ing over many miles of dreary desert road,
finds himself suddenly ushered into such pleasant scenes.

The canons of Arizona are unrivaled for grandeur, sublimity and beauty,
and will attract an ever increasing number of admirers.

[1] Results of a Biological Survey of the San Francisco Mountain Region
and Painted Desert of the Little Colorado, Arizona. 1890.

CHAPTER XI

THE METEORITE MOUNTAIN

Ten miles southeast of Canon Diablo station on the Santa Fe Pacific
Railroad, stands the Meteorite Mountain of Arizona, on a wide, open
plain of the Colorado Plateau. It is two hundred feet high and, as
seen at a distance, has the appearance of a low, flat mountain. Its
top forms the rim of an immense, round, bowl-shaped hole in the ground
that has almost perpendicular sides, is one mile wide and over six
hundred feet deep. The hole, originally, was evidently very much
deeper than it is at the present time, but it has gradually become
filled with debris to its present depth. The bottom of the hole has a
floor of about forty acres of level ground which merges into a talus.

This formation is sometimes called the Crater, because of its shape,
but there is no evidence of volcanic action. Locally it is known as
Coon Butte, which is a misnomer; but Meteorite Mountain is a name with
a meaning.

It is not known positively just how or when the mountain was formed,
but the weight of evidence seems to favor the meteorite theory, which
is that at some remote period of time a monster meteorite fell from the
sky and buried itself in the earth.

Mr. F. W. Volz, who has lived in the country twenty years and is an
intelligent observer of natural phenomena, has made a careful study of
the mountain, and it is his opinion that such an event actually
occurred and that a falling star made the mountain. When the
descending meteorite, with its great weight and terrific momentum, hit
the earth something had to happen. It buried itself deep beneath the
surface and caused the earth to heave up on all sides. The effect
produced is aptly illustrated, on a small scale, by throwing a rock
into thick mud.

The impact of the meteorite upon the earth not only caused an upheaval
of the surface, but it also crushed and displaced the rocks beneath.
As the stellar body penetrated deeper into the earth its force became
more concentrated and either compressed the rocks into a denser mass or
ground them to powder.

The plain on which the moun