The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-31
AMERICA BEFORE
 COLUMBUS [ Magnificent City Is Beir
 earthed in Americ IS RICH IN FINE F. The Bureau of EthnoIogy Is 1ae. Much Light On the Origin |
 pie Who Were rnccstc
 of American ,ndians.

To learn the history of the ancients one must literally dig. and because of Dr. J. Walter Fewl<s' zeal in delving among the ruins of Casa Grande Canyon another contribution has been made to the gen. eral fund of information regarding pre- Columbian America. Government inter est in American ethnology is not yet 50 years old, but already a vast amount of energy has been expended in bringing from obscurity the origin of the Indian and his antecedents who peopleG this country in the dim dawn of the world. A number of hlloeks under the shifting sands of the southwest were all that was visible at first of this ancient town that Dr. Fewks has recently unearthed Bit by bit he has revealed the houses and fortresses of a prehistoric stronghold He has disclosed q city surrounded by a rectangular wall of stone and clay Out side the wall Is moat while the cor ners are guarded by bastons and watch towers. There are mounds beyond the walls. burial mounds rich in treasures of the dead. The city is laid out with some regularity, having a great house" set about with smaller ones.
 These old ruins dominate flat stretch of country in southern Arizona and were doubtless a valuable stronghold in an- elent times. They are so old that they were sand strewn and long deserted when Coronado's astonished followers saw them loom up from the desert nearly 400 years ago They may, like the cliff dwellings, of Walp Ariz., be all that remains of a pf anH hot fiourlshed at the time of ancient Babylon. Within these walls Jesuit priest chanted q mass 200 years ago when he was eross- ing the desert as a penace for his sins, and in 1S46 detachment of the United army passed them in its con- of the west. They now stand on 'nment property and under govern control, with custodian to frus- the ambitions of vandaI tourists
 bureau of American ethnology through Dr. Fewks is conducting important work of excavation, had cal beginning in 1867 when Maj ]. Powell explored the canyons of the ado river. From amateur work ex- ton was brought under the patron
 
 raised to the distinction of a gov ent enterprise. The work already has been notable. It's survey of Rocky Mountain region, in connec- with the United States geological ". has been termed one of the bold ,its of work in the history of the II. This bureau has studied every n tribe that America has known Ig as in the case of the Peeos In- sometimes only one or two sur s of a once powerful tribe from 10 get their data. They have com remote western with eastern tribes te any similarity in their manners ustoG's. they have deciph cred patro- s, they have translated. compared d. until out of chaos something and reliable about the Indian and edecessors is being secured for the One of the most painstalSng pieces k is Q Handbook of the Indians '' 'eing prepared and giving the his if Indian tribes and their civiliza- 70 far can be secured
 page by page the story of pre-. bian America will some day be re. to us. Out of the mists that have this country's past for so many tied years will come the real story and proved. Ine threads Of his tradtion--whichever they be--tha k up today are wonderfully fascl
 Geologists say America is the 8I# existing land in the world From shf leories have been offered that il ave been the cradle of civilization #H5 ie famous lost continent Atlantis ssert. For lover against the PiI
 Hercules" ages ago there lay
 land peopled with the promoter, 'onderful civilization and rich il g. a land which Plato declared wa. d 5000 years before his day. Som. was the land from which tn, ranean countries drew their god: -oes. Some say it was the lanc Bible days. and that the flood O.
 can lore of the east and of tn,
 lore of the west was only tn,
 of Atlantis with it's thousand, cities and great achievements
 only that remnant in Centra
 to tell the tale For in Centra 0. there are ruins of untold az,
 still older with other ruins be
 SC.
 5 as it may, ever since the frs zHLe en set foot on the shores of tn,
 New World speculation has beer
 to whence came the red meI them. As conquest and settle
 ,gressed through the country tn,
 became bigger, the questionerl