Daily inter mountain., 1900-01-13


trees which, lying upon the same horizon,
indicate the possibility that they consti-
tuted a grove for the residence.
These buildings were erected in nat
ural caverns in the cliffs, sometimes
thousands Of feet above the mesas, where
perhaps their enemies dwelt in part. The
stone used was well cut and hewn and
the buildings erected in a most skillful
and substantial manner. Some of them
are four stories high, at least one Is II
stories, and nearly all remain intact even
to this day. Some have imposing brown
or light stone fronts. sometimes with
balconies, sometimes with great round
towers. always in close proximity to
finely built stone meeting houses for re-
ligious purposes. These buildings are
provided amply with doors and windows
and there are marks to indicate that the
SOLD stone doors were swung on hinges.
The mesa verde, the Montezuma and
Mancos valleys. are, in innumerable
places, covered with pieces of broken
pottery. traced with an infinite variety of
patterns. Close by are artificial mounds,
marking the sites of ancient villages or
cemeteries. Bowls that look like pre-
Grecfan art, and one on each side of
which an image of the sun is pictured,
are some of the secret discoveries among
the ruins. and many experts are of the
and fire worshippers. 1t is believed now
that the openings which hitherto have
peen regarded as chimneys or ventilatOrs
are IN reality spirit entrances a GUS
tom common among several ancient
people.
MAY BE OLDER THAN ADAM.
The question as to the age of these
cliff dwellings is a very interesting one.
Many claim that they show that the be-
ginning Of man dates further back than
the Asiatic origin; that America, not
the east, was his birthplace. A few en-
thusiastic scientists go so far as to say
that the savants Of the east have been
afraid to search among the ruins Of
Colorado and New Mexico for fear they
would make discoveries incompatible
with the settled theories of an Asiatic
origin of man. With these views DIR.
Cobern does not sympathize While hold
ing that the ruins are very old--older
than Eric, the Red-and urging the fed
eral government to take steps to preserve
them and then examine fully into their
secrets. he does not believe that they
are older than those of Asia. He says
that scientists are not afraid to exca
vate here, that they always recognize a
fact when they see it. He gave the fol-
lowing information:
The statement so often seen that
these ruins are older than the Coliseum
of Rome cannot be sustained, much less
the recent hypothesis that these remains
prove America, not Asia, to be the old
world, as these buildings date back from
$4,000 to 100000 years. Expert biologists
have declared definitely that the districts
in which these remains are found con-
sist of meZzOzOic or cenOZoic rock, which
| meant post-glacial and recent formation.
They also report that the oldest erup-
| tions of lava do not go back to the ter
tiary era, while some of these eruptions
| have occurred within the last three or
four centuries. So even the fact that
buildings have been found underneath
| the lava inhabited by a people resem-
bling the cliff dwellers would not neces-
| sarily date these people back into very
dim antiquity. There are other indica-
| tions that their age is not to be COM
! pared with the prehistoric people of Asia.
The fact that their skeletons still re-
main under ground and in such good
preservation, and that light walls of
easily worked stone still stand, though
exposed constantly to the weather. would
indicate this. Yet there are several
marks of time, which prove that they
: were old when Columbus came.