ANovember,hia9ro™'}    Pre-historic  Pharmacy  in  America,  545 
who  stands  amid  its  ruins.  Silent  villages  and  abodes  by  the  thou- 
sands are  here,  carved  avenues  in  solid  rock,  stone-built  houses 
standing  as  if  deserted  but  recently.  And  yet  back  again  are  hil- 
locks that,  built  in  dimmer  distances,  show  where  in  preceding  ages 
buildings  have  crumbled  into  dust  in  this  arid  atmosphere  that 
dries,  and  decay  is  unknown.  A  section  of  this  land  as  large  as  a 
mighty  European  empire  was  once  covered  with  lava.  Through  it 
peep  the  ruins  of  stone  houses  whose  builders  left  no  cry  to  tell  of 
that  seismic  convulsion,  perhaps  periods  of  convulsion.  Man  dare 
not  conjecture  its  location  in  the  centuries  lost  to  time.  Here  in 
this  New  World's  oldness  are  dwellings  that  astound  us  even  to- 
day, a  single  stone-built  house  covering  five  acres,  with  fragments 
of  its  walls  yet  standing,  five  stories  high,  over  two  hundred  rooms 
on  the  ground  floor.1  Here  are  chains  of  dwellings  cut  into  solid 
stone  cliffs  and  perpendicular  canyon  sides  practically  inaccessible 
now  to  man.  And  in  the  desert  afar  stand  deserted  villages  where 
to-day  the  explorer  must  carry  water  to  drink  and  needs  be  careful, 
too,  that  his  supply  does  not  give  out,  for  in  those  sunburned 
houses  of  the  desert  once  teeming  with  life  no  drop  of  water  is  to 
be  found.  Thousands  of  abodes  and  villages  in  cliff  and  desert 
and  valley,  from  Utah  and  Colorado  in  the  north,  reach  down  into 
Mexico  and  Central  America,  where  deserted  pyramids  and  ruins  of 
great  temples  abound.  Silent  are  one  and  all.  Their  human 
records  are  as  hoary  puzzles  as  is  the  Ohio  mound  that  stands  on 
the  height  near  where  these  lines  are  written. 
Of  the  ruins  of  the  old  world  we  hear  much.  Much  that  is  tan- 
gible history  have  their  people  left  to  tell  their  story.  But  the 
ruins  of  this  so-called  new  world,  from  Atlantic  to  Pacific,  from 
Alaska  to  South  America,  rest  in  absolute  pre-historic  darkness.  No 
written  word,  no  voice,  no  tradition,  no  legend,  no  mythological 
line  in  stone  or  papyrus  to  say  aught  concerning  the  lives  that  came 
and  went  in  those  great  tragedies  played  in  time  lost  to  man. 
From  out  this  fascinating  southwest  land,  covered  with  its  relics 
of  pottery,  baskets,  stone  implements,  and  such,  come  down  to  us 
pharmacists  the  link  that  binds  us  professionally  to  these  silenced 
nations.  A  profusion  of  mortars  and  pestles,  granite,  lava  and 
sandstone,  litter  their  deserted  habitations.    Some  of  these  mortars 
1  Records  of  the  last. 
