| Show TRAVELING THROUGH SOUTHERN UTAH INTO ARIZONA LETTER next in importance to the question they boy came from is the of where of goliat buat became ui of atheni uon upon the old mounga anu L r hv have 0 stood imagined ned myself upon some numae ulta uel or and have recon tower in too the old oily city all the buildings again f the fields rau an bovere planted anew the sho plain with a carpet of greens green ii filleau the buildings anti and the witt with a bustling busy population populations theu I 1 have bave myshir the tb aai how could all thin PROS pasa ova till hay 9 1 I walked IM ui to the evening 0 oe mn of an old temple As I 1 pasted the she old built linge I 1 frequently amount the breech owls irom from their high mound and as I 1 tome some on did parch I 1 couii aoi u kielp elp but think of 0 so BU civil civilization izAt in the lar far eaas that kotlier where the euphrates is flows alowa calmly that MY city flouris tied clotem cotem seaward award ae wit with thin ihie 00 oo one lu in its to it was waa written brittin ot of her bar but palmy days daya shall come to thee in these tt moment two lu ILI onedas one day the I 1 oss of ahll ahli widowhood desolation De shall aften anti ana suddenly tily thy asaro abee conio come upon atrall be as aa stull bogers a d atar garere them there shall hal burn ble tue tire fire walts of the deierl WM wild the wild beasts 0 ot f the it ie with toe lands shall d dwell well there and aba oate shall therelo aud d babylon hep app a dwelling place PIRO 0 aud a ruf gotie ad as a bitant t sieb cutee dorus had bedou spoken over thea uld old cities thy they would have abton fulfill klu literally for almost very evidence bere of the that game came upon them it ILI you dig lato the ruins every thing you gives that mat thy they were destroyed by tire file underneath abe tb allou hailu wal alla is you nuu du A toe the Iele tun or of tle ile furmer ining mingled led with the iu rafters ui their bull it would seoul that in the of their greatest cevelo ue velo meni they were L ewt cepl pt into ti the besom buium ol of tue the conui tiu tio tu lu which their canal caimi sym weib left that it was waa al aicia IL limit ot at wuel il abw land bad react leA it hibel heat limit ot of iveus ive betit au aau wata thai to such auch a degree that it oulu hav bd duft have huud deeds of thousands the ruins of the cities indicate no gradual decay before their abandonment but everything points to a lanu prosperous and kopul irom from which apparently in one single ilay day its ito people were swept like jibe chan from off the he summer leaving no nib nistor tory y so DO tradition un the thedrick driad up cana lothe ruined houses alone remain to whisper the alory 0 of a people whose history with them whose traditions no grey haired sire ever relates to eager grandchildren gru children whose altars lie jie buried under kindor the dust duet of 01 couturier uriaL whose ruined homes stand in he shadow of he mountain moun gaias by mother or child for many gen orations erat ions a people whose gods have boasted neither ah tine nor worshiper since that day so many hundred years ago go when the be savage tribes ot of the he mountains came dewia upon them burned their cities destroyed their canals and swept from the earth a civilization the most interesting and least known of all our pro pre historic nations t I 1 while the large majority of the ruins indicate a destruction tit at the hands of won meu there are one or two iwo that would lead us tg tf believe aba t nature had contributed to the boes woes of that unfortunate people we are told that thai aben prof gushing wals wa merethe he rethe ruins rolls of one the be excavated gave evidence of having been destroyed by an earthquake the walls bad evidently been shaken down and be found the skeletons of several persons persona who wore were caught by the lulling walls while trying to ei ee cape through a window in another place lava java streams have ba ve been found to cross the course of an od cinal A anu nu an olla or crock jar rau ana jes bestle tle were found bound feet underground ULder ground these won d ludi cate ac lead that at it some time juilus the arti euce here bere 01 the old people the country haid had be it i vistad by 0 e of inobe boue grest of nature that has bs so much couch 0 this ilila western cauli r at some I 1 eil al iu in it il a pata while it may be true that at stint eimu period ame nio ul of itie old cian s were wt re at ut toyed in thle this ma faai ller a d ly ky a ethcie IL 11 it ib clear lany LADY to 0 cucual bual oi erver klimt the last great reat waa ot of brought ab but ut iu in that thai tu manner anner ear bar li quakes du do not lot burlly crack the skulls ot of their victims with war clubs and burn the bulla nim nover over tue toe beads of the slain it 16 lei IH difficult at this late day to form a correct estimate of the degree of civilization atta attan riad td by this old people it if we walk over the site of one of their cities pick up samples of the many pieces or of pottery scattered about or if you excavate luto into one of the ino mounds and find bad there stone atone implements and grin jers you are apt to tay cay this people was ony only partially advanced iu the arts art of civilized life at heft bat they can only to te dusted among the st ae mi civilized batio nations ins of thep the past as tell but when you examine more care fully the great worta they accomplished you are filled with wonder and astonishment their canal system was indeed a remarkable one the most moat skilled engineer of the present day armed with the most improved Improve ca lostau ments known to science can do no better than to follow the lines laid down by his prehistoric predecessor so that every ditch thus for far built along the salt and gila rivers either runs parallel to or merges into some ancient canal while there are places which the older ditches irrigated but which the present ones thus far have not been able to bring under water just out from mesa massa a mile or two one of the old canals runs