THIS MAY HiC SKKX BY MANY TOURISTS 



Few caves of any size in the cliffs of tliis country were overlooked by these seekers after impregnable homes. The one here shown is about 6^< 

 miles east of the Roosevelt Dam, and is admirably located for view. The ruins of Arizona are more accessible to rail and sleeping accom- 

 modations, being practically on the main line of the Southern Pacific and reached by auto from Globe or Phoenix. At the Dam is a com- 

 fortable lodge, only 6^ miles from the ruins. 



Mesa Verde and Casa Grande National Parks 



By Mark Daniels 

 Fortncr Siipcriiitriidciit of National Parks 



I CAME like Water, and like Wind I go." 

 Pregnant with mystery and romance, wrapped in 

 serene and lofty silence, at the top of the continent 

 lies the great green mesa that was once the abode of a 

 race that has long since been forgotten. To the north, 

 the east, the west, the south on lower plains, the soil is 

 plowed, the fields are tilled, and upon the breeze is borne 

 the hum of man's endeavor. But no sound rises to the 

 level of those silent cities and crumbling walls, that hold 

 the traveler in the spell of their aged mysteries. Whence 

 came these men who hewed the stones and timbers of 

 their buildings with crudely fashioned implements, yet 

 placed them with such skill that they have withstood the 

 centuries? Where are the children of those other chil- 

 dren who in the morning of time thronged the Great Mesa 

 and scaled the clifTs in such numbers that the paths worn 

 by their naked feet are still deep in the attesting stone? 

 "I came like Water, and like Wind I go." 

 Tucked away in huge caverns near the tops of great, 

 precipitous cliffs and overlooking the desert below and 



beyond, with its ever-changing lines, these wonderful 

 ruins stand as monuments to at least one philosophy of 

 Umar Khayyam, for we know not whence they came 

 nor why, nor why they went nor where. There are their 

 towers and outposts, their grain rooms and secret cham- 

 bers, their work rooms and living rooms, but amongst 

 all the things unearthed there, nothing has told the 

 secret of their race. What tragic truths are locked for- 

 ever within those silent clitf's! The life of a nation! 

 The death of a race! I^fforts have been made to read 

 their story from the evidences left and much has been 

 learned, but not enough to make the history complete. 

 Nor are the mystery and the search for its solution the 

 only fascinations that draw the tourist to this land, for 

 the skies are ever sparkling clear, the air is balmy and 

 of a purity that annihilates distance. To one standing 

 at the edge of the cliffs that bound the southern extremi- 

 ties of the mesa, the mountains of New Mexico that lie 

 beyond the desert, seem distant but a stone's throw. 

 Stretching between the cliffs and these distant mountains 



139 



