Sabine Baring-Gould
Published: 2015-07-07
Total Pages: 394
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Excerpt from Cliff Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe When in 1850 appeared the Report of the Secretary of War for the United States, containing Mr. J.H. Simpson's account of the Cliff Dwellings in Colorado, great surprise was awakened in America, and since then these remains have been investigated by many explorers, of whom I need only name Holmes' "Report of the Ancient Ruins in South-West Colorado! during the Summers of 1875 and 1876," and Jackson's "Ruins of South-West Colorado in 1875 and 1877." Powell, Newberry, &c., have also described them. A summary is in "Prehistoric America," by the Marquis de Nadaillac, 1885, and the latest contribution to the subject are articles in Scribner's Magazme by E. S.Curtis, 1906 and 1909. The Pueblos Indians dwell for the most part at a short distance fr6m the Rio Grande; the Zuni, however, one of their best known tribes, are settled far from that river, near the sources of the Gila. In the Pueblos country are tremendous canons of red sandstone, and in their sides are the habitations of human beings perched on every ledge in inaccessible positions. Major Powell, United States Geologist, expressed his amazement at seeing nothing for whole days but perpendicular cliffs everywhere riddled with human dwellings resembling the cells of a honeycomb. The apparently inaccessible heights were scaled by means of long poles with lateral teeth disposed like the rungs of a ladder, and inserted at intervals in notches let into the face of the perpendicular rock. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
