Seeing the West: Suggestions for the Westbound TravellerDumbell, K. E. M. (Kate Ethel Mary)
History
Seeing the West: Suggestions for the Westbound Traveller
Dumbell, K. E. M. (Kate Ethel Mary)
West (U.S.) -- Description and travel
The park was established to protect the wonderful cliff dwellings of the
Mancos Canyons, which are said to be among the most important remains of
this mysterious race. There is one dwelling here in excellent
preservation, others in varying stages of demolition. The age of these
ruins is supposed to be from 500 to 1,000 years. To those who are
especially interested in this region and who desire further information,
I recommend Mr. T. H. Chapin’s “The Land of the Cliff Dwellers.”
“The principle and most accessible ruins are the Spruce Tree House,
Cliff Palace, Balcony House, and Tunnel House. Spruce Tree House is
located in the head of Spruce Tree Canyon, a branch of Navajo Canyon. It
originally contained about 130 rooms, built of dressed stone laid in
adobe mortar, with the outside tiers chinked with chips of rocks and
broken pottery.
“Cliff Palace is located about two miles east of Spruce Tree House, in a
left branch of Cliff Canyon, and consists of a group of houses with
ruins of 164 rooms, including 20 round kivas, or ceremonial rooms, and a
tapering, loopholed tower forming a crescent of about 100 yards from
horn to horn, which is reputed to be one of the most famous works of
prehistoric man in existence.
“Balcony House, a mile east of Cliff Palace, in Ruin Canyon, contains
about 25 rooms, some of which are in almost perfect condition.
“Tunnel House, about two miles south of Spruce Tree House, contains
about 20 rooms and two kivas connected by an elaborate system of
underground passages, and a burial ground of 5,000 square feet. In each
of these villages is an elaborate system of fortification, with, in some
cases, walls two to three feet thick and 20 feet high, watchtowers 30
feet high, and blockhouses pierced with small loopholes for arrows....”
I should advise any traveller planning to visit any of the Southwest
Indian Reservations to go well armed with literature. The U. S.
Government circulars, from which the above is quoted, may be had from
the Department of the Interior, and the Santa Fé Railroad provides
excellent literature.
ZION NATIONAL PARK
“With the creation of the Zion National Park in 1919 there entered into
our National Park system a reservation as remarkable, as brilliantly
beautiful, and as highly differentiated from all others as any of the
distinguished group. It contains a hundred and twenty square miles of
painted terrace country of southern Utah, surrounding from its source a
shallow river whose carved and fretted and monumented canyon lies
between sandstone walls which rise two thousand feet in gorgeous mottled
reds, surmounted by a thousand feet in marble-white.
“This Park makes two principal appeals, that to the universal delight in
extraordinary beauty of colour and form, and that to the intelligence of
the student of earth’s history.... To the best of my knowledge, there is
no place in the world where one may see so easily so much of the record
of the earth’s history.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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