Show IN SIGN AND PICTURE 0 since my early boyhood I 1 have beart ot of the wonderful signs to be seen been i arizona lf if the great canyon of colorado the great petrified forests th ancient mexican citius with the th quaint old churches and last but n 1 least of the numerous ruins of an chent people that at one time inhabit its ita brund broad val laye fur years the b bana mention of these topics has baa been au ob ci nt ni to awaken my interest an and d securer my undivided attention no woods then than that I 1 should wish to visit interesting a country cuu to stand aland u 60 some borne ancient ruins ruin to look down nit the work of an extinct pe people ople pon S 4 oil daudy the civilization or of an almost f f 1 gotten race was the dream of my ho bo hood and the great cesire of my m 0 2 mature years after years of waiting my wis heaNy took definite shape at last and on jaxk ju ee I 1 left logan glogau in company with JS baker to wake make the trip we we was to travel overland by team and we es therefore equipped with all the pher nalia nalls necessary nece esary to a C sat camp life our route took us t rou the be most interesting parts ol 01 f rutlt south of provo the character of ati country seems to undergo a chala with one or two exceptions Is t a mount mountains aills are not so high a and nd not so abrupt and are usually V with scrub cedar and pinion or ni bearing pine when you leave tj valley you leave behind the arba continuous stretches ot of green ali and thereafter only find them in anol sort of oates baies in the desert of dry ary ha reu hills and plains that 1 them our road lay jay through nephi aou and t th juab va valey vailey ley thence through a hilt hi country past pant fayette and Qun niao and down the whole length of wl beautiful beau sevier valley with its little towns its well ed fields its valuable quarries its salt mines minee and I 1 ia vast vaai herds berets of sheep to the later attributed the desolate appearance the ml ains for while the valley i this season to is green and beautiful I 1 mountains look barren and dry it rei dered so BO by the numerous flo flocks oka til HI range upon them from joseph OH j we passed up the clear creek can V and over the mountain u wain to the ulu old CM fort tim the canyon is lull of A large stream of clear cold w leaps and dashes over the icca dimmei boulders on its way to the valley bel be on OB either side are high cliffs clif firs or af stone that in some places app dach other so eo closely that gh there berls scarcely room tor for tae creek ant and wagon road tn in these narrow Is the rio brande GrandeA railway company j arb graded ded a road with a view to hold hodul the right of way should they wish build through there at some fu furm day it was in this region that we lift out with tangible evidences ot of ti su aboriginal original inhabitants of the count country nu no very extensive ruins or mou mounil moun bl have been bound in the sevier bevier vall val leirl but there are several P places laces where 0 are found of the existence of villages gea and abd old did irrigation ditches be traced in direction direct io while broken pottery and implements are found scattered about old hieroglyphics are met with b S t ifie cliffs in the canyons hereabouts be on the lookout and we were told to far or them but after gol going dg up thy the canyon several amilee and not finding iv ay y we inquired of a boy that we met where the hieroglyphics were located his HIB face took on a puzzled expression he ovid evidently antly did not understand we that they were marks on the rocks made by the ancient In indians diane his face brightener bright eneo ne be anderis tood all right now ob ye yee a P said be 9 down tre there ty by sam robinsons Bobin sons theres a train of cars and lots of things they cut on the rocks long ugo after a while awhile we found fond the hieroglyphics lots lote of them they are usually on the face of the cliff six or sight eight feet above the ground and are rock with some crude instrument out into the ment probably a mot mat keife or tone stone ax they are made to represent door deer mountain sheep li lizards arrow nd and spear beads sun circles concentric circles grotesque human beings and an il a emst variety of marks and sinns whose meaning or intent we were not able to make out there were long wavy linee anes wat bat branched and ran in different directions direct lona and usually terminated in circle these i I 1 took to ti a quare or represent roads road through the various canyons to the valleys beyond anu guides to the traveler opre ere probably al most every rock of prominence ery cliff tor for a distance of 01 neues or more through the canten W waa I 1 as ancient anoint marks ox or hieroglyphics of some kind there were we realo alio pi a great many modern hieroglyphics and it if we were the moral stan standing dinst of the two people fro from to their picture writing on the rooks rocks we would woold say that the ancient race was far superior to the modern in point of antiquity it Is difficult to form an ad idea as to how bow old these writ I 1 think they were made at di different derent times and cover a long per letty jodi but that they were all executed by th same people at first we were not Ift inclined lined to attribute to them a very remote antiquity for the reason that they were til 1 l cut in sandstone and appeared appealed to us to be the ane work of 0 a crude peo le j lugt such an aa we suppose of our modern indiana to bave beet neither didde attribute moch to them but were of the opinion that thal they were executed hy doting yoting lud ind son ana for amusement this see beamed in ed the more probable from tb tee fact abet that the ro rook ck is ibao go son that W with as 11 ordinary pocket knife it would not DO be a very difficult undertaking to duplicate them sines leaving clear creek I 1 have been forced to change my mind as a to th the anti aulty of the writings linga and now ajob tribute fite to wem tb em a greater antiquity thin I 1 was it at ailt ra willi willing fig to do for the following reasone rea aon when first seen been by to white forty or fifty years ggs go the writings were about the same as now that ie lot they bore the same air of antiquity and the color etalon u apon of B them have not changed lik in pama places ee I 1 noticed that portions of the were no doubt firm when were placed upon them have since crumbled away and fallen down dowd then I 1 thought from the fact that they seemed to avoid the harder barder rocke was waa an ind indication mation that the eai engravers neither bad the inclination ifor the tools toola necessary to do the work but I 1 have since seen similar bifilar writings chipped in the surface of the hardest granite rock so hard bard in fact that an ordinary chipei chiaet would hardly make an impression upon them S sj that while it may have been an easy matter to have gouged out the