Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1878-12-11
The Western Clif. .Dwellers,

OF late, blown over the plains, come
stories OF strange newly discovered
cities Of the far southwest pictur'
esquc piles of masonry, of an age un-
known TO tradition, These RUNS
mark an era among antiquaiaus. The
mysterious mound'builders fade into
comparative insignilicance before the
grander and more ancient clitfdwell.
era, whose castles lin their towers
amid the sands Of Arizona aud crown
the tcrraccd slopes Of the Rio Mancos
and the Hovenwcep pronounced
lIov'.cn.wecp,
A ruin, accidentally discovered by
A. ID. Wilson of the Hayden Survey
several years ago, while he was pur-
suing his labors as chief Of the topo'
graphical corps in Southern Colorado,
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 Animas, in the San Juan
country, and contained perhaps five
hundred rooms. The roofand portions
of the walls had fallen, but the part
standing indicated 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 entered
originally by means Of ladders resting
on inches, and drawn in after the &C
cupants. The floors were Of cedar,
each log as large around as a mans
head, the spaces filed neatly by small
er poles and twigs, covered by a car
pet of cedar bark. The ends Of the
Amper were bruised ana 1rayeo, as II
severed by a dull instrument; in the
vicinity were stone hatchets, and saws
made of sand stone slivers about two
feet long, worn TO smooth edge. A
few hundred yards from the mammoth
building was a second large house in
runs, and between the two strong
holds rows of small dwellings, built of
cobble-stones laid in adobe. and ar
ranged along streets, after the style OF
the village ii to-day. The smaller
houses were in more advanced state
of ruin, on account of the round
stones being more readily disintegrated
by the elements than the heavy mason
ry. The streets and houses OF this
deserted town are overgrown by juni-
per and rinon,-thc latter a dwarf
wide-spreading pine which bears be-
meath the scales of its cones delicious
and nutritious nuts. From the size Of
the dead, as we'll as the living, trees,
and from their position on the heaps
OF crumbling stone, Mr.. Wilson con-
cIudes that great period of time has
elapsed since the buildings tell. How
many hundred years they stood after
desertion before yielding to the in
roads of time cannot be certainly
known.
The presence OF sound wood in the
houses docs not set aside their anti
qmty. In the dry, pure air Of South
ern Colorado, wood fairly protected
will last for centuries. In Asia cedar
wood has been kept thousand years,
and in Egypt cedar is known to have
heen IN perfect preservation two thou.
sand years after it left the forest. The
cedars 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 fantastic 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 twen-
ty.fve miles distant from the city OF
the Animas, Mr.. Wilson discovered
the following evening similar pile,
looming solemnly in the twilight
near their camping.placs. The scene
as described was weird in the extreme.
As the moon arose, the shadows Of
the phantom buildings were thrown
darkly across the silvery plain. The
blaze of camp fires, the tiny tents, the
negro cook, the men in buckskin
hunting garb and the picksted mules,