PBWKEs] ANTIQUITIES OF MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK 3 



wander about on the Mesa Verde. The care of these herds often calls for long 

 rides ou the mesa and in its labyrinth of canons. During these long excursions 

 ruins, the one more magnificent than the other, have been discovered. The two 

 largest were found by Richard Wetherill and Charley JNIason one December day 

 In 1888, as they were riding together through the pifion wood on the mesa, in 

 search of a stray herd. They had penetrated through the dense scrub to the 

 edge of a deep caiion. In the opposite cliff, sheltered by a huge, massive vault 

 of rock, there lay before their astonished eyes a whole town with towers and 

 walls, rising out of a heap of ruins. This grand monument of bygone ages 

 seemed to them well deserving of the name of the Cliff Palace. Not far from 

 this place, but in a different caiion, they discovered on the same day another 

 very large cliff-dwelling; to this they gave the name of Sprucetree House, from 

 a great spruce that jutted forth from the ruins. During the course of years 

 Richard and Alfred Wetherill have explored the mesa and its canons in all di- 

 rections; they have thus gained a more thorough knowledge of its ruins than 

 anyone. Together with their brothers Jolm, Clayton, and Wynn, they have also 

 carried out excavations, during which a number of extremely interesting finds 

 have been made. A considerable collection of these objects, comprising skulls, 

 pottery, implements of stone, bone, and wood, etc., has been sold to " The His- 

 torical Society of Colorado." A still larger collection is in the possession of 

 the Wetherill family. A brief catalogue of this collection forms the first printed 

 notice of the remarkable finds made during the excavations. 



Mr, F. H. Chapin visited the Mesa Verde ruins in 1889 and pub- 

 lished ilhistrated accounts " of his visit containing much informa- 

 tion largel}^ derived from the Wetherills and others. Dr. W. R. 

 Birdsall also published an account of these ruins,'' illustrated by 

 several figures. Neither Chapin nor Birdsall gives special attention 

 to the ruin now called Spruce-tree House, and while their Avritings 

 are interesting and valuable in the general history of the archeology 

 of the Mesa Verde, they are of little aid in our studies of this par- 

 ticular ruin. The same may be said of the short and incomplete 

 notices of the Mesa Verde ruins which have appeared in several 

 newspapers. The scientific descriptions of Spruce-tree House as 

 well as of other Mesa Verde ruins begin with the memoir of the 

 talented Swede, Baron Gustav Nordenksiold, who, in his work, The 

 Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, gives the first comprehensive ac- 

 count of the ruins of this mesa. It is not too much to say that he has 

 rendered to American archeology in this work a service which will 

 be more and more appreciated in the future development of that 

 science. In order to make more comprehensive the jDresent author's 

 report on Spruce-tree House, the following description of this ruin 

 is quoted from Nordenskiold's memoir (pp. 50-56) : 



A few hundred paces to the north along the cliff lead to a large cave, in the 

 shadow of which lie the ruins of a whole village, Sprucetree House. This 

 cave is 70 m. broad and 28 m. in depth. The height is small in comparison 



"Cliff-dwellings of the Mancos Cauons, in Appalachia, vi, no. 1, Boston, May, 1890; 

 The American Antiquarian, xii, 193, 1890; The Land of the Cliff Dwellers, 1892. 



''The Cliff-dwellings of the Canons of the Mesa Verde, in Bulletin of the American 

 Geographical Society, xxiii, no. 4, 584, 1891. 



