Bisbee daily review., 1906-05-15
VOLCANIC HEAT KILLING CLIFF
 JEWELLERS
Determination oNt Due to Hos
 tile Tribes With Whom They Engage in War; Neither Was It Famine or Migration
Floods of Molten Lava Poured
 From Pastures, Destroying All Life and Laying Waste What Had Been Fertile Acres

It is Q startling but. not an unrea- sonable explanation of the annihila- tion of the cliff dwellers given by Cecil A Deane in a recent article deaI- ing with the prehistoric people of Ari- zona. New Mexico and Colorado. After reviewing at some length the condi- tions surrounding the ruins, their To- cation and appearance in the valley of the San Juan and of the La Plata, the writer goes into the following ex- planation by which he shows that the cliff dweIlers were not exterminated by war with hostile tribes, that they left no descendants, that the Pueblos have no connection with them; that they were simply annihilated. He says:
 I've naturally inquire what caused the extermination of race whose works are found scattered over more than 100000 square miles in south west Colorado, southeast Utah, in New Mexico and Arizona. Doubtless they at times were harassed by hostile tribes, and the defeated found refuge in their almost inaccessible, cliff houses till danger was passed and they could return to their valley homes, or they may have had desolat- ing wars among themselves. but what caused their utter annfhilation?
 Mot famine. for we find great quaD- titles of their now carboniZed corn harvest. Not a voluntary migration. for no tribe or nation possesses their marked characteristics of art and ar chitecture. "
 ssIn some age so exceedingly remote that we can determine the time only Ly geological periods, cataclysm or natures forces occurred in that re- ginn which il, it's deadly effect des- troyed all animate and inanimate life. Not from volcanic cones, but from ifs sures in the earth's crust there poured out floods of molten rock which trans ferred vast areas of once fertile land to that of utter desolation.
 Let the traveller go south twenty miles from Grants station, on the Santa Fe & Pacific railroad, to Mon tezuma mesa, see the enormous ruins on its rock-cowned summit, and if he would know why the habitations erected with incredible toll are now yoiceIess he should stand on the mar gin of the mesa and from an eleva 7 ton of over 400 feet view the 40C square miles of lava that lies below once a river of fire forty miles in length by ten in width; now coiled like great cables, now gaping with ifs sures more than 100 feet in depth, or having many secondary craters from which the confined and heated atmos phere threw up the liquid rock, which in descending formed protrudine points, eYea now as sharp as broken glass
 "A similar but smaller flow Of lava may be seen near the station and eX tending for thirty miles toward the west, where it is paralleled by the Santa Fe road In southeastern Ari zona other similar lava fields occur and there. where recently an irrigat ing canal was cut through lava bed the cemented bed Of the ancient irri gatiOn ditch was uncovered.
 References has been made to the quantities of carboniZed corn uncover ed by excavations made in ruins, ire quently many miles distant from the nearest lava fields. An isolated in, stance might denote a local cause, but not where the effects of atmospheric heat are apparent over so great an area We know that a few years ago 30,000 persons perished in the island of Martinique when deadly heat and
 
 Mount Pelee, yet that eruption was small in comparison with the seismic forces that once spread their desolat- ing effects over far greater areas in New Mexico and Arizona.
 Doubtless, because of their occu, patton of limited portion of the re. zion where the older race once lived, the belief is held by those who have not given the matter personal investi. gatioD that the present Pueblo Indians are descendants of the cliff dweilers
 .As with all tribes and people who have no written language, their knowl. edge of past events Is preserved by means of oral traditions. Among the several tribes with whom I have SO journed are young men who have re ceived a fair degree Of education in our government or territorial schools With the aid of these as interpreters I have heard the aged keepers of their records recite the principal events oi their tribal life, but in no instance dc they rcfe. to such a strange and i'm pressive manifestation of natures forces as were evident when pillows of molten rock were creating chaos Had they then lived there so startling an event would have been preserved in their traditionary lcre, however dis tant the time of its occurrence.
 When or whence they came they do not know, but their traditions re cord the finding of great ruiHe wheE they first dwelt in land where none others then lived but which showed abundant. evidence of former occupa ton. Their dissimilarity in productive = industry and node of life is fur .her confirmation. They are farmer; to limited extent, but reside aloni the valleys where water i5 easily pro cured Their predecessors construct cd sfeat canals, which conducted wa