It is only a few years since Mr. John Ruskin rejected a suggestion that he should visit the United States, urging among other reasons that it would be impossible for him to exist even for a short time in a country where there are no old castles. We Americans were disposed to resent this slap at our country, and not a few newspaper editors relieved their minds by intimating that we could get along quite comfortably without old castles and without Mr. Ruskin. But, after all, it is a consolation for our national pride to know that the fault is not in our country, but in Mr. Ruskin's ignorance of American archæology. We have old castles without number in the Western Territories--ruined fortifications and dwellings of an unknown antiquity, perhaps as old as Warwick or Bangor, as impregnable as the highest cliff-built castle of the Rhine, as grand in situation as the Drachenfels or Dover Castle. Only the more eastern part of the great domain held by that ancient people has yet been examined thoroughly with reference to its antiquities. Within the last decade Mr. W H. Jackson of the United States Geological Survey has brought to notice, by his admirable photographs and descriptions, the remains in the cliffs and cañons of South-western Colorado and the adjacent region. Thirty years ago Lieutenant Simpson described the ruined pueblos of New Mexico. But in regard to the ruins farther west, seen by Major Powell in his headlong course down the Colorado River, and the innumerable remains of cities, fortresses and canals mentioned by visitors to Arizona, but little careful investigation has been made. I believe that few richer fields for an antiquary can be found in the world than this south-western region of our own country. I cannot doubt that a thorough comparative examination of these remains would throw a new light upon the relationship between the ancient and modern civilized tribes, and upon their connection with their far more civilized Aztec neighbors of the South. As yet, hardly an attempt at excavation has been made in the Colorado Valley. [Illustration: GUALPI.]