Catoctin clarion., 1899-12-28
THE VANISHED RACE
A BUILDING THAT HOUSED 5000
CLIFF JEWELLERS.
A Ruined Aboriginal City on Cliff
a Thousand Feet High-Skulls Of
People That Had Double Teeth All
Around-Some Remarkable Relics.

Thousand Feet High-Skulls Of
People That Had Double Teeth All
Around-Some Remarkable Relics.
Laden with relics of the vanished
race of the Cliff Dwellers. the Rev. Dr.
George l.. Cole has returned from
journey to the ruiIed cities of South
eastern Colorado and New Mexico. VAL
liable results were secured by eXcava-
tions in an ancient communal dwelling,
as yet unnamed, which stands on the
cliffs of the Santa Fe River, fourteen
miles from Espanoia, N. M. This Is the
largest pueblo yet discovered in the
United States, and DR.. Cole was practi-
cally the first to visit 1t with scientific
objects in view. He found stone i'm
plements and pottery of extreme rarity,
and the bones OF q race all of whose
teeth were molars or grinders. Among
the bones eXcavated from burial
mound on the mesa were a woman's
femurs measuring nineteen inches,
length which indicates that this aborig-
inal giantess must have been at least
seven and "a half feet tall.
The cliff on which the unexplored
ruins stand rises thousand feet above
the surrounding country. On one side
of the isolated rocky mass is the valley
of the Santa Fe River, on the other
that of the Santa Clara. Up to 600 feet
is shelf which furnished nesting
place for the Cliff Dwellers of nobody
knows how many centuries ago. In the
soft pumce stone they burroweu dens
for their families. Eventually the Or
ignal shelters in the cliffs grew to be
/. great warren. Room after room was
five deep Under the shelter of the
Overhanging cliff, walls were built, ex-
tending the rows of rooms. The Cliff
Dwellers were sheltered from rain or
storm and their homes were inaccessi-
bic for their enemies.
Not satisfied with their rock caverns,
the Cliff Dwellers climbed upward, and
on the mesa, 400 feet above the shelf
on which the caves opened, built a
communal dwelling.
This mesa is about three-quarters of
mile wide and a mile and half long,
with cliffs all about and the best of op-
portunities for defense On its edge
was reared a watch tower of granite,
whose height DR.. Cole believes to have
been not less than sixty feet. The
blocks were painfully carried up the l.
000-foot cliff for the nearest granite
deposits are at a considerable distance.
For greater security wall was built
across the middle of the mesa.
On this rock platform, 1000 feet up in
the air, there stand to-day the ruins Of
two communal dwellings, one evidently
much Older than the other The older
dwelling is as yet untouched, and what
little exploration of the more modern
one DR.. Cole had time for amounts to a
mere scratch on the surface.
There were not less than sixteen
hundred rooms in the larger building in
its prime, says DR.. Cole, and probably
two thousand. The building measured
240X300 feet 1t was of blocks of stone
measuring six by six by fifteen inches,
quarried from the cliffs below, and car
red up by the workmen. The rooms
were rooted with timber, and the walls
then carried higher. In the centre was
a great court, a common kitchen for all,
from which radiated immense numbers
of rooms. The building spread with
the growth of the community until 1t
was three stories high and the rooms
stretched away twelve deep from the
central court, with smaller courts here
and there. DR.. Cole estimates that the
population averaged about three to a
room, which would make between 4S00
and 5000 people dwelling in the i'm
mense pueblo, besides those who lived
in the cliff caves.
The rooms at the sides of the COM
munal dwelling averaged about four
teen feet in size. On the upper stories
they were mostly smaller, some being
only seven by fourteen, others seven
by twenty-one. Some rooms were
found as large as fourteen by twenty
one feet
With the trophies Of his summers ex-
ploratiuIs spread out about him, DR..
Cole has turned his parlor into an an
thropological museum. One table Is
covered with water jugs and incense
pipes, the sofa hidden under stone axes,
mortars, pestles, weaving shuttles and
pottery. Another table is decked with
a row of grinning skulls and huge
crossbones; beneath 1t comfortably re-
pose all the parts of "a skeleton, from
the toe bones to the shoulder blades
waiting to be wired together, and
strewn about are bows and arrows,
baskets, jugs of twisted twigs, made
water-tight by pitch; modern Indian
pottery, photographs by the score, and
a stump of petrified wood. The skulls
are particularly valued possession.
Look at those teeth" said DR.. Cole,
tenderly fondling the skull of the giant
ess She has no incisors, no cutting
teeth in front, as have all the other
races of which l have any knowledge.
She has grinders all around, and so
have the other skulls. That shows they
were grain-eaters rather than meat
eaters. The foreheads are high and the
shape of the skull shows intelligence,
but notice how curiously they are fiat
tened at the back.-Los Angles Times.
A ChlorofOrm Story.