Identifier: somestrangecorners00lumm (find matches)
Title: Some strange corners of our country; the wonderland of the Southwest
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Lummis, Charles Fletcher, 1859-1928
Subjects: Southwest, New -- Description and travel
Publisher: New York, The Century Co.
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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any other convenience of civilization. In most of these houses there is little to be found. Furni-ture they never had, and most of the implements have beencarried away by the removing inhabitants or by subsequentroving Indians. The floors are one and two feet deep mth thedust of ages, mingled with nut-shells and thorns brought inby the rock-squirrels which are now the only tenants. Dig-ging is made painful by a thousand thorn-stabs and by sti-fling clouds of that flour-like dust; but it is often rewarded.AU about are stre^^Ti broken bits of prehistoric pottery, andthe veriest mummies of corn-cobs, shrunken by centuries ofthat diy air to the size of a finger and hardened almost toflint. There are also occasional squash-stems, as wizened andas indiu-ated. By digging to the bed-rock floor I have foundfine stone axes, beautiful agate an-ow-points, the puzzhngdiscoidal stones, and even baskets of yucca fiber exactly likethe strange plaques made in Moqui to-day. The baskets <-, •* ^ yf
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ti£ THE NEW YORKPUBLIC LIBRARY A8TOR, LENOX ANDTILDEN FOUNDATIONS. HOMES THAT WERE FORTS. Ill crumbled to dust soon after they were exposed to tlie air.There are few other countries so diy that a basket of sleudervegetable threads would hold its patterns for four hundredyears or more under a foot of soil. Between the small chff-houses aheady described and thecave-dwelhngs there is a very curious link—houses, or evenwhole to^TiSj built in a natuial cave. Montezumas Castle is such a one, and there are many, many others, of whichprobably the best-known—tha,nks to Jacksons expedition—are the fine ruins on the Mancos. Most of the importantruins of the Canon de Tsay-ee and its tributaries, Canondel Muerto and Monumental Canon, are also of this class.These caves are not, like the Mammoth Cave; great subter-ranean passages, but gi-eat hollows, generally like a hugebowl set up on edge in the face of the cliff. They absolutelyprotect the inclosed town (which is frequently one buildingof

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