Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1878-12-06

OF late blown over the plains, come stories
of strange newly discovered cities of the far
southwest; picturesque piles of masonry, Of
an age unknown to tradition. These ruins
mark an among antiquarians. The mys-
terious mound-builders fade into comparative
insignifcance before the grander and more
ancient clif -dwellers, whose castles lift their
towers amid the sands of Arizona and crown
the terrnced slopes of the Rio Mancos and the
Hovenweep pronounced H0v-en-weep)
A ruin. accidentally discovered 10y A. ID.
Wilson of the Hadyn Survey several years
ago, while he was pursuing his labors as chief
Of the typographical corps i'll Southern Col
orndo is described to me by Mr.. Wilson as a
stone building, about the size of the patent
office. 1t stood upon the bank of the Ami
mas, in the San Juan country, and contained
perhaps fve hundred rooms. The roof and
portions of the walls had fallen, but the part
standing indicated height of four stories.
A number Of the rooms were fairly preserv-
ed. had small loop-hole windows, but no out
or doors The building had doubtless been
entered originally by means of ladders rest
ing on inches, and drawn in after the occu-
pants. The floors were of cedar, each log rs
large around as a mans head, the spaces fill
I'd neatly by smaller poles and twigs, covered
by a carpet of cedar bark. The ends of the
! timber were bruised and frayed, as if severed
| by n dull instrument; i'll the vicinity were
| stone hatchets, and saws made of sand stone
slvers about two feet long, worn to smooth
| edge few hundred yards from the NAM
moth building was a second large house in
| ruins, and between the two strongholds rows
| of small dwellings. built of cobble-stones laid
! in df0be and arranged along streets, after the
| style of the village of to-day. The smaller
houses were in a more advanced state of ruin,
on account Of the round stones being more
readily disintegrated by the elements than the
| heavy masonry, The streets and houses of
| this deserted town are overgrown by juniper
and pinon,-t latter dwarf widespread
ing pine which bears beneath the scales of its
cones delicious and nutritious nuts. From
the size of the dead as well as the living trees,
and from their position on the heaps of
crumbng stone, Mr.. Wilson concludes that
a great period of time has elapsed since the
buildings fell. How many hundred years
they stood after desertion before yielding to
the inroads of time cannot certainly be
known.
The presence of sound wood in the houses
does not set aside their antiquity. In the
dry. pure air of Southern Colorado, wooC
fairly protected will last for centuries. Ii
Asia cedar-wood has been kept a Thousand
years, and in Egypt cedar is known to have
been in perfect preservation two thousand
! years after it left the forest. The cedar
throughout the territories of the south-wes
do not rot, even in the groves. They die
and stand erect solid and sapless. The wind
and whrling sands carve the dead trees int
forms of fantastic beauty, drill holes througl
the trunks, and play at hide-and-go il
the perforated limbs until, after ages of re
sistance, they literally blow away in atoms o
fine, clean dust.
On the Rio San Juan, about twenty-fv
miles distant from the city of the Animas
Mr.. Wilson discovered the following evenin
IA similar pile, looming solemnly in the twi
, light near their camping-place The scene a
described was weird in the extreme. As tn
moon arose, the shadows of the phantoI
buildings were thrown darkly across the 81
very plain. The blaze of camp-fires, the tin
tents, the negro cook, the men in buckski
; hunting garb, and the picketed mules, mad
: a strange picture of the summers night, wit
: background of moonlit desert and crumblin
{ ruins, on whose ramparts lowered dead, gauI
1 cedars lifting their bleached skeletons lii
sEceted ghosts within the silent watch-towel
e of the murky past -FrOm an illustrated al
{ ticLe in .ScribRer for December.