Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1878-12-21
The Western Cli6.Dwellers.

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 era
among antiquarians. The mysterious
mound builders fade into comparative
insignificance before the grander and
more ancient cliff-dwellers, whose cas-
ties lift their towers amid the sands Of
Arizona and crown the terraced slopes
of the Rio Mancos and the Hovenweep
pronounced HOv-en-weep).
A ruin, accidentally discovered Ivy A.
d. Wilson of the Hayden Survey sew
eral years ago, while he was pursuing
his labcrs a. chief of the Typographical
corps in Southern Colorado, is describ-
ed to me by Mr.. Wilson as a stone
building, about the size of the Patent
Once. It stood upon the bank of the
Animas, in San Juan county, and con-
tanned perhaps FIVE hundred rooms.
The roof and portions of the walls had
fallen. but the part standing indicsted
Q height Of four stories. A number Of
the rooms were fairly preserved. had
small loop hole windows, but no outer
doors. The building had doubtless
been erected ojginally by means Of
ladders resting on inches, and drawn in
after, the occupants. The floors were
of cedar, each log Is large around a. q
mans head, the spaces filed neatly by
smaller poles and twigs, covered by o
carpet OF cedar.bark. The ends of the
timber were bruised and frayed. as if
severed by dull instrument; in the
vicinity were stone hatchets, and saws
made Of sand stone slivers about two
feet long, worn to Q smooth edge. A few
hundred yards from the mammoth
building was a second large house in
ruins. and between the two strongholds
rows Of small dwellings, built Of cob.
ble.stones laid in adobe, and arranged
along streets, after the style Of the vii
lage of to-day. The smaller houses we're
in 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
overgrovn by juniper and non,-the
latter Q dwarf wide.spreading pine
which bears beneath the scales Of its
cones delicious and nutricious nuts.
From the size of the dead, as we'll as
the living, trees, and from their posi-
ton on the heaps OF crumbling stone,
Mr.. Wilson 6kcludes that great pc
riod of time has elapsed since the build
ings fell. How many hundred years
they stood after desertion before yield
ing to the inroads of time cannot be
certainly known.
The presence of sound VOID in the
houses does not set aside their antiqui-
ty. In the dry, pure air of Southern
Colorado, wood fairly protected will
last for centuries. In Asia cedsr-wood
has been kept q thousand years, and in
Egypt cedar is known to have been in
perfect preservation two. thousand
years after it left the forest. The c.
dars throughout the territories of the
southwest do not rot, even in the groves.
They die, and stand erect, solid and
sapless. The winds and whirling sands
carve the dead trees into forms of fam
tastic beauty, drill holes through the
trunks, and play at hide and -go-seek in
the perforated limbs until, after ages of
resistance. they literally blow away in
atoms of fine, clean dust.
On the Rio San Juan, about twenty
five miles distant from the city of Ami
mas, Mr.. Wilson discovered the follow
ing evening similar pile, looming SOL
EMMY in the twilight near their camp
ing.place. The scene as described was
weird in the extreme. As the moon
arose, the shadows of the phantom
buildings were thrown darby across
the silvery plain. The blaze of camp.
fires, the tiny tents, the negro cook, the
men in buckskin hunting garb, and the
picketed mules, made strange picture
of the summers night, with back
ground of moonlit desert and crumb-
ling ruins, on whose ramparts lowered
dead, gaunt cedars, lifting their bleach
ed skeletons like sheeted ghosts within
the silent watch.towers of the murky
past.-From an illustrated article IL