The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-06-04
THE CLIFF JEWELLERS.
Description Of The Ruins Of Their
Homes in the Southwest

in Which They are Supposed to
Have Flourished.
In almost every large family there's
usually one who's devoted to curios, am
tiques. and. ia general. an the things
contemporary nominated by the others,
the Phiiistiucs, truck" Not only are
these others incapable of rejoicing over a
late acquisition. but they do not weep
with him who wecps over cracked god
or mistaken mythology They insist upon
having explained to them either the
beauty or the utility in his most hideous
dragons, they let slip opportunities to Sc
cure missing links, they burn family re-
cords forw which he has searched years, they
give away or sell to old book stores, vol
umes that he did not know were in the
family; they have the heirloom iewelry
reset in fashionable mountings; they trade
ancient furniture for that absurd spindly
gold kind their every hand is against him.
But even the phiistines seem interested
in antiquity if only il is old enough
The American mind likes figures,
Something tangible How old, says
everybody, ARE the cliff houses of South
west Colorado and portions Of Arizona and
New MeXico,' Perhaps if l could give a
positive answer, the Oft-repeatcd question
would not be so wearing, but the fact IS,
nobody knows. If the age of the erosion
of the region could be determined it would
help out, but biologists have not yet com
puted them. However l have put to-
gether as many suggestive facts as occur
10 me, ana so everybody is his own arch
eoiOgist
in the first place it has taken ages to
materially advance saVages toward civiG-
cation. Primitive man follows closely in
his fathers footsteps through the dark
ness of ignorance and is loath to make in
novatiOns. Experience with modern In
dams shows Chat, teach him a better way
and he almost invariably persists
in the old; this, too, while sur
rounded by mighty and en-
cruaching civilization and tn.
Indians few. How slow, then, must have
been PROGRESS when there were none more
advanced to initiate. Fiske says that, in
his opinion. the races Of this country
were entirely separated from those of
other continents from at least $4,000 years
ago until the discovery. Now IL becomes
indisputable hat the cliff CIV allers were
the remote ancestors of the mi-CiViliza-
lions found farther south by COrtez when
he conquered Mexico in j2l and by
Pizarro, who sub.uca ed Peru nine years
later, though PERTAINS NOT Of the latter.
Yet the To.tec civilization had time to
rise and fail under the Aztecs, ana both
were greatly in advance of the cliff
jewellers.
Again, in the cliff dweller region rain
seldom falls and little snow. 1t is the
highest part of the United States and the
air is peculiarly dry. Houses are only
painted for beauty. for. as the hymn says.
Nothing changes here Decay in any
thing is almost imperceptible, and vet the
majority of the cliff house hamlets, shell
how
rock, are in ruins. You can throw down
whole houses by the pressure of the hand,
and the cedar logs found in the floors are
dried till they are dusty all through, their
tibers tear off like threads, and the
outside is soft and fuzzy. But in special
houses you may note more specific indi-
cations In one of spruce tree house,
grows a great tree straight through the
ancient stone wall and not through one
of the latest buildings, either.
Evidently the clif dWellers were not
prone to wander, as both experience and
the hymn book assert that we are; for,
generation after generation, they seem to
have built upon the same site. This
spruce has grown through basic ruins
above which the soil has had time to
spread and pushed its way through the
comparatively new wall built above
This hamlet, though difficult of access,
was for some reason especially provided
against unexpected attack by a number
OF dark passages which lead through and
behind the houses in every direction
They We're probably secret escapes such
as ancient European castles had. There
are also underground estufas, each with
a small fresh air flue, but as cliff
dweller was as economical with air as a
small boy with his manners. the tomb
could have possessed no terrors for our
friends the cliff jewellers. They were
brought up on it and anything one would
say would be a welcome change.
Another house which furnishes links to
our chain of evidence is a tower in the
west end of Cliff palace" It is built
upon huge mass of fallen rock which
forms also part of the wall. IG is a huge
chip weighing many tons and Tie place
above where it faxed OFF the cliff is
plainly to be seen. In fact the surface is
as ciean and distinct as if the great rock
had fallen but yesterday If no change
can be noted in that Clipped surface in
the hundreds of years we know must have
elapsed since that rock was chosen to
save work for the builders as foundation
how immense the time necessary to cruu-
bic other stone structures to the very
dust. The great rock is still poised as
down . crashed. You may pass under
the corner.
The "Cliff palace is really hamlet,
which must have sheltered about 500
RN0HACs 1OL INC GILL uNG lltIS were uOU
tnicky about occupying suites of apart
ments. 1t is the most important group
discovered and the easiest TO get to. 1t
extends along the cliff nearly 500 feet 1t
is $50 feet to the caves, houses are as high
as six and seven Stories, there are l27
rooms on the ground tioor-rather bull
and 1t has % extra large estufas Most
of the pottery, textiles implements,
weapons and mummies eXcavated We're
obtained here, the reward of s., coo worth
of digging. The relics were buried under
the dust of many centuries and this dust
is impalpable and poisonous The ex-
plorers We're obliged TO tie damp sponges
over their mouths and nostrils to protect
them while working. Constant watch
fitness had to be eXerted, too. for crumb-
ling walls, falling rocks and the edge of
the precipice. This intensely interesting
group will be built in reduced fac smile
in the cliffs of Battle Rock cliff dwell
ers exhibit at the worlds fair. under the
supervision of Explorer II. Jay Smith
In this wonderful and unique building
too, will be almost all the relics ever dis
covered, among them several well pre-
served mummles and many skulls.
y number of the latter, taken from
various cliff houses, are now in Stock
holm, where Prof. Retzius one of the
most eminent craniologists in the world