The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-07-15
FAST VANISHING RELICS
-OF PREHISTORIC FEoPLE---DE.
 HAND OF RELIG HUNTERS
Has Stimulated Trade in Historic Re- mains to the Disadvantage of Scien. tifIc Research and Archaeological 

! tnC heBearch anu <AEchueotOStcab
 Study.
 1 While American capital and Ameri-
 can scientific thought are given to ex- I ploration among the ruins of ancient
 Mesopotamian and Nile country cities
 and to uncovering the architecture of
 pre-Roman people along the northern l coast of Africa, very few Americans know that superb relics of greater anti quity and of marvellous and unknown l race exist in abundance among the
 lonely mountains and canons of our
 own southwest. Not only this, but
 Americans are so careless of these re- ] mains of an unknown pre-C Columbian people that practically no attempt is | made toward their preservation, and every year reckless mercenary vendors destroy whot remains for scientific re- search-nagn gnificent Actresses of stone built three and four thousand years ago on the cliffs of northern Arizona and southwestern Colorado.
 Nothing in all Europe CT Asia is so interesting and valuable to archaeolo- gists as these remains of,a powerful
 race of whom no one knows but the smallest sum Of knowledge, and who
 vanished long before Columbus sailed from Palos. No European country would be so needless of her archaeolog- ical treasures. Even debt-ridden and decripit Egypt guards her buried cities and prehistoric remains jealously, while ItTF Irs1c Soy, man relics and punish even tiny thefts at her Pompeii--a mere chronological youth by the side of the aboriginal rel lies in the southwestern territories. There are throughout the southwest an aggregation of primitive prehistoric rel ics as profoundly interesting as any in the old world. And scarcely one Amer liean in twenty knows anything about them.
 A hundred years ago Americans might have pointed with warrantable pride to a marvellous collection of mounds and earthworks, to vast buried cities, pictured and indescribable rocks, ruins and sky-hung cliff dwellings, all telling a deep. fascinating tale to tyro and scientist alike of a race of peo- pie who long years ago struggled for existence and happiness as keenly, if not as feverishly, as we do to-day. But alas! the present generation regretfully recognizes that the middle west mounds and earthworks are but mis- erable remnant, a mere handful. of the once thousands of varying examples of the constructive skill of the red mans Iprimogenitors which So picturesquely decorated nearly half the area of this broad land.
 The engineering feats of American aborigines which are so fast disappear ing were apparently the outgrowth of | two utilitarian motives. One seemed to be purely religious dictates, which de- imanded the erection of vast flat-topped pyramids and mounds or mervelous earth bas-reliefs in the shape of anil mals, birds and serpeEts; the other the outcome of the sad need of all human creatures for last resting place when i the tenure of mortal life had ceased, made manifest by a preference for ten derly laying away their read in huge arthen sarcophagi, raised far above the surrounding plain, They also deposl- ted with their dead the accoutrements and domestic paraphernalia used by the individual itl life. 5t While numbers of the collections have
 been excavated and brought together from the mounds and stone abodes of the prehistoric dead through the instru-
 mentality of scientific students of arch geology. it is a sad fact that by far the
 greater portion have been ruthlessly, nay, even wantonly, sacrificed at the
 hands of untrained amateurs, who,
 with unrestrained enthusiasm or with
 mercenary motives, have unearthedl
 splendid collections and passed over
 many of the closely connected and vital
 problems, as those of construction, ris-
 tribution and association. Only in rare
 instances has there been displayed a
 comprehensive appreciation, by few
 public-spirited men, of the crying need of careful scientific Investigation and the rescue of examples of these prehis-
 toric works for perpetuation from the
 ravages of collectors.
 The prehistoric mounds and caves of the middle west have been sadly de- stroyed. But in that vast and arid re-
 zion designated as the Great American
 Desert. covering as it does almost the
 entire territories of Arizona and New
 Mexico and the smaller portions of Me-
 vada, Utah and Colorado, are to be
 found thousands of examples of simply wonderful handiwork of primitive com munal peoples. Cliff houses are found
 there, eavate lodges, ruins on the nar-
 row levels of deep and dark canons, ex- tensive buried cities, sometimes entire
 ly covered, and again only partially
 ridden by the drifting alkali sands
 which mereilessly hustle over the lone
 some wastes, and one or two examples
 of stupendous and massive temples,
 which have proudly held their own in. desolation and solitude for centuries,
 every type of work telling sad and
 pathetic tale of a race which, in the struggle for existence, was combating
 the most sinister and arid environment of the world.
 All these invaluable possessions are fast disappearing simply for Task of proper legislation to protect them. Dr. J. Walker Fewkes, of the Smithsonian Institution, one of the best authorities on southwestern archaeology, has very deep-rooted convictions on the subject and the need for immediate and prompt action, and has Interestingly related the present status of the situation.
 For a dozen years the southwest has