[Scill Later] Tribune
July 8
RELIC OF THE CAVE-DWELLERS.
A STICK OF VOLCANIC SLATE COVERED
WITH HIEROGLYPHICS.
Al Huntington Bring Up a Reminder of
Ancient Days - Rough Trails and Elevated
But Run [?] House.
A TRIBUNE Reporter has been shown an
object of great interest to the antiquarian.
It is a polished stick of volcanic slate about
eighteen inches long and two inches thick,
weighing four and one-half pounds, and
was brought to the city by Al Huntington,
who all old-timers in this regions either
know or have heard of.
Mr. Huntlogton has been living at Lee's
Ferry, on the Colorado river, for four years.
Like all old mountaineers, he spends a great
deal of his spare time in prospecting, and
while so engaged ho found this stick of
slate in a Cliff Dweller's house on the Colorado
river, in Arizona.
This was at the southeast end of the Buckskin
mountains, about eighty miles below,
or southwest of Lee's Ferry. At this point
the river is approached over Major Powell's
old trail, which leads through the Saddle
canon. The canon is very precipitous, and
at points is dangerous to any but sure-footed
animals, At one point there is a
projecting ledge on the trail. Here a
"bridge," composed of rocks, held in place
by a long pole, has been built around the
ledge. It is narrow and Mr. Huntington's
packhorse fell from it and was dashed to
pieces hundreds of feet below.
Just below this on the trail is the Devil's
Ludder, about 300 feet long, and so steep that
a man or cayuse can climb it only with
great difficulty. Two miles further down
the Saddle cañon is the Nan-co-weep creek,
and following that three miles brings us to
the Colorado river. The mouth of Saddle
cañon is about 7000 feet higher than the
river, which is reached by passing over a
succession of terraces, some of which are 500
feet high.
Mr. Huntiogton reached the dwellings
mentioned by following a narrow ledge
about 4000 feet above the river. Fronting
on this ledge, which the pigmies must have
regarded as a wide and imposing boulevard,
were four dwellings. The walls were in a
good state of preservation, but the roof of
each had eaved in. The walls were of stone
laid in cement, and seemed to be as solid as
when built, many hundreds of years ago,
The doorway was about three feet high,
and the room about 10x12 feet in area. Dirt
to the depth of a foot covered the floor, and
it was there that Mr. Huntington dug up
the stone mentioned above.
A TRIBAL BOOK.
This stone possesses peculiar interest by
reason of its being covered with hieroglyphics
which are still plainly visible
under a magnifying glass. It is a tribal
book, and therefore is to those Indians
what the papyrus is as a chronicler of the
history of the ancient Egyptians. The
hieroglyphics extend lengthwise of the
book, and both Professor Montgomery and
John B. Taylor believe that the book is a
record of sundry travels or expeditions of
the tribe. What seem to be mountains,
streams and a trail are plainly delineated.
It is Mr. Huntington's purpose to send the
book to Buffalo Bill at Chicago.
Another valuable article found at the
same place was an earthen jar, also covered
with hieroglyphics. It was egg-shaped,
about two feet high and ten inches in
diameter at the top. While lowering it to a
wider ledge with a rope, a sharp rock out
he rope, and the jar became & mass of
fragments. Then, when Al saw a small
fortune so suddenly vanish, his only consolation
was to use language, and there is
no doubt but he exhausted the subject.
There are but few of those jars known to be
in existence, and to the archaeologist they are
of almost priceless value.
On the perpendicular walls of Grand
river, hundreds of feet above the water, are
hieroglyphics and representations of Indians
and animals in red paint. They may
have been there when Christ was on earth,
yet the action of the elements has neither
erased them nor even diminished their color.
Even those barbarians could teach us something
if they could come back.
Mr. Huntington also found stone hammers
which seemed to be bard as steel, and
other articles which he brought have brought
away had he considered their value.
Sixteen miles farther down the Colorado
there is a village of twenty or thirty houses
about two thousand feet above the river bed.
These houses are in a state of ruin from
natural decay. At this point the bank of
the river is less precipitous, and the village
can be reached from below. Large cottonwood
trees are growing up tot the edge of
the village. Mr. Huntington did not stay
long enough to explore for mummies.
