of the Painted Desert, which stretches away towards the
east over a wide level plain to the horizon. From this point the road
ascends again on an easy grade until it reaches an elevation of eight
thousand feet at the Canon.

During the long drive through the pine woods the appearance of the
country gives no hint of a desert, but beautiful scenery greets the eye
on every hand. The air is filled with the fragrance of pine and ozone
that is as exhilarating as wine. No signs of severe windstorms are
seen in broken branches and fallen trees. If an occasional tree is
found lying prostrate it was felled either by the woodman's ax or one
of nature's destructive forces, fire or decay, or both. But the large
number of shattered trees which are encountered during the day give
evidence that the lightning is frequently very destructive in its work.
The bark of the pine trees is of a reddish gray color, which contrasts
brightly with the green foliage.

The winter road furnishes even more attractions than the summer road on
which line a railroad should be built through to the Canon. Soon after
leaving town a side road leads to the cliff dwellings in Walnut Canon.
Along the wayside a signboard points the direction to the Bottomless
Pit, which is a deep hole in the ground that is only one of many such
fissures in the earth found on the Colorado Plateau. Four miles east
of Canon Diablo a narrow fissure from a few inches to several feet
wide and hundreds of feet deep has been traced in a continuous line
over one hundred miles.

Further on a group of cave dwellings can be seen among the rocks upon a
distant bill. A turn in the road next brings the Sunset Mountain into
view. Its crest glows with the colors of sunset, which unusual effect
is produced by colored rocks that are of volcanic origin. Black
cinders cover its steep sides and its brow is the rim of a deep crater.
Between Sunset Peak and O'Leary Peak is the Black Crater from which
flowed at one time thick streams of black lava that hardened into rock
and are known as the lava beds. Scores of crater cones and miles of
black cinders can be seen from Sunset Mountain, and lava and cinders of
this region look as fresh as if an eruption had occurred but yesterday.

A peculiarity of the pine trees which grow in the cinders is that their
roots do not go down but spread out upon the surface. Some of the
roots are entirely bare while others are half buried in cinders. They
a