FEWKEs] ANTIQUITIES OF MESA VEKDE NATIONAL PAEK 25 



removed, possibly by cliff-dwellers, long before white men first visited 

 the place. 



Many of the walls had been broken down and their foundations 

 undermined, leaving great rents through them to let in light or to 

 allow passage from the debris thrown in the rooms as dumping 

 places. Hardly a floor had not been dug into, and some of the finest 

 walls had been demolished." All this was done to obtain pottery and 

 other minor antiquities that had a market value. The arrest of this 

 vandalism is fortunate and shows an awakened public sentiment, 

 but it can not repair the irreparable harm that has been done. 



Repair or Walls 



The masonry work necessary to repair a ruin as large and as much 

 demolished as Cliff Palace was very considerable. The great- 

 est amount was expended on those walls in front of the cave floor 

 hidden under the lower terraces, at the northern and southern ex- 

 tremities. The latter portion was so completely destroyed that it 

 had to be rebuilt in some places, while at the southern end an equal 

 amount of repair work was necessary. (Pis. 3, 6, 7, 9.) To perma- 

 nently protect these sections of the ruin the tops of the walls and 

 the plazas were liberally covered with Portland cement, and run- 

 ways were constructed to carry off the surface water into gutters 

 by which it was diverted over the retaining walls to fall on the rock 

 foundations beyond. It would be impossible permanently to protect 

 some of these exposed walls without constructing roofs above them ; 

 at present every heavy rain is bound to cover the floors of the kivas 

 with water and thus eventually to undermine their foundations. 



The preservation of walls deep in the cave under protection of the 

 roof was not a difficult problem. The work in this part consisted 

 chiefly in the repair of kiva walls, building them to their former 

 height at the level of neighboring plazas. 



Major Antiquities 



Under this term are embraced those immovable objects as walls 

 of houses and their various structural parts — floors, roofs, and fire- 

 places. These features must of necessity be protected in place 

 and left where they were constructed. Minor antiquities, as imple- 

 ments of various kinds, stone objects, pottery, textiles, and the like, 

 can best be removed and preserved in a museum, where tliey can be 

 seen to greater advantage and by a much larger number of people. 

 The ideal way would be to preserve both major and minor antiquities 



" Some, possibly considerable, of this mutilation may be ascribed to the former occu- 

 pants. Th(> Fte Indians will not now enter cliff-dwellings and probably are not responsi- 

 ble for their destruction. 



