No ruin in the Mesa Verde Park had suffered more from the ravages of "pot hunters" than Cliff Palace; indeed it had been much more mutilated than the other ruins in the park (pls. 1, 4, 5). Parties of workmen had remained at the ruin all winter, and many specimens had been taken from it and sold. There was good evidence that the workmen had wrenched beams from the roofs and floors to use for firewood, so that not a single roof and but few rafters remained in place. However, no doubt many of the beams had been removed, possibly by cliff-dwellers, long before white men first visited the place. [Illustration: PLATE 9 MAIN ENTRANCE SOUTHERN END, SHOWING REPAIRED TERRACES] Many of the walls had been broken down and their foundations undermined, leaving great rents through them to let in light or to allow passage from the débris thrown in the rooms as dumping places. Hardly a floor had not been dug into, and some of the finest walls had been demolished.[20] All this was done to obtain pottery and other minor antiquities that had a market value. The arrest of this vandalism is fortunate and shows an awakened public sentiment, but it can not repair the irreparable harm that has been done. [Footnote 20: Some, possibly considerable, of this mutilation may be ascribed to the former occupants. The Ute Indians will not now enter cliff-dwellings and probably are not responsible for their destruction.] REPAIR OF WALLS The masonry work necessary to repair a ruin as large and as much demolished as Cliff Palace was very considerable. The greatest amount was expended on those walls in front of the cave floor hidden under the lower terraces, at the northern and southern extremities. The latter portion was so completely destroyed that it had to be rebuilt in some places, while at the southern end an equal amount of repair work was necessary. (Pls. 3, 6, 7, 9.) To permanently protect these sections of the ruin the tops of the walls and the plazas were liberally covered with Portland cement, and runways were constructed to carry off the surface water into gutters by which it was diverted over the retaining walls to fall on the rock foundations beyond. It would be impossible permanently to protect some of these exposed walls without constructing roofs above them; at present every heavy rain is bound to cover the floors of the kivas with water and thus eventually to undermine their foundations. The preservation of walls deep in the cave under protection of the roof was not a difficult problem. The work in this part consisted chiefly in the repair of kiva walls, building them to their former height at the level of neighboring plazas. MAJOR ANTIQUITIES