The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 14, 1897, Page 17

(9O @D RIS B DL OIY NP COINONP DT TGP D V t zh Golen Canyon to p the rugged sides of B Mountain, the prehistoric on the blackened t on the City of Over the desert again, echo of sadness. ates among the shat- then dies away mingling v, quivering sunshine. re is a lull and a bird even its It calls nd moaning its ir. And soi y r day, year aft ring the same melanch of desolation over the City of death. voices They as not always a city of t listen to the zh the silence. ges. Il of stone stretching n-top. Broken and ished past it e to the builders. i not blow as it does ind did not drift from the s moisture in the air, e are now only e of the moan of voices of a happy w, and the s the orb of day. For pe rshiped the sun and 2Nt it S0 f all life. s a house. Onlya crumbling 7 showing a habitation of e roof is gone and the cir- ve partly fallen down. Here 1cing the east, through which first caught a glimpse of ap- 1 Perhaps he stood here and sang his rude song to the monarch of the sky. But his voice is hushed now anddvn its stead is the moan of the desert wind. SR 5 Y LN UL SPOINTY JSE QA AL AV VA AVA A vy ———— BIACK MounTain- O 0LDDVEBIOVED O P TP N\wfif;m'ww% s carved the circle on crevices the ymy at is the r 1e n n part of the city. ches over Is and among the of houses ng s. Far to the ast there the herds were kept. Large areas are laid out and surrounded by I walls as if intended to keep animais where they were wanted. Like the peo- ple who owned them the animals have be xtinct. foot of land in this dead ci :st, and when it can be thoroughly excavated will undoubtedly yield many rich facts. If the graveyard could be found it would surely prove to bz one of the greatest finds of modern times. But can it be found? It is supposed that these people buried thelr dead down in the valleys. But if that is the case it may take years to find the cemetery. And then again some prospector may fall over it any day. Un- til the cemetery is found the great inter- est will center about the ruins and in any event they are worthy of grave study. A g e [ ik Uiy ’ i i = ’ ‘. , The scientific value of the discovery of these ruins can hardly be estimated. It has to deal with the anthropology of the North American continent and, after the ruins have been thoroughly explored by scientific men, may help to establish the These Are The Hieroglyphics That Identified The Sun Worshipers. of the first people to reach this That these people belong to a ve rly period of the world’s history cannot be doubted, but that period was very muci ter than the same period in the east e. ated in the previous ac- ¥ THE CALL the resi- ts of the pr toric city belonged to a known as sun-worshipers. Years of on the part of dozens of scientific necessary to establish this fact, , for the only author- count p ed i if fact 1 ity for it t But it has been definitely yven in numerous instances that Indi adition seldom errs. Where the tr. nnot be proved itis also a fact that it cannot be disproved. The discovery of similar ruins to those on Black Mountain in different parts of Arizona some ago led to inquiry among the diffe tribes of the Territory as to their origin. Strange as it may seem most of the tribes at present living in the Territory knew something about them although none were able to read the hiero- glyphics. ‘rom the in rmation obtained it was at the former residents in tops were a powerful in the long ago. There were many sands of them and it was said that they daily offered up prayers to the sun, and looked upon the orb of day as the source of all life. It would seem that they were a gentle people, for, so tradition goes, other and more powerful tribes came down from the north and wiped them out of existence. How long ago was this? That is a hard question to answer. Apache lore places it about 6oo years ago as near as calcula- tions can be made from Indian reckoning. IXRILY/ RN \ ,f'.’l"’x'g(t{f,flx’\\‘\%\\\ et il I LI IAEARR Y \“ iy Ly \ i ‘\ 1a ) That is the time of the passing away of the people, as they must have flourished in their glory many centuries before that. As no scientific explorations have yet been made of the ruins on Black Moun- tain it is impossible to give any reliable \ W\ AR \ i i il data concerning them and the chances are that little will ever be obtained, because the Indians who might have told some- thing of them have about all passed away. From indications it would seem as if these ruins antedated the ruins of Ari- zona, but by how long it is impossible to say. There are several facts which bear this out. The first is that the hieroglyph- ics are less plentiful although there can- not be a shadow of a doubt about their being the same as those in Arizona. The cliffs of some of the Arizona cities are fairly covered with marking, while on Black Mountain it requires searching to find them, so scarce are they. This would indicate that fewer of the people were ed- ucated enough to make the markings. In the next place the Black Mountain hieroglyphics look older. They are much shallower than those in Arizona and have almost disappeared from sight. This dis- appearance has all the indications of be- ing due to the action of the elements, which, as is welliknown, requires a long time. Itis also well known that the further east these cities of the aborigin:s are found the more plentiful and perfect the hieroglyphics are. This would seem to indicate that the ability to write was de- veloped in what is now California. Ages ago the original members of the tribe reached the shores of the Pacific Coast. Possibly they lived like wild beasts in the fastnessés of the Coast Range, gradually working eastward to the mountain, at which time there'was enough develop- ment of brain for writings to be made. Where did these people come from? That is a question that can never be answered. Possibly others came like ‘PL‘M of Tue PREHISTORICUTY = W\ \( ( : J Ao &1 \1\\‘\‘\\\‘l1 N I AU N \)\\' (117 ) s‘\\\\‘\ NG5 ‘}‘\\\31- W \\\\.\\\_\\\\(!:;/,/I{/ oo 2 ,////’// D D \ Ay MR N NS AN \\N\\\ ,\\\\\\\\N \) N v RN them, and possibly they are the fathers of all the American tribes. It is easily pos- sible for certain members to have left the original tribe to live in the wilderness. A few years of this Itfe, without any means of keeping records, would let out looKING Dovym ONTHE CITY FRom THE CUFFS: PANY - QIANG QGNP NP \IANSP PN NP © QQ (S , < 3 oo oo THE WAT(HMANS TOWER PRI gt all resemblance to their forefathers and make them practically another race. And so it may be that the former in- habitants of Black Mountain were the pioneer human beings on the American continent, It is almost established be- Se- TERRACED HILL3IDE %m,muwumun\..J_uummflnm-l:.smmmhmxmmm" R T TN R g e e ai luml[ll‘!g yond a doubt that they reached these shores from the west. There .are no re- cords to show that any traces of them have ever been found in any other part of California. TFhe anthropologieal impor- tance of this one fact cannot be estimated. = | il <] J4——14I¢ P S — Few relics of these people have ever been found, and it would seem as if they were not intellectual enough to make any article more elaborate than an arrow- head. And those they did make were of [Continued on Page Eighteen.]