the storming of San Juan Hill to anxious friends imploring him
not recklessly to expose himself, with smiling lips he gave this
message of death's Angel, that mysterious oracle of a Sphinx which from
the gaze of mortals veils their ordained doom: "Comrades, sergeant! I
thank you for your kindly warning--fear not for me, the Spanish bullet
that could kill me is not molded!"--when instantly he fell struck
dead--not by a "Spanish" bullet--"no!" but by the bullet fired from a
Mauser rifle, "not made in Spain." Not an ordinary stone this Arizona
granite rock is entitled to highest honors among the stones of the
earth.

By none outclassed in witchery it ranks equally in fame with the
Blarneystone of Ireland; old Plymouth Rock does not compare with it,
for that derives its prestige only from "Mayflower pilgrims" who
accidentally landing at its base merely stepped over it.

Proudly our Arizona stone bears a most precious burden--the tribute of
a people who in exalting patriotism honor themselves.

Originally an archaean sea-bottom rock this stone lay submerged in the
ocean until during the Jurassic Period, under the lateral pressure of a
cooling earthcrust the table-lands and mountain-chains of Arizona rose
from the seas.

Then it slumbered through several epochs of geology, representing many
millions of years in the bosom of earth, the mother, until at the
beginning of the psychozoic era, through erosion or the action of
atmospheric influences and nature's chemistry it came to the surface;
uncovered and freed from all superimposed stratified rock.

It saw the light of day long before the advent of primitive man; but
the giant-flora and fauna of pre-historic time had developed,
flourished and vanished while it rested under ground.

Contrary to the habit of rolling stones which gather no moss, this
Arizona stone accumulated much, for when it had reached its assigned
site on the plaza of Prescott it had become a very valuable, expensive
rock.

When first I saw it, this fearful Aztec juggernaut was within a half
mile of its destination. Slowly it crawled along, threatening
destruction to everything in its path, and in the course of a week had
arrived at the Granite-creek bridge.

It moved by main strength and brute force employing men and horses
after the custom of the ancients when more than thirty-seve