UNFAMILIAR SCENES IN NATIONAL PARKS 



349 



rare beauty in themselves but glorious outlooks over the 

 surrounding country to all who succeed in reaching them. 

 As for the wild life of the park, both animal and floral, 

 one finds this a source of never-ending interest. Mount- 

 ain sheep, elk, and 'deer are frequently seen, while the 

 industrious beaver and their works are in abundant evi- 

 dence. To describe the wild flowers would require a 

 volume. 



Colorado is also fortunate in possessing still another 

 national park of unique interest, Mesa Verde Park, in 

 the southwestern corner of the state. This park in its 

 entirety may be classed as "unfamiliar," for it is a long 

 way from the routes of transcontinental travel and is 

 reached only by a narrow gauge railroad whose "limited" 

 trains limited as to speed ! consume a generous amount 



down the opposite wall of the canyon, in a niche pro- 

 tected by the overhanging cliff, a whole village of stone 

 buildings, curious in design and partly in ruins. Coming 

 to another canyon you find a similar village, only much 

 larger, and in another canyon still another, and you arc 

 told that the park abounds in antiquities of the same sort. 

 These are the cliff-dwellings of a people whose whole his- 

 tory is shrouded in mystery. Who they were, where 

 they came from, how long they lived here, why they left, 

 and where they went to, these are questions as yet un- 

 answered. They belonged to the Stone Age, having no 

 knowledge of metal implements, yet they possessed a mar- 

 velous constructive skill; while the profusion of relics 

 found in the ruins show that in the making of pottery and 

 fabrics of various kinds they had a considerable degree of 



Photograph by George L. Beam THE COUNTRY OF THE CLIFF DWELLERS 



Here the housing problem of centuries ago was solved by excavating homes in the cliffs. The view is looking northward 

 from Inspiration Point, in the Mesa Verde National Park. At the left is the Sun Temple, and at the right the Cliff Palace. 



of time in reaching their destination. With the improve- 

 ment of the highways in this section of the state there 

 will be a very great increase in automobile travel. 



Imagine yourself journeying over a high plateau cover- 

 ed with scrub pine and juniper, with not a vestige or 

 suggestion of human habitation for a dozen miles or 

 more, when suddenly you come to the brink of a canyon 

 deeply countersunk in the plateau, and discover, half way 



artistic appreciation. Some of their patterns and designs 

 go back to early Grecian and Egyptian times. How did 

 they get them ? All these evidences of a prehistoric civili- 

 zation are of absorbing interest, and when Mesa Verde 

 Park becomes more readily accessible it will prove to be 

 one of the most popular objectives in national park ex- 

 cursions, because of its many unique features. 



