this locality is the Ice Cave
situated eight miles southwest of the town. It not only attracts the
curious, but its congealed stores are also drawn on by the people who
live in the vicinity when the domestic ice supply runs short. The cave
is entered from the side of a ravine and its opening is arched by lava
rock. How the ice ever got there is a mystery unless it is, as Mr.
Volz claims, glacial ice that was covered and preserved by a thick coat
of cinders which fell when the San Francisco Peaks were in active
eruption. As far as observed the ice never becomes more nor ever gets
less, except what is removed by mining.

The region is unusually attractive to the naturalist. It is the best
field for the study of entomology that is known. But all nature riots
here. Dr. C. Hart Merriam, in his report of a biological survey of the
San Francisco mountains and Painted Desert, states that there are seven
distinct life zones in a radius of twenty-five miles running the entire
gamut from the Arctic to the Tropic.[1] The variety of life which he
found and describes cannot be duplicated in the same space anywhere
else upon the globe.

But the greatest natural wonder of this region and, it is claimed by
competent judges of the whole world, is the Grand Canon of Arizona,
which is seventy-two miles north of Flagstaff. Thurber's stage line,
when it was running, carried passengers through in one day, but after
the railroad was built from Williams to Bright Angel the stage was
abandoned. However it is an interesting trip and many people make it
every summer by private conveyance who go for an outing and can travel
leisurely. It is a good natural road and runs nearly the entire
distance through an open pine forest.

Two roads leave Flagstaff for the Canon called respectively the summer
and winter roads. The former goes west of the San Francisco mountains
and intersects with the winter road that runs east of the peaks at
Cedar Ranch, which was the midway station of the old stage line. The
summer road is the one usually travelled, as the winter road is almost
destitute of water.

The road ascends rapidly from an elevation of seven thousand feet at
Flagstaff to eleven thousand feet at the summit, and descends more
gradually to Cedar Ranch, where the elevation is less than five
thousand feet and in distance is about halfway to the Canon. Here
cedar and pinon trees take the place of the taller pines. Cedar Ranch
is on an arm