found on the rocks near the houses of the cliff
dwellers.

If this superior race were so distinctive from all other ancient races
of Arizona--in their work being so far advanced as to solve what would
be called, even at the present day, difficult engineering problems; to
dig great canals many miles in length, the remains of which can be seen
at the present time, and to bring them to such perfection for irrigating
purposes; to build such great houses and to live in cities--may it not
have been, as many who have studied this subject now contend, that this
superior race were white people instead of a copper colored race, as has
generally been supposed?

The hieroglyphics of the more ancient race are often found on sheltered
rocks on the slopes of the mountains leading up from the valleys.
Generally protected from the elements by overhanging cliffs, the dry
climate has kept the writings from wearing away, and being in most
instances picked into rocks which have a black, glistening surface, but
of a lighter color underneath, the contrast is very noticeable, and when
in prominent places these hieroglyphics can be seen several hundred feet
away.

As no metal tools have ever been found in the mounds, ruins or cliff
dwellings, the hieroglyphics were probably picked into the rock with a
sharp-pointed stone much harder than the rock upon which the work was
done. It is a singular fact that, although iron, copper, gold and silver
abound in the mountains in Arizona, no tools, utensils or ornaments of
these metals are found in the mounds or ruins. Yet furnace-like
structures of ancient origin have been found, which appear to have been
used for reducing ores, and in and around which can be found great
quantities of an unknown kind of slag.

In many instances the hieroglyphic boulders have been found in great
heaps, of several hundred in number, as if many different persons had
contributed a piece of this strange writing to the collection. These
etched boulders have been found buried in the ground with ollas
containing the charred bones of human beings, and could the writings on
the boulders be deciphered, we would undoubtedly learn of the virtues of
the prehistoric deceased, just as we do of a person who dies in the
present day, when we read the epitaph on a tombstone of the one who is
buried beneath.

In opening some of the mounds, the investigator finds they are made of
the fallen walls of great adobe buildings, and as he digs