The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-07-15


 mer nest-like homes of the cliff peoples are to be found. Even the solitary tra- der at the water tank has become afffic- ted with the bric-a-brac epidemic and peddles his prehistoric wares through the halted train, to the edification of the passengers and usually to the pro- prietor's financial satisfaction.
 KEEN COMPETITION FOR RELICS.
 The discovery of the commercial value of such specimens has given rise to keen competition among the traders over this entire region, and the fact that several large collections have sold for fancy sums has so stimulated their eupidity that mercenary collectors have entirely outstripped scientific men in the search for and the acquisition of these articles and have committed most pernicious acts of vandalism.
 The finest and oldest of all ruins in the Union-if not in all the world-has been shamefully mutilated during the past year-Montezuma Castle, majes- tic communal habitation, that stands two hundred feet up the precipitous cliffs of Reauer Creek, Ca branch of the Verde River) in Yavapal county, in northern Arizona. Professor Samuel Wren of Cambridge university, Eng land, pronounced it twenty years ago the most marvellous prehistoric dWell- ing in the civilized world-even worth going further to see than the ruins i'll Rhenish Bavaria Montezuma's Castle never had anything to do with the great Aztec Montezunna, but 1t has un- doubtedly stood perched upon it's lime stone cliffs three or four thousand years. Agees ago a multitude of hu- man martins carried up the cliff and on their backs every stone, every bit of mortar used in the ponderous edifice, and the engineering and architectural skill these labors displayed stamps them extraordinary people in their work, as mysterious and imposing as anything in Egypt and Asia.
 Montezumas Castle comprises fine blocks of hewn stone, cemented togeth- CT in wads four feet thick. In height the castle is fifty-tWo feet. It is cres- cent shaped and is seventy-five feet long. It contains thirty-one, rooms Everywhere within are indications of the mode of living of the unknown race. which dWelt there before Rome ruled the world. Such an impressive ruin would be guarded with jealous care were it in European countries, and thousands of Americans would cross land and sea to view it.
 But it has been whacked to pieces by relic hunters, so that 1t Is fast falling to destruction. Every year sees fall ing of some of its walls in the efforts of mercenary explorers to exhume buried mummies, and to get articles of dress, jeWelry and burial vases of prehistoric days. One of the principal rooms in the great pile was completely ruined last year by blasting open supposed burial vaults in the hope of getting rel fcs for exhibition at the Pan-American Exposition, and during the past four months a great wall, which. undis- turbed, would have endured a thousand years longer, fell with a crash Into the canon below. because of undermining by reckless curio seekers.
 CLIFF DWELLINGS DESTROYED.
 The work of destroying the cliff dwellings in southern Utah is now well nigh complete. pr. James E. Weller of Chicago university says that he was, shocked when recently visiting the Utah dwellings to observe the whole sale havoc that has been made there. since he explored in that region eleven years ago. What used to be superb re- mains for scientific study and what he believed to be the most fruitful field for aseertaining many facts concerning the fife, habits, degree of civilization and aspirations of race which dwelt there fully four thousand years ago, are now, irreparably destroyed for satisfactory investigation. From the Utah clitf dwellings seven tons of most valuable relics were taken away for exhibition purposes at the Worlds Fair. and were afterward auctioned off for curios in a Chicago shop. Tombs of aboriginal kings and queens were blown open; dy-9 nan,ite hurled asunder council cham bers and tribal castles that had been built with infinite patience and sur passing skill on the ledges of towering cliffs. Such wanton destruction of priceless relics would be viewed with horror in any European country
 The petrified forest-the largest and most marvellous of it's kind in all the .world-il northeastern Arizona has been woefully hacked to pieces and carted away wholesalely by vandal hands. Tn the fall of 199 this wonder land was put under Q quasi-p protection of the land office of the interior depart ment, but it has not availed much, and 1t was far too late to save the noblest specimens of giant trees which grew cons and cons ago. Tons of petrifiedS wood are still carted away from the government lands and during the past summer five of the finest specimens of standing trees disappeared by piece meal in one and two-foot sections. But this is nothing to the manner of the destruction of the forests from the time the Santa Fe railroad built through the region of the petrified forest in 1885 un- til two years ago. A company of Colo rado men engaged in the work of gath ering carload lots ofssecti tions.of the fos- silized trees and in polishing shabs sawed from them. The petrifactions are as hard as flint and as beautifully colored as agate or onyx,, and there are mantels, hotel bars, parlor tables, and even wainscoting in the middle west made from the priceless relics of un- fathomable ages in the petrifled forest.
 A. Af.-