The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1878-11-21
The western CIin-DweIIers.

OF late, blown over the plains, come
stories of strange newly discovered
cities of the far Southwest; picturesqe
piles of masonry, of an age unknown
to tradition. These ruins mark an err
among antiquarians. The mysterious
mound-builders fade into comparative
insignlficance before the grander and
more ancient chiT-1wellers, whose cas-
ties lift Their towers amid the sands of
Arizona and crown the terraced slopes
of the RIO Mancos and the Hoven-
weep.
A ruin, accidentally discovered by
A. ID. Wilson, OF the Hayden survey,
several years ago, while he was pursu-
ing his labors as chief of the topo-
graphical corps In Southern Colorado,
is described to me by MIR. Wilson as a
stone building, about the size of the
ratept Office. 1t stood upon the bank
OF the Anlmae, In the San Juan coun-
try, and contained perhaps five hun
dred rooms. The roof and portions of
the walls had fallen, but the part
standing indicated a height of four
stories. A number Of the rooms were
fairly preserved, had small loop-hole
windows, but no outer doors. The
originally by means of ladders resting
on inches, and drawn in after the oc-
cupants. The floors were of cedar, each
log as large around as a mans head.
the spaces filled neatly by smaller
poles and twIgs, covered by a carpet
of cedar bark. The ends of the tim
Der wero bruised and frayed, as If sew
cred 10y dull instrument; in the vi
cinity were some hatchets, and saws
made OF sandstone slIvers about two
feet long, worn to a smooth edge.
A few hundred yards from the NAM
moth building was a second large
house III ruins, and between the two
str0ngholds rows of small dwellings,,
built of cobble stones laid in adobe,
and arranged along streets, after the
style of the village of to-day. The
smaller houses were in 3 more adj
vanced state of ruin, on account of the
round stones being more readily dis
integrated by the elements than the
heavy masonry. The streets and
houses Of this deserted town are over
grown by juniper and pinion, the
later q dwarf wide spreading pine
which bears beneath the scales of
lis 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 crumbling stone, Mr.. Wilson
concludes that a great period of time
huu oil Md cfnnn Nhn h,.sl1san I'll
How many hundred years they stood
after desertion before yielding to the
fnroads of time cannot be certainly
known.
The presence of sound wood in the
houses does not set aside their sntI-
putty. In the dry, pure air of Southern
Colorado, wood fairly protected will
last for centuries. In Asia cedar wood
has been kept athousand years, and in
Egypt cedar is known to have been in
perfect preservation two Thousand years
after it left the forest The cedars
throughout the territories of the South
west 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 twenty
five miles distant from the City of the
Anlmas, Mr.. Wilson discovered the
following evening a similar pile, LOOM
ing solemnly in the twilight near their
place. The scene as described
was weird in the extreme. As the
moon arose, the shadows of the phan-
tom buildings were thrown darkly
lcross the silvery plain. The blaze of I
camp fires, the tiny tents, the negro
cook, the men in buckskin hunting
garb. and the picketed mules, made a |
strange picture of the summers night,
With background of moonlit desert |
md crumbling ruins, on whose ram
parts lowered dead, gaunt eedars,
ifting their blesched skeletons like |
.hetted ghosts within the silent watch |
overs OF the murky past. - !Seri6a>r Jor |
Deem5sr.