Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1873-03-12
RUINS OF A GREAT CITY IN ARI.
IONA.

Col. Roberts led a party Of adven-
tnrers, miners and explorers, last sea-
SOL, into the desert and unexplored
regions of Northeastern Arizona,
Southeastern Utah, and Southwestern
Colorado. For miles on miles, further
than the eye can reach, barren wastes
stretch away in a continuous success
sion of desert table lands and yawn-
ing ehasms. It is a wild, dreary, in
hospitable. boundless waste, a very
embodiment of desolatiOn. For four
teen days the party lost their trail in
the desert. and nearly perished with
thirst and hunger, at one time going
thirty-six hours without water.
One day, while travelling in one of
the impossible gOrges, seeking q place
where they could scale its craggy sides,
Roberts discovered the ruins of what
was once a large and populous city.
/ Suddenly emerging on the top of a
mesa, he was amazed at finding him
self among the extended ruins of q
great city, untrodden by foot Of man
for centuries, and spreading out miles
before him. It covered an area of
about three square miles, and was in
closed by a wall of sandstone, neatly
/ quarried and dressed, ten or twelve
feet thick, and which judging by the
! debris, was fifteen or twenty feet high
before its fall. In most places il had
crumbled away and fallen, and was
covered with sand, but in many places
IL was still standing six or eight feet
above the sand-banks which had drift
ed around il. The entire area inside
OF this had at one time been covered
with houses, built OF solid sandstone,
which showed excellent masonry in
their construction.
This ancient city is situated in Ari-
zona, about ninety miles from the
boundary line between Utah and Ari-
zona, and the same distance from the
western Colorado line. 1t has the ap-
! pearance OF being an old Aztec city, |
that had been deserted for hundreds |
OF years and fallen in ruins. 1t Is en-
tirely of stone, and not q stick of
worked timber is to be seen standing /
among the ruins. Nothing out the |
walls are standing, and none of them |
are now left more than eight or ten |
feet above the sand, whioh Is eight OF /
ten feet deep. Col. Roberts Is conf /
uent from the appearance of the walls 4
that many of the houses were two or |
three stories high; but there was not
enough of them left standing to ena-
bic him to judge accurately of the
style of architecture adopted by the
ancient builders of this city. Colonel
Roberts estimates that there were at
least twenty thousand houses in the
city. 1t was laid out in plazas. with
paths or small streets from one to the
other. There was evidently one main
hi n VT -.
ter of the city. This has been cut
down by the winter torrents into
yawning chasm, 500 or 500 feet deep,
and 800 feet wide.
II is evident that this ehasm has
been washed out since tue city was
built, because the walls of many of
the houses are now oYerhanging the
brink, and it is not reasonable to sup
pose that city would have been built
on each side of such q ehssm. Tine
walls still bear the traces Of many
hierogly phies, cut deep into the m,
showing various Indian customs and
superstltions. There are also the ruins
of stately monuments, built of square
block sandstone, well quarried, and
showing good masonry, which are
worked with notches, and crosses cut
into them at regular intervals. The
ruins are covered with sand, which
Col, Roberts says he is confident has
blown there from the deserE, a shoIt
distance to the south. since the city
was deserted. He thinks this was q
fertile tract of country when the city J
was Lbuilt, and that the inhabitants {
were forced to desert it on account Of '
the high winds which blew the sand
IN there after the waters, with which s
It Is believed the desert was once COW ]
cred, receded. This sand has become I
packed and solidIfled by the rains, and I
z ALMOST as hard as the sands one
here is Q large ditch, now partly L
1lled up, running from the city away &
back in the hills, ten to fourteen miles 4
rom the city, and it is believed this Y
vas made for the purpose Of convey o
ng water to the city for irrigating the a
'Hound, and for other purposes. The Il
walls OF the houses are rough and
worm by the storms of centuries, which y
lave worn into the soft places in the p
even in the walls OYerhRng- d
ng the precipiee. The sandstone does fe
lot bear any marks of fire, and Col. b
foberts is confident that the sand 10
torms which have nearly buried the 81
lty, rendered it uninhabltable, and 81
its ancient inhabitants 10 &C
esert it. No bones. implements, or lii
slics of any kind We're found, with g
ne exception OF some pieces of pot bg
cry of dark color. These were EN- /
ellished With paintings of flowers 'f
nd ornamental figures in blue cOlOrs. to
he colOring matter is of a blue min SO
u substance of some kind, which the va
lemist at Santa Fe, TO whom some bU
the property was shown, could not of
early define. It is perfectly indelE ( to
e, and pieces of the pottery, which tn
ave been exposed to storms which au
ave worn away the solid masonry of W.
le walls Of the eitys show the eolors en-
esh and bright, to all appearance, as ml
hen new, The pottery itself has wi
zen found TO be perfectly fireproof, We
pom trial, in crueibles and furnaces. Tt
I'd if the secret of its mauufaetRre tn
uld be discovered, Il Wauld be worth fro
llitons of dollars to the pOssessor, tn
ID the material would be Invaluable ed
: the lining Of safes and similar pur- J
'ses. .-' of
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