Bisbee daily review., 1907-07-03
CLIFF JEWELLERS OF
 SOUTHERN COLORADO
New Facts Brought to Light by Students From Western
 Seats of Learning.

Recent researches conducted by ar
 chaeologists and students from west
 ern universities have brought to light
 some new facts about the cliff dwell
 FITS in southwestern Colorado. The first discoveries were made for | ty years ago by two cattlemen named Wetherell, who had for months trav- eled the valley, only to meet one day { the surprise of seeing a great building one of the cliffs of the Mesa Verce. iThe sun happened be shining just right and enabled them to discern
 what had previously escaped their ob-
 servation.
 Climbing up they found great structure of $50 rooms, and scattered about it other houses and ruins of great extent Mummies, bits of pot tery. feather cloth. balls of salt hung in bags of corn husks and rude uten-
 sils of various kinds were scattered about. Tn mounds they dug up war clubs, arrowheads. needles. flint or i naments and burnt corn.
 After the Wetherelis came other ex- ] plorers and many of the museums of | the world have been enriched by the ] finds made there Not long ago an in vestigation party discovered west ot | La Plata river group of clin houses | of which no government reprt had ever been made. These have been the i subject of the recent investigations. The new collection consists of about l fifty houses perched on rock shelves which extend at intervals to a height i If 500 or GOO feet above the bed of i he canyon. Seen from below they 1 look like swallows nests and many of them could not be reached. In a valley five miles further along | isolated ruins were found. Excava- tions made disclosed more mummies, stone ornaments, bones and pottery. Thirty miles below Durango, just
 over the New Mexico border, the ruins of a once extensive village have been discovered About the center of 1t | is a signal and defense tower equip ped with protective devices of char
 aeter different from any previously 1 found.
 Instead of a single circular wall this one has three, with spaces of about seven feet between them. The exterior wall has diameter of fifty two feet and it is connected with the interior walls by cross walls. The last wall of defense could be reached only by ladders. and was practically i'm lpregnable in the days when the club and spear formed the chief weapons of I attack. The walls are of sandstone limbedded in clay mortar.
 In other ruins great quadrangles
 were found. In the wall creyices the mortar still bears the imprint of fin
 gers. Most of these stones were car
 ried up from the bed of the canyon.
 So far as investigations have dis closed. the ruins of the cliff dwellers
 are scattered over 100000 square
 miles in Colorado, Utah, Arizona and
 New Mexico The great mystery of and houses are covered with hiero-
 how they were annihilated still pug
 zles the scientists, They figure that tit could not have been famine, since great stores of corn have been uncCv, cred. nor could they have migrated because no other race possesses the marked characteristics of art and ar chitscture shown by the cliff dwell CTS. Traces of fire have led to the conjecture that their destruction must have come through a volcanic erup,
 tion
 : The later investigations take nc , stock in the old story that the Puebic
 Indians, who are now occupying 8 , part of the old territory, are descend , ants of the cliff dwellers. Their dec 1 oratiye pottery symbols are entirely
 different. The older race had great
 communal buildings of stone. frequent , lly of many stories, and faced witf
 hundreds of square yards of too i dressed rock. The Pueblo Indians live i in houses of sun-dried brick.
 The walls many of the canyons
 glyphics Interest in these hiero- gIyphics has recently been revived by f the assertion of Prof. F. K Porter O
 Boston that he has been able to de
 cipher one of these inscriptions l. Last fall Homer Wright of Montrost , went out to Shavano to wander amons 1 the ruins He tx hiso cmaera witl ] him. and what is known as tn ' great picture rock he took a numbe i, of views. These were later trans . Iferred to post cards and the latte . sold broadcast One happened to fal 2 into Prof. Porters hands, He ha i recently written { Wright fo4 nor o cards. asserting that he has discoz fl cred the clew.
 These pictures are rude drawing !, lof various animals, some prehistoric i, iothers apparently of bear, deer ,- spears. strangely clad men and we ;. men, and battle and journey scenes ]. According to Prof. Porter the ancien . dwelIers of Shavano valley had va 7, over a woman.
 f The chiefs of three tIibes loved her :. and when the contest ended all hal . been killed, including the princess : who was hit in the eye by fine point
 ed arrow. 4 number of arrows, suci
 las are shown in the picture wer
 Hound some years ago at the base Q P the wall
 !, Prof. Porter says the card he ha i shows but one incident in the histor' | lof inc people. The photograph di
 not include a hundredth part of tn
 picture covered wall and Prof. Porte promises to come to Colorado durw- ' the summer ans contirae his deeiph ering-