460 ANNUAL BEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1916. 



toward the preservation of what remams of these masterpieces of 

 ancient American art. Should the extraordinary upper surface of 

 the dragon, shown in an accompanying illustration, continue as now 

 exposed to the elements and to the wear that will come, what must 

 we anticipate its appearance will be after the lapse of a thousand 

 years? The strongly relieved features will be leveled with the gen- 

 eral surface and the deep-set eyes lifted to heaven will, from the tears 

 that fill them with every storm, be blind depressions in the roughly 

 pitted surface of a great meaningless bowlder of sandstone. As soon 

 as the work of exploration and record is completed the work of pres- 

 ervation, of covering in, should be taken up as a national obligation 

 of the Republic in whose custody these monuments must remain. 



