OUE NATIONAL PARKS. 13 



on their earthenware jars or scratched on the sides of the cliffs adjoin- 

 ing their habitations. 



As their sense of beauty was keen, their art, though primitive, was 

 true; rarely realistic, generally symbolic. Their decoration of cotton 

 fabrics and ceramic work might be called beautiful, even when judged 

 by the highly developed taste of to-day. They fashioned axes, spear 

 points, and rude tools of stone; they wove sandals and made attrac- 

 tive basketry. 



They were not content with rude buildings, and had long outgrown 

 caves or earth homes that satisfied less civilized Indians farther north 

 and south of them. They shaped stones into regular forms, orna- 

 mented them with designs and laid them one on another. Their 

 masonry resisted the destructive forces of centuries of rain and snow 

 beating upon them. 



DISCOVERY OF SUN TEMPLE 



The Mesa Verde tribes probably had little culture when they first 

 climbed these precipitous rocks and found shelter, like animals, in 

 the natural caves under the overhanging floor of the mesa. These 

 caves were shelters not only from the storm of winter and the burning 

 sun of summer, but from rapacious human enemies as well; for there 

 are evidences of warfare among the prehistoric tribes of our south- 

 west lands. 



But with the generations, perhaps the centuries, they made rapid 

 strides. Ladders were substituted for zigzag trails, making their 

 retreats more inaccessible, adobe supplemented caves, brick and stone 

 succeeded adobe, culture succeeded savagery. 



A great mound on the top of the mesa which Dr. Fewkes unearthed 

 in the summer of 1915 shows that, probably about 1300 A. D. they had 

 begun to emerge from the caves to build upon the surface, still a fur- 

 ther advance in civilization. It is significant that this building is 

 partially sculptured and architecturally ambitious. It is still more 

 significant that it was not a house for temporal needs nor a fortress 

 for warfare, but a religious structure. It was a temple to their god, 

 the sun. 



The remains of this advanced civilization, of quality so greatly 

 beyond its neighbors, may be seen and studied by all who choose to 

 visit the Mesa Verde National Park. It is an experience full of 

 interest and pleasure. There are many canyons, and many ruins 

 in each canyon. There are ruins yet unexplored. There are several 

 mounds, like that under which Sun Temple was discovered, yet un- 

 earthed. The visitor may enter these ruins and examine many of the 

 articles which were found in them. 



