ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT XClII 
certain conditions, that the idea of the storm god is largely a 
local product, that the faith in the rain god is the product of 
arid environment, that the venerated beast gods are but the 
sublimed animals of the adjacent range, and that all other 
primitive deities, and the primitive ceremonials through which 
they are exalted, reflect local conditions with remarkable 
fidelity. It is to be borne in mind that the natural districts 
overlap, and also that, even among the American aborigines, 
there was a long history of the blending of tribes, and so of 
arts, industries, laws, languages, and philosophies before the 
white man came, so that certain products of human activity 
were already common property; but a sufficient number of 
provincial products remain to indicate clearly the early course 
of human development, beginning with the stage in which 
man reflects his environment with close fidelity. 
Mr Mindeleff’s paper on the cliff dwellings of Canyon de 
Chelly is a faithful account of the ruins-of a little-known 
district. This district is noteworthy for the permanence and 
development of the type of habitation known as the cliff 
dwelling; here more than elsewhere in the United States, or 
indeed in North America, the domiciles of the cliffs are charac- 
teristic. The reason for the prevalence of this house type 
(which is, perhaps, too primitive to be regarded as an archi- 
tectural type) is not far to seek. The district is one of arid 
plateaus, separated and dissected by deep canyons; the pla- 
teaus, and thus the canyon walls, are frequently composed of 
flat-lying rock strata of such composition as to form ledge- 
marked cliffs under the influence of the erosion wrought by 
the rare storms; only along the few streams heading in the 
mountains and encircling the plateaus does permanent water 
exist, and along the cliff lines slabs of rock suitable for build- 
ing abound. These and other local conditions favored the con- 
struction of cliff dwellings and opposed the erection of other 
types of domicile; and the primitive ancients, dependent as they 
were on environment, naturally produced the cliff dwellings. 
The tendency toward this type of domicile was strengthened 
by intertribal relations; the cliff dwellers were probably de- 
scended from agricultural or semiagricultural villagers whe 