for some distance through a slight raise in the mesa where it was necessary for the builders to make an excavation to a considerable depth to accomplish which they bad ad to remove great quantities of cement rook rock now all excavators excava tors know how bow difficult an undertaking it I 1 is to remove this kind of rock even with our modern appliances but it if you take away from us gunpowder and our other explosives by which we loosen and break up the rook rock it would puzzle our best bed engineers today to know bow to remove any quantity of il if with those these facts before us our wonder increases iao when we take from these ancient alciea builders all knowledge of iron iran steel copper and in tact any metal whatever and give them some rude stone hammers and mauls aud perhaps some wooden shovels made of cottonwood or mek quit and then try to imagine how bow they hey went to work to excavate this u y ment rock which is even harder iban their basalt implements how dw they do it ii was the question that I 1 albed several gentlemen gentl emun none of tiam i ht m could give a sat bat stac tory answer one gentleman gave it as his bis opinion that they had bad removed the dirt train from we rock and built fires on it and atter alter beating it dashed on water and in this way cracked it after which it could be broken up and removed I 1 related this theory to two or three railroad contractors ahu had bad a great deal of experience in removing the same kind of material and they were unanimous tb hi the opinion that it could never have been removed in that manner that the nature of the cement Is in such that fire and water would not have the effect upon it stated above it if this be true then the question still remains unanswered one gentleman told me be did not see how the old builders could have ever made the excavation with the rude instruments that they had tut but they must have hav t done it as numbers of stone atone hammers and ax axa 8 were scattered around the cut this I 1 believe le ie the general opinion among those who have given the matter any thought per for my part I 1 see gee no very strong argument in the above it is not improbable that the stone atone implements referred to could have been left there by a more recent people still even if they worn were left there by the builders themselves as I 1 believe it does not argue that they halt hall no other and fat fai better belter implements to work with Y no more than the discovery of numerous arrowheads ol of flint ou oil the plains of ef marathon would force us u to the conclusion that the great armies who participated in that battle were armeta with such rude instruments of 01 war as this would indicate we know frow front history just how these armies were armed but suppose we had no history of those times and were compelled to judge of the civilization ot of theold the old people by just such finds as that at Marsit marathon hoti would we not place an estimate on it far below what it really deserved it seems to 10 me that that is just what all are doing with our ancient Ame americal civilizations they see about them ibena stupendous work borbe such soon as ae the great roads of peru the great blocks ot stone so go beautifully beautiful jy wrought lu in peru anu central america ehte old banals aud and many other things that would seem to point to a degree ot of civilization t qua to any ol of the ulu old civilizations of the east and works too that seemingly loulu require tools of the beat iron and blebel to execute yet for all this they say theet metals were never known to 10 the ancient people of this continent lor for the reason that no traces ol of them are found and they close their eyes to the fact that history records no buob accomplishments accomplishment by auy any other people without iron and that it ic would seem impossible that it at could be accomplished without that hat metal they to forget that iron is the most perishable of all metals that it rapidly oxidizes unless protected from fir air and moisture and abat notwithstanding we know that the ancient syrians assyrians As and babylonians had bad great quantities of that metal yet very few traces or of it are now found in the ruins of their cities then too the fact should not be over looked that lu in the ruins rubus at people whose history we know and who were experts lu in working iron today loday large quantities of stone aud and fitak ments mento are found and which is accounted lor for ou on we basis that they were used by them for many purposes at the same time iron was it if then these facts are true of a people whose history we kaow could not they be equally true tru of a people whose history we do not know when all other conditions art are equal in a former letter we referred to the watch towers lowers on the mountain peake where guaris guard 8 were maintained abie would indicate that the old people were accustomed to war indeed it seems probable that lor for a long time they had bad to guard against invasion irum from the wild tribes that them this being true we would naturally expect to find in ID the ruins ol of their meir cities some remains ot of their implements clements ts of war just as wo we find in the old mexican and ana peruvian ruins large numbers of blot eliut arrowheads arrow heads beads and spear beads and stones atones with sharp points used on war clubs and many other things to indicate the nature or of the implements of war used by the old people all who visit these rulo must be struck with the scarcity ot of these things here a few arrowheads are found but not in numbers that would be expected it if they were used to any extent exten tv no other instruments of war have been found as far as I 1 could learn bearn had their implements ot of war been made of iron they must have all perished long ago so that no trace of them would now remain while we have no do conclusive evidence on this point it is difficult for us to understand how they could job th works that we tee bee here without the aid of that important metal J JOEL RICKS |
