24 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
The Musty and Distant Past. 
Puzzles of Mystery and Ruins Left for the White 
Man to Solve in the Puye Canyon. 
(By M. J. Brown, Epiror Lirrte Vauuey,-N. Y., Hus) 
(Continued from last issue.) 
In one room, plainly decernible, 
was what was once the opening of 
one of the larger rooms, mentioned 
above, and an oval seam on the 
plaster showed the opening had 
been closed long after the rest of the 
room had had its coat. Mr. Hoag, the 
custodian, said that no doubt a skel- 
eton was sitting just the other side 
of the wall. Oh, for a pick and 
thirty minutes, when the guard 
wasn’t there! I would have dug out 
this fellow, rattled his bones and 
asked him what it was all about. 
One house, just about the middle 
of the long cliff, and where a stone 
stairway ascends to the messa, was 
ditierent from all the rest. It was 
a double home or rather where a 
Lome had once been built and then 
another added, making one room, 
double the size of nearly all of the 
other hundreds of rooms of the city. 
Let me explain that every house 1s 
built alike, about 6x10, every one 
has a door opening, just big enough 
to erawl through on hands and 
knees and that every house has an 
opening just above the door, about 
12 inehes round, for a smoke hole. 
And from the inside of this house 
could be as plainly seen as if it were 
done yesterday, where one door and 
smoke hole had been walled up. 
Small stones were laid up in the 
wall. and plaster spread between, 
and when the work had been com- 
pleted the cement was joined to the 
older plaster on the wall. 
And here I saw a mark I will 
never forget—the print of a human 
hand on the plaster, the imprint of 
the Cliff Dweller who did the job. 
ILlow long it had been there no one 
can tell. 
And now let me tell you some- 
thing about some relies that I dug 
from the floor of a cliff home—price- 
less relies to me of an unknown age 
and civilization. 
At noon the custodian had to re- 
turn to his tent to meet some forest 
rangers for the httle Indian upris- 
ing had caused some excitement. 
The distance was four miles. The 
driver had laid down for a nap. I 
watched the man disappear down 
the canyon. I remembered a cave 
that had particularly interested me 
as having the walled opening and 
as having so many more small rooms 
cut from it. I took an empty pear 
can from where we had luneched, 
battered the opened end down like 
a wedge, and then I went up the 
ladder to this ruin like a squirrel. 
And there in the dust of ages, blown 
in from the desert, brought in by 
the rock squirrels and birds , I dug, 
dug frantically for some relic, while 
the powder dust filled my eyes and 
ears. 
And I found a treasure trove. 
There I uneovered small, wizzened 
bits of corn cob, nearly mummified 
by this dryest air on earth, and 
there I found a part of an ear of 
corn with the kernels on, and just 
as plain corn as if I had taken it 
from a New York state feed store. 
It is as black as a coal, both the ker- 
nels and cob, and the kernels are as 
brittle as coffee berries and black 
all the way through. From the 
quarts of dust I carried out to a 
better light, I found a dozen or 
more separate kernels, which I gath- 
ered and treasured like diamonds. 
For an hour I frantically dug to 
the rock floor almost every inch of 
the space, but only in this one corn- 
er did I find anything but broken 
bits of pottery—and I found many 
of these fragments. 
Besides the one perfect section of 
a corn ear I found the tapering tip 
to another ear, with the small ker- 
nels at the end, and five small pieces 
of cob wizzened to the size of your 
finger. 
I noted that as soon as exposed to 
the light and air the kernels on the 
corn could be easily rattled off, and 
how to save my treasures was the 
question. I climbed down from the 
cliffs, shook off the dust, and put 
the relics in my hat, and got back to 
the wagon just in time to meet Mr. 
Tloag on his return. 
Later, as I sat talking with him, 
and forgetting my treasures, I push- 
ed up my hat, and two or three an- 
cient kernels of corn fell down over 
my modern forehead. I believe TI 
was seared pale, not so much _ be- 
cause I had been forbidden to dig, 
but because I was afraid of losing 
my treasures. But he did not notice 
the leak. I have the relics now safe- 
CONQUEST OF THE AIR 
Vividly Described and Pictured in 
Walter Wellman’s Great Book, 
‘‘The Aerial Age’’. 
As Wellman recently broke all re- 
cords for sea flight in a dirigible 
balloon, so his book describing his 
thousand mile adventure in fog and 
tempest will enjoy a record break- 
ing sale. For years distinguished as 
an able journalist and as a forceful 
writer on general subjects of nation- 
al and international concern, it is’ 
only natural that ‘*The Aerial Age’’, 
detaimg his experience in the air 
and in the Arctics, should be widely 
read, especially as every civilized 
nation is on the alert for what will 
happen next in the world-wide 
struggle for the conquest of the air. 
Wellman has surely dared much 
and accomplished much in his two 
trips in quest of the North Pole, and 
more recently in his notable attempt 
to cross the Atlantic in his great di- 
rigible ‘‘ America.’’ What he has thus 
dared, and thus done, is vividly told 
about and illustrated with striking 
photographic productions. ‘‘The 
Aerial Age’’ is a handsome volume 
of more than 500 pages, and contains 
forty-eight full page pictures, detail- 
ing the construction, the flights and 
the finish of the great balloon that 
Wellman planned and put in mo- 
tion. He touches the whole subject 
of aerial navigation, not only des- 
cribing what has happened but fore- 
casting what will happen in the near 
future. On the whole, it is pretty 
safe to say that everyone who wants 
to get at the greatest subject now 
claiming the world’s attention, and 
to get at it either from a scientific, 
literary, educational or prophetic 
viewpoint, will want Wellman’s 
book. 
ly packed in cotton, in ten boxes in 
my suitcases, and when I get home I 
will plant some of the kernels and 
see if I can’t raise a crop of Before 
Columbus corn. ag 
I have exhausted my space and I 
haven’t told you half. I have yet to 
tell you of the stairways, the trails, 
the kiva and what a sight met my 
New York eyes when we had elimb- 
ed the stone stairway to the table 
land above the cliff homes. 
Now if the Indians will only be 
good one more day and let me get 
out with my tin box or relies, then 
they may have this dried up and de- 
serted land, and the spirits and ra- 
vens may guard the graves of these 
little old men of the long ago. 
