Las Vegas daily optic. [volume] (Las Vegas, N.M.) 1880-1908, 1904-08-16
<<When the World Was New
And the Rocks We're Wet

The Rock Island is sending out an
attractive, prettily illustrated and well
written booklet advertising the mani
fold resources of New Mexico. The
booklet is calculated to do good not
only to the Rock Island road but to
the territory in general as well. Who
ever reads the following enhancing
.Bit of History will not be likely to
stop until the fifty and odd pages
have been completed.
To begin at the beginning, as all
history should, would be to go back
to that misty time when the world
was new and the rocks were wet"
for does not the birth.record which
great nature keeps show New Mex
leo To be one of the oldest Of Earth
Children Did not her mountain
peaks, reared amid the travail of a
forming continent, send greeting to
their sisters as they rose above the
- 49, Ea Nh
waters Of the hoarse Silurian sea? Is
it not true, too, that the southwest
of which New Mexico is the center,
was the cradle of the racer Is it not
true, that evidence is accommodating to
a show that here in this sunny land,
man lived and wrought, titled the
soil, tended flocks, and built cities
long before Noah set sail in his
rudderless boat, or Adam opened up
his horticultural experiment station in
the valley of the Euphrates? Let
those who deem America without q
past and think antiquity synonymous
with the East, go to New Mexico and
stand amid the ruins Of the Seven
Cities Of Cibola. There in that land
Of mystery slumber the "sheeted
dead" OF a thousand generations;
there among the crumbling walls still
stands the ghostly past awaiting a
eve day and a completer civiliza.
ton.
All this is interesting, but tradi'
tion and fancy and even history are
valueless except as they serve to IL
Eliminate the hard facts Of the pres
ent. It Is aorth know.as, hosever
that New Mexico, the last If Gu. vaI
territorial limits to be cxp!oitei and
subdued was the first 10 be oc npied
by the forces Of modern civilization
and furthermore, that it was the chos
en- home Of a primal race. The nat
ural conclusion from such facts Is
that a country which possesses the
crude elements necessary to evolve
civilization such as the Spanish invad
ers found and destroyed, must and
will pay large dividends upon mod
ern enterprise.
The written history Of New Mexico
begins with the invasion of the Span
ish under Coronado in 1541. That
bold pathfinder dn his search for
gold ~traversed New Mexico and What
is now known as Arizona, Oklahoma
and Kansas, taking possession OF the
same in the name of the most Chris
tian King of Spain. Coronado was
Spaniard. He brought with him tn
lust Of gold and empire. and left in his
wake d~esolation and-the Cross. HI
found a semi.civilized people Twins
in communal houses-pueblos-engag
ed In pastoral and agricultural pur
suits, and wearing garments Of cot
ton cloth. Their cities were %populous
their houses well built Of stone an,
mortar; their flocks grazed on the III
lands and among the foothills, Will
with rude bitches they led the waite
from the streams upon the fertil
lands of the lower valleys, where OF
chards and fields of corn yielded
certain and abundant harvest.
But three hundred years Of Span
ish rule left only scattered remnant
of this unique civilization. The highl
colored tales Of priest and cavalier
Wondering ruins and a vanishing rae
make mp the story of these three hur
dred years. When Span retired BE-
fore the American occupation in 1sit
she left al a monument Of her rul
only her language and her religion.
The Upper Berth.
My. Dooley'' says in one Of his n
cent articles, that whenever he want