In that year a small party of explorers ventured into the forbidding canyons of the great mesa. The young government far off to the east was endeavoring to learn the extent and nature of its newly acquired possessions in the far west. Small surveying parties were being sent into all parts of the vast unknown land. One of these parties drifted down from the north and entered the Mesa Verde region in the year 1874. In charge of the party was Mr. W. H. Jackson, photographer for the U. S. Geological and Geographical Survey. Jackson and his men were not interested in the Mesa Verde, in fact they had no knowledge of its existence until men whom they encountered in some of the mining camps began to tell of a great tableland filled with mysterious ruins. Jackson was intrigued and although he had little faith in the strange rumors, he decided to explore the Mesa Verde. His guide on the expedition was a garrulous miner named John Moss who claimed to have first-hand knowledge of the ruins. This chapter in the story of the Mesa Verde is extremely vague. There is no doubt that before the time of Jackson’s expedition some of the settlers knew of the Mesa Verde ruins. How much they knew is uncertain. Some of the early prospectors or hunters may actually have seen them. The Mancos Canyon afforded a natural avenue for travel through the Mesa Verde and in spite of the Ute danger, the intrepid adventurers may have used it occasionally. If they did, they could hardly have failed to see the many ruins that clung to the faces of the cliffs far above the river. On the other hand, knowledge of the Mesa Verde ruins may have come from the Indians. In a little while we will see a friendly Ute Indian giving the white men their first knowledge of Cliff Palace. Perhaps John Moss and the other miners heard of the existence of the ruins from friendly Utes or Navahos. At any rate, John Moss knew that there were ruins in the Mesa Verde, and in September, 1874, he led Jackson into the Mancos Canyon. The first night they camped on the banks of the river in the heart of the Mesa Verde. A century earlier Escalante had camped a few miles farther up the same stream. Six centuries earlier Indian maidens had filled their water jars from it. No cliff dwellings had been seen and the men were beginning to lose faith in the stories of their guide. As dusk was settling over the canyon, the men stood about their campfire. “Moss,” one of the men questioned, “where are those ruins that you have been telling us about?” “Right up there,” Moss replied, with a swing of his arm that took in the whole out-of-doors. Unimpressed, the men stepped away from the campfire and began to scan the cliffs above. In the bottom of the canyon they stood in the gathering shadows of twilight but far above the cliffs were lighted by the last dying embers of the setting sun. Suddenly the men saw what John Moss had not even suspected when he had said, “Right up there.”