ruin rises above the thicket. It is a building of very curious design. The outer wall was an exact circle of heavy masonry a hundred and thirty feet in circumference. Within there is another circular wall, concentric with the outer, inclosing one round room with a diameter of twenty feet. The annular space between the two walls was divided by partitions into ten small apartments. Other buildings of the same type occur in this region, some of much larger size and with triple walls. Even in this one, which is comparatively well preserved, the original height is uncertain, though the ruin still stands about fifteen feet high.

The vast quantity of débris about some of them indicates that they were of no significant height, and their perfect symmetry of form, the careful finish of the masonry, the large dimensions and great solidity, made them the most imposing architectural works of that ancient people. I find no reason to doubt that they were their temples, and the presumption is very strong that they were temples for sunworship. The occurrence of a circular room in connection with nearly every group of buildings is of special interest, as seeming to link the Cliff-dwellers to the modern Pueblo tribes in their religious customs.

Most striking and picturesque of all the ruins are the round watch-towers. On commanding points in the valley, and on the highest pinnacles of the cliffs overlooking the surface of the mesa, they occur with a frequency which is almost pathetic as an indication of the life of eternal vigilance which was led by that old race through the years, perhaps centuries, of exterminating warfare which the savage red men from the North waged upon them. To us the suffering of frontier families at the hands of the same blood-thirsty savages is heartrending. What was it to those who saw year by year their whole race's life withering away, crushed by those wild tribes?

Near the lower end of the cañon stands one of the most perfect of these towers, rising sixteen feet above the mound on which it is built. It was once attached to an oblong stone building which seems to have been a strongly fortified

house.

The rectangular walls, as usual, are prostrate, and have left the tower standing as solitary and picturesque and as full of mystery as the round-towers of Ireland.

In the Montezuma Cañon, just beyond the Colorado State border, there are some remains built after an unusual manner with stones of great size. One building of many rooms, nearly covering a little solitary mesa, is constructed of huge stone blocks not unlike the prehistoric masonry of southern Europe. In the same district there is a ruined line of fortification from which the smaller stones have fallen away and are crumbling to dust, leaving only certain enormous upright stones standing. They rise to a height of seven feet above the soil, and the lower part is buried to a considerable depth. Their resemblance to the hoary Druidical stones of Carnac and Stonehenge is striking, and there is nothing in their appearance to indicate that they belong to a much later age than those primeval monuments of Europe.

All the certain knowledge that we have of the history and manners of the Cliff-dwellers may be very briefly told, for there is no written record of their existence except their own rude picture-writing, cut or painted on the cañon walls, and it is not likely that those hieroglyphics will ever be deciphered. But much may be inferred from their evident kinship to the Moquis of our time; and the resemblance of the ancient architecture and ceramics to the arts as they are still practised in the degenerate pueblos of Arizona gives us many intimations in regard to the habits of the Cliff-dwellers. It was centuries ago-how long a time no one will ever know when that old race was strong and numerous, filling the great region from the Rio Grande to the Colorado of the West, and from the San Juan Mountains far down into Northern Mexico. They must have numbered many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions. It is not probable that they were combined under one government, or that they were even closely leagued together, but that they were essentially one in blood and language is strongly indicated by the similarity of their remains. That they were sympathetic in a common hostility to the dangerous savage tribes about

them can hardly be doubted. They were of peaceful habits and lived by agriculture, having under cultivation many thousands of acres in the rich river-bottoms, which they knew well how to irrigate from streams swollen in summer by the melting snows of the high mountain-ranges. We read of their dry canals in Arizona, so deep that a mounted horseman can hide in them. We know that they raised crops of corn and beans, and in the south cotton, which they skillfully wove. That they had commercial dealing across their whole country is shown by the quantity of shellornaments brought from the Pacific coast, which are found in their Colorado dwellings. They did not understand the working of metals, but their implements of stone are of most excellent workmanship. Their weapons indicate the practice of hunting, and while the race was still numerous their forts and their sharp obsidian arrows made easy their resistance to the wandering savage hordes.

I believe that no instance can be cited of a people still in their Stone Age who have surpassed that old race in the mason's art: indeed, I doubt if any such people has even approached their skill in that respect. The difficulty of constructing a great work of well-squared, hammer-dressed stones is enormously increased if the masons must work only with stone implements. Imagine the infinite, toilsome patience of a people who in such a way could rear the ancient Pueblo Bonito of New Mexico, five hundred and forty feet long, three hundred and fourteen feet wide, and four stories high! In one wall of a neighboring building of stone less carefully dressed it is estimated that there were originally no less than thirty million pieces, which were transported, fashioned, and laid by men without a beast of burden or a trowel, chisel, or hammer of metal.

At the time of the Spanish conquest the Pueblo tribes were worshipers of the sun and fire, like all the races of this continent which were above barbarism. To-day, even in those pueblos where a corrupted form of the Roman faith is accepted, there are traces of the old sun-worship mingled with it, and in all pueblos there are large circular rooms,

called estufas, reserved for councils and for worship. The invariable appearance of estufas among the ruined towns, and even on the ledges of the cliffs, shows what sacredness was attached to the circular room, which, perhaps, was symbolic of the sun's orb; it indicates a unity of religious faith between the ancients and moderns.

AMERICA

The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky

By THÉRÈSE YELVERTON

AROUND the caves, for eight or ten miles, was a series

of deep ravines, studded with projecting cliffs and rocks, and covered with oak-principally the English oakand another gigantic species, with leaves from a quarter to half a yard long, but of the same form as the ordinary oakleaf. Up and down the ravines we scrambled and roamed, as happy as goats or wild chamois. These ravines, or glens, have no doubt been the beds of some ancient river, now, perhaps, flowing through the bowels of the earth; for this part of the country is intersected by underground rivers, a stream often suddenly appearing, which, after flowing on for a few miles, plunges rapidly into the earth and is lost to sight.

An anecdote is told of two millers who had their mills on two different rivers, thirty miles apart. There had been a long drought, and neither mill had been working; but one day miller No. I heard his wheel going round at a tremendous pace, and going to examine it perceived a quantity of water, although there had not been a drop of rain for some time. He went over to communicate his good luck to his neighbor.

"Oh!" exclaimed miller No. 2, "you're gettin' my water unbeknownst, for a cloud burst over us the other night and nearly drowned us all." It was evident the millers were working the same stream, which ran for thirty miles underground, similar to the lakes in Florida, called sinks,