Singular,
if not significant, that the natives when first discovered
believed in a bearded white man whom they deified as the Fair God
of whose existence they had obtained knowledge from some source
and in whose honor they kept their sacred altar fires burning
unquenched.
The relics that have been found in the ruins are principally
implements of the stone age, but are of sufficient variety to
indicate a succession of races that were both primitive and
cultured and as widely separated in time as in knowledge.
The cliff dwellings were not only the abodes of their original
builders, but were occupied and deserted successively by the
chipped stone implement maker, the polisher of hard stone, the
basket maker and the weaver.
Among the relics that have been found in the ruins are some very
fine specimens of pottery which are as symmetrical and well
finished as if they had been turned on a potter's wheel, and
covered with an opaque enamel of stanniferous glaze composed of
lead and tin that originated with the Phoenicians, and is as old
as history. Can it be possible that the cliff dwellers are a
lost fragment of Egyptian civilization?
The cliff ruins in Arizona are not only found in the canons of
the Colorado river, but also in many other places.
