The age of the most ancient pictographs and hieroglyphics can only be
conjectured, but all give certain indications that they are many
centuries old, and the difference between the work of the ancient and
the later race leads the observer to believe that the older
hieroglyphics were made by a people far superior to those who came after
them, and who left no record in symbols, as we have said, with the
exception of crude representations of animals and reptiles.

In many instances it is quite evident that the same rock or cliff has
been used by the two different races to put their markings upon, the
later, or inferior, race often making their pictographs over or across
the hieroglyphic writings of the first race. Of the superiority of the
first people who left their writings on the rocks and boulders found in
the ancient mounds, ruins and graves, there can be no doubt, for their
writings show order and a well defined design in symbols, which were
evidently intended to convey their history to others; and it is quite
probable that those who made the great mounds, houses and canals were
the authors of these writings. It may be truthfully asserted that the
cliff dwellers of the rock houses in the deep cañons of the mountains
were of the same race as the mound builders of the valleys, for exactly
the same class of hieroglyphics found on boulders from the ancient ruins
of the valleys, are 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