Notes

Abstract

DURING the field operations of one of the parties connected with the U.S. Geological Survey of the Territories, in charge of Prof. F. V. Hayden, portions of south-western Colorado, north-western New Mexico, and north-eastern Arizona, were traversed, embracing that broken-up country occupied in remote times by a race of people who were known as the cliff-dwellers. This subject is well known to readers in general, but we must recur to it again so as to be able to reach the importance of the discovery to be described. In one of the cañons, known as the Chaco, Mr. H. W. Jackson made detailed investigations and measurements of the immense ruined buildings. In one of the arroyas or dry water-courses, the sectional view of the alluvial deposit was exposed to a depth of about sixteen feet. Fourteen feet beneath the surface, a layer of pottery and débris came to view. This may not seem strange, as, in a comparatively narrow valley, dirt and gravel to the depth of fourteen feet might be deposited in a short term of years. But ten feet above this layer the foundation walls of ancient buildings were visible, built upon another layer of gravel and sand. These were in time covered with the alluvium upon which now stand the famous ruins, of which no history is extant, and of the builders of which no history will ever be known. How many ages have passed since the lower or first bed was the surface upon which moved the numerous hordes, of which all evidence at present is hidden behind the veil of the dark past? Now, a skull comes to view upon the layer of pottery, which is beneath two eras of occupation and semi-civilisation. This skull, in its contour, is unique. Its closest relations are the ancient Mexicans, Peruvians, Caribs, and Natchez. There is an extraordinary flattening of the upper posterior portion of the head (posterior parietal), which is evident in those figured in Morton's Crania Americana. The contents of the skull as found, consists of sand, which is now as hard as ordinary agglutinated sandstone, and has, in nearly all portions, the appearance of liminite. The skull will be described and figured by Dr. W. J. Hoffmann, of the U.S. Survey, and it affords another strong link in the chain of facts and hypotheses of the cliff-dwellers and the ancient Mexicans being more nearly related than is generally admitted or supposed.