The New York herald., 1872-12-23
The -Diggers Among Old Ruins and
Their Discoveries-The Wonders OF
Arizona.


Their Discovsries-The Wonders OF
Arizona.
The diggers among the old ruins Of dead
empires have been and are making many won-
derful and important discoveries. Among the
latest and most interesting of these ancient
relics recently unearthed are those Of glorious
old Homer's strong walled city of Troy by
.Dr. Schleimann, as detailed in his fasci-
mating report published in last Saturday S
HERALD. The learned Doctor, at the bottom
OF the debris overlying the city, the accumu-
Aations OF three thousand years, finds the evil
'dences of high civilization among the relics
pf ancient Troy, and thence, in the different
strata upward from one occupation Of the
city to another, he finds, from the evidence of
the artificial remains therein steady decline
from civilization towards barbarism. AS
geological historian his record of the ruins of
Troy establishes his reputation, and his
HERALD report is worthy the position of an
explanatory appendix to the ''Iliad." At the
game time the diggers among the ruins of the
island of Cyprus, the Temple of Diana, an
cient Jerusalem-nearly hundred feet under
The streets of the present city-and likewise
among the ruins of Moab, and among the
wonderful treasures unearthed in Assyria, on
The Tigris and the Euphrates, are filing up
the blanks in the history of empires and
peoples passed away, and, back to the Deluge,
are confirming the records Of the Old Testa-
ment.
And these historical ruins Of three, four
or five thousand years are not confined to the
Old World. In Central and South America
there are the remains of an ancient civiliza-
tion, dating further back, perhaps, than that of
Rome or Carthage; and there still remain in
Mexico some fragments of ancient temples
whose history had been lost in tradition in
the time OF Cortez. North of Mexico and
south of Greenland no evidences have vet
been discovered Of the existence anywhere, at
any time, of higher civilization than that of
the Aztecs anterior to Columbus; and these
Aztec remains are confined to Western Texas,
New Mexico, Colorado Southern Utah and
Arizona. They indicate state Of civilization
like that of the Aztecs in Mexico as Cortez
found them, and the tradition is general
among the Mexican aborigines at this day
That their ancestors in great migration came
down to Mexico from the North Fremont,
Albert, Emory, Sitgreaves and other govern
,ment explorers Of our vast acquisitions from
Mexico have given US their sketches and
descriptions of numerous ruins of old Aztec
temples and dwellings in New Mexico and
Arizona. and Of their irrigating canals and
their pottery. They indicate civilization as
low as the lowest of Dr. Schliemann's de-
scending scale of Troy, though far above any
advances of the mound builders of our North
western States.
We have a report, however, from San Fran
cisco that the ruins of great city have re
Gently been stumbled upon by some prospect
ing miners in Northeastern Arizona, and that
these ruins tell Of q prosperous community
that must have been destroyed or transferred
farther south thousands of years ago. 1t is
thought so from the fact that o deep canyon
near the heart of the city has been made by
the Winter washings of that region, which has
required at least thousand years Of those
washings to cut through the rocks to its pres
ent depth. This whole report, however, may
he California canard, though we confidently
expect from Captain Wheelers exploring ex-
pedition in Arizona and Colorado discoveries
more interesting to Americans than even the
finding Of the encircing walls and inside
relics of ancient Troy.