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Miss Minnie Karpe Saw the Petrified Forests
Miss Minnie Karpe, when visiting at Santa Rosa, Cal., at her brother's home, saw the petrified forest which is eleven miles from Santa Rosa.
In prehistoric times, Mount St. Helena was an active volcano and threw out vast volumes of scoriae or volcanic ash. A heavy deposit buried the great forest near the mountain's base, and in time the trees were turned into solid stone.
Many of the tres in this "stone forest" are of huge size. The famous "Queen of the Forest" is a redwood eighty feet long and twelve feet in its mean diameter. It is broken in several places, but the pieces retain their relative positions, except where in one place a sprouting oak has forced its way thru, spread the stone masses, and attained a considerable size.
The park is one mile long and more than a quarter of a mile wide.
Copyright 1997 - 2005 by Debie Blindauer
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