The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-06-09
SidelightS on Weird and Pic
tureSque Ruins of South
eastern Utah.
Subject Is Given Additional In
terest by Approaching Ex-
pIoratory Expedition.

DRESENTLY there will go into San
Juan county a company of scien-
lists and students to study the
relics left by the cliff jewellers who
once Inhabited that weird and mystic
rious region. Professor Byron Cum
mings of the University of Utah will
lead a party of students that will ac-
company the investigators, who will
come as representatives of the nation
al government and of Yale college.
Professor Edgar L. Hewett, director of
the American Institute of Archaeology
and investigator for the bureau of eth
nolOgy of the department of the inte-
rfor, and Professor McCurdy of Yale
will arrive at Monticello on June Is.
There they will be joined by the uni
versity group. The party will proceed
TO TnOmDson's, where horses will be
taken and a packtrain loaded for the
2O0-mile trip into San Juan county, to
the canyons, plateaus, mesas and low
lands where lie the ruins of prehis-
toric Americans, who builded their
homes and cultivated their lands and
fought and died.
In the June number of the Pacific
Monthly is an intensely interesting ar
ticle entitled The Cliff Dwellers and
the Mormon Theory" The article is
by w. c. Mcbride and is profusely il
Illustrated with photographs by Charles
Goodman. 1t is of particular interest
here, in view of the fact that Utah is
the scene of many of Mr.. McBride's
researches, and for the further reason
that Utah may claim the distinction
of being the cradle of the America Of
today.
The theory which Mr. Mcbride calls
the Mormon theory is, in brief, COM
prehensive condensation of the Book
of Mormon in that which is told in that
book respecting the first coming of the
people who were the founders of the
Mormon faith. Mr.. Mcbride has shorn
the narrative set forth in the Book of
Mormon of much of its volumious YER
biage ard has put the belief into plain
everyday English.
In the beginning of his article Mr.
Mcbride desires it to be distinctly un-
derstood that he does not advocate
the Mormon idea of the colonization
of ancient America, but as il is be-
lieved and taught by 100000 people
Mr.. Mcbride, in the absence of posi-
tive proof to the contrary, hesitates
absolutely to reject the theory. He
presents it for the acceptance or re-
lection of the readers OF the Pacific
Monthly, as they see fit to accept or
reject. A few of the most interesting
portions of Mr.. McBride's article fol-
low:
Professor Holmes of the Smithson-
ian Institute. one of the first to study
the ruins from a truly scientific meth
cd, makes the following classification,
which has generally been adopted by
students:
First-L0wland villages in which
dwelt the purely agricultural classes.
the sites chosen being always in the
most fertile valleys and close to rivers
Second-Cave dwellings,. caves arti-
ficially enlarged, often closed and
strengthened with stone or adobes OF
kneaded clay dried in the sun, such as
are still used by the modern Pueblo
Indians for building their huts.
Third-Cliff houses, true fortresses to
which the people of the valleys prob
ably retired when danger threatened.
X x x
The houses We're built of adobe or
cut stone land in some instances pol
ished) carefully laid and the crevices
filled with clay or mud and sometimes
a mixture of clay and charcoal; usually
two or four stories high. although a
few are known TO have been six and
seven stories. with as many as 250
rooms.
That the inhabitants of these ruins
were the agricultural classes there
seems no doubt. for we find indisput-
able evidence of their irrigation works
1S wen d. VI a tAAg NdANA supply iAt
arid deserts were reclaimed through
system of storage reservoirs by dam
ming the mountain streams and con-
Quoting the water to the lower plains
in canals in the same manner as the
government is now doing in many arid
sections of the west.
These canals-portions of which were
often cut through solid rock-are ten,
twenty, fifty and even 100 miles in
nd 90 HE ~ nar
$1,000 to $4,000 inches of water. When
we consider that they were constructed
without the aid of our modern exca-
waiting machinery and explosives, or
even the common pick or shovel we
are compelled to admit that here is
evidence Of an intelligence far in adj
vance of that ever shown by any of
the Indian tribes.
1t is the cliff dwellings proper, or the
ruins of the cliffs and canyons, that
are by far the most interesting and the
source of the greatest speculation and
wonder. Imagine" says a recent
traveller. "the dry bed of a river shut
in between steep, inaccessible rocks of
red sandstone, and man standing in
that bed looking up at the habitations
of his fellow creatures perched on
every ledge" Major Powell, United
States geoiogist, expresses his surprise
aI 'ssesing nothing for whole days but
perpendicular cliffs. everywhere rid
died with human habitations which
resemble the cells Of a honeycomb
more than anything else"
\ X
A few contain but single room,
others ten. twenty and as many as if
~. while the great palace of the Man
cos originally embraced not less than