Glimpses of our national parks . similar mental characteristics and cultural tendencies. The highest civilization undoubtedly developed in Peru, CentralAmerica, and southern Mexico, where architectural ruins of quiteastonishing beauty are to-day crumbling under the jungle. Thiscivilization was ruthlessly destroyed by the Spanish conquest follow-ing the discovery of America. The next highest prehistoric civilization was in our own Southwest,and the remains of its highest special development are the cliffdwellings of the Mesa Verde in southwestern Colorado, to preservewhich Congress has set apar
Glimpses of our national parks . similar mental characteristics and cultural tendencies. The highest civilization undoubtedly developed in Peru, CentralAmerica, and southern Mexico, where architectural ruins of quiteastonishing beauty are to-day crumbling under the jungle. Thiscivilization was ruthlessly destroyed by the Spanish conquest follow-ing the discovery of America. The next highest prehistoric civilization was in our own Southwest,and the remains of its highest special development are the cliffdwellings of the Mesa Verde in southwestern Colorado, to preservewhich Congress has set apart the Mesa Verde National Park. When one speaks of the Pueblo Indians he does not mean an Indianstock or tribe, but merely Indians, possibly of various stocks andmany tribes, who used to live, and a few of whose modern descendantsstill live, in pueblos or community houses of many rooms holdingentire tribes or villages under one roof. The builders of Mesa Verdesprehistoric dwellings were of the Pueblo type. OUR NATIONAL PARKS. 37. ?Spkuce Tkkk Hoi^sE, Mksa Veude National ParkShowing how the dwellings are protected under overhanging clitts BURROWING INTO THE MESAS Those wlio have traveled through our Southwestern States haveseen from the car window innumerable mesas or small isolated pla-teaus rising abruptly for hundreds of feet from the bare and oftenarid plains. The w^ord mesa is Spanish for table, and indeed manyof these mesas wdien seen at a distance may suggest to the imaginative]nind tables with cloths reaching to the floor. Once the level of these mesa tops was the level of all of this vastsouthwestern country, but the rains and floods of centuries have^^ashed away all the softer earth down to its present level, leavingstanding only the rocky spots or those so covered with surface rocksthat the rains could not reach the softer gravel underneath. All have heard of the Enchanted Mesa in New Mexico which theIndians of recent times considered sacred. The Mesa Verde, or greenm
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