What to see in America . r particularly interesting placeis Grand Junc-tion, which hasin its vicinitysome of the mostproductive fruitcountry in theentire RockyMountain re-gion. In the south-western cornerof the state isthe Mesa Verde National Park. It is in a dry, warm, levelregion with thin pine forests. The striking features of thedistrict are occasional picturesque canyons, and now andthen a flat-topped elevation, one or two thousand feet elevations are called mesas, which is Spanish for of them are arid and bare, but the mesa which is thenational park is called the M
What to see in America . r particularly interesting placeis Grand Junc-tion, which hasin its vicinitysome of the mostproductive fruitcountry in theentire RockyMountain re-gion. In the south-western cornerof the state isthe Mesa Verde National Park. It is in a dry, warm, levelregion with thin pine forests. The striking features of thedistrict are occasional picturesque canyons, and now andthen a flat-topped elevation, one or two thousand feet elevations are called mesas, which is Spanish for of them are arid and bare, but the mesa which is thenational park is called the Mesa Verde because it has greenwoodland on it. All the region was originally on the levelof the table tops of the heights, but heavy rains and melt-ing snows have in the passing centuries worn a great deal ofthe country down to what it now is. The summits of themesas are of rock harder than any material that lies below,and this rock serves as a protecting cap which prevents thestorms from carrying off the soil In Mesa Verde National Park Colorado 423 One December day, in 1888, two brothers searching forlost cattle on the ]Mesa Verde pushed through the densegrowths at the edge of a deep canyon, and were amazed tosee, on a ledge under the overhanging edge of the oppositebrink, the walls and towers of what seemed to them the ruinsof a palace. Then they began to explore the vicinity, andnear by, similarly placed in another canyon, they found anequally majestic group of ruins out of which grew a largespruce tree. They called the first-found structure CliffPalace, and the latter Spruce Tree House. These are themost elaborate and best preserved prehistoric ruins inAmerica. In the years that followed, a careful searchresulted in numerous other finds of importance, and asrecently as 1915 a remarkable Temple to the Sun was un-earthed on the top of the mesa. Spruce Tree House containedabout one hundred rooms and was three stories high. Prob-ably a colony of nearly four hundred
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Keywords: ., bookauthorjohnsonc, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1919
