202 



EARLY AMERICANS 



and they stand to-day among the most interesting ruins 

 of the Southwest. By digging in and about them explor- 

 ers have found countless articles in stone, pottery, and 

 wood, telling the story of these ancient people, the fore- 

 fathers probably of the Indians living in and about the 

 Southwest to-day. All over Arizona and New Mexico 

 ruins of some kind are found ; some, like the Casa Grande, 

 of large size, and many of adobe show that vast communal 

 towns once stood here, but have been battered down by 

 wind and rain until only the outline remains to be read 

 by the man of to-day. What these old cities were, can be 

 understood only by visiting the wonderful ruins. They 

 are built in lofty places and doubtless look as they did 



centuries ago. When the May- 

 jloiver landed at Plymouth, the 

 continent of North America was 

 well populated by Indians ; a 

 strong and vigorous people in 

 the main, a dominating race 

 which made a stubborn resist- 

 ance, but they have been swept 

 away like sand before a flood, 

 and the pitiable remnant on the 

 various reservations tells a strik- 

 ing story of the truth of the 

 axiom that the fittest survives. 

 The red men evidently had 

 reached their highest intellec- 

 tual plane. They lived to hunt, 

 fight, and eat, and were no match for the hordes of white 

 men who had in the main higher ideals, and who have 



Fig. 193. — An American 

 Indian. 