extensive writings in clear creel crea canyon it was correspondingly laborious and difficult to do the work on the granite blocks of the rio virgen and while it to is just juet possible poa sible that ses may have executed some of the writ ings in dear Clear creek canyon for amuse ment it will hardly do to apply the same rule to the hieroglyphics on the and virgen papooses oses are not constituted that way similar writings are met with in otner parts of the country that are known to be from two to 0 three hundred years old and much older for aught we know that the hieroglyphics have a symbolical mean ing can hardly bedout be doubted ted when it Is ie known that writings almost identical with these are found lu peru venezuela colombia mexico and in many parts of this country go 80 that notwithstanding the fact that they were t the e work of a crude people it can hardly be denied that they had some meaning and that that meaning wab wa not poo confined fined to the indians of utah alone but was known and understood by their red brethren as far away as the confines of Bo bolivia Jivis western utah bears no evidence of having been very densely populated in times while there are evidences in many places of villages and a tattled fettled lite life there to is only one place thai bears evidence of having deen been long lang settled by an agricultural people this was about Pa in iron county the mounds or ruins are situ abed just j outside the town along the road that goes towards beaver they are irregularly distributed over an area of probably acres and consists of what appears to be more mere mounds mou nde of earth ranging in size from 85 35 ty by 26 25 feet to 85 by feet feel and in heir helba ht from five to fifteen feet while the mounds appear to be mere heaps of ef earth identical with the burial mounds chave I 1 have seen in the mississippi valley yet when they are uncovered well preserved walls wall are foundss found so that it Is a very easy matter to trace the plan of the ancient house bouee at different times timea since the settle sett lemer 6 of the country by itie interested ones have made ecca lions into the mounds with a view of learning something about their builders but outside orsome of some broken pottery and some bome charred bones and ald ashem nothing of importance wes we ever dis die covered lost last winter don maguire dame came down and made some me extensive excavations and unearthed nine or ton ten well preserved skeletons and some few stone implements awls etc the large mound where mr MR ma guiremand gui guir remade emad 0 his excavations seems to have bave been the principal bullying building of the town and was probably a temple as well as a place ot of general resort in case of altac n it faced the east and corresponded very nearly to the cardinal points it was rectangular iu in tora lorin and had an open court in the center brouna which wert double rows of small rooms it was in the court that thai mr maguire found the skeletons at first I 1 bupp omed from the size and height of the mounds that the building must have ateo aten two or more stories high but afterwards I 1 was led 16 change my mind on this point mr maguire opener up several of the swill email rooms exposing the walls wall and removing the rubbish to the floor this floor level was about eight or ten tea feet above the level of the plait we dug through the floor and under the walla and discovered that the mound had bad been raised to that height before the building bad been commenced continuing doW downward Dard we penetrated layer after layer of clay and charcoal and ashes aches until the level of the plain was waa rea reached chea the layers of ashes ranged in thickness from half an inch to three inches and jo in them were found charred bone bonce broken pottery and fragments or of stone implements the bouee bones found in the lower wound mound were badly decayed and seemed to be much older than those lound found in the rooms above just above the plain level we found several pieces of what appeared to be fragments of burned brick they certainly were as hard as our common brick and had bad ben made so eo by the agency of fire this fact led us to the opinion that the ruins had been twice inhabited ani and that the later people had bad built their houses 0 ou a the ruins of the former and that they in turn had bad been annihilated or driven away everything about the ruins inui indicates cates plainly that a state of war existed when they were wen destroyed here existed a settled community well advanced io in the arts of life they built houses cultivated fields of corn and squash irrigated them with water brought from the mountain streams in canals that are still trace able in the midst of this peaceful life they were pounced upon by their enemies they were driven into their houses and murdered fire was then set to the buildings buil dinge and the remains of the inhabitants charred and burned were covered by the falling walls the skeletons found by maguire all had bad their kulls skulls fractured by some rude instrument of war and they occupied positions that would indicate that they had bad I 1 been slain on the spot anere iney were found very few it if any whole pieces of pottery have been found in the ruins and the scarcity of flint arrow head is noticeable it seems probable that the carried oft off as spoils everything of this nature that chit could make use aae of the walls walla of the buildings were abut ab ut ono one foot thick and were made of ola clay yand and seemed to be erected much on the same game principal so as we erect our oar concrete or cement housed A layer frow from twelve to sixteen inches thick was placed upon the wall and left to dry and bake in the sun BUD when wit att writ ra done another layer was waa added and the drying process proceed was repeated until the walls walla WM was raised to the ro re quiren height the floor were of a sort bort of cement made of clay and gravel and I 1 believe was hardened by the agency of lime at any rate they were very hard bard and must nave have lasted without replacing for a great many years sume some ot of the pottery scraps scrape tabt we picked up showed excellent design besign and finlee indicating that the makers were experts at the bust bus nose the decorations were mostly painted with black and resembled very much the decorations in vogue among the Marl Mar copa leopa Indis indians Dig of t e present day it la Is difficult to form any idea as to the age of the ruins mine when they were first arst erected how long they were inhabited or how bow long since they were destroyed in my opinion these periods must haust have covered centuries but how many I 1 am not able to say prom from the worn step stones atones that I 1 saw I 1 would conclude that the buildings buil dinge were occupied a long time we shall have occasion to refer to this ahja subject in a luxure letter JOEL RICKS |