builders.

An incident illustrating the great antiquity of prehistoric man in
Arizona, is the following: In digging a well on the desert north of
Phoenix, at the depth of 115 feet from the surface a stone mortar, such
as the ancients used, was found standing upright, and in it was found a
stone pestle, showing the mortar had not been carried there by any
underground current of water, and that it had not been disturbed from
the position in which its ancient owner had left it with the pestle in
it. There is only one way to account for this mortar and pestle. They
had originally been left on what was at that time the surface of the
ground, and the slow wash from the mountains had gradually, during
unknown ages, raised the surface for miles on every side to the extent
of 115 feet.

The question is often asked, Will this hieroglyphic writing ever be
deciphered? The authors of the most ancient hieroglyphic writings or
markings seem to have had well-defined forms or marks, which were in
common use for this class of writing. Is it not most reasonable that a
race so far advanced in other ways would have perfected a method of
transmitting by marks of some kind their records to those who might come
after them? Again, where so much system is shown in the use of symbols,
it may be presumed that the same mark, wherever used in the same
position, carries with it a fixed meaning, alike at all times. Having
such a settled system of marks, there must be a key to the thoughts
concealed in writing, and quite likely the key for deciphering these
hieroglyphics will sometime be found on one of the yet undiscovered
hieroglyphic rocks in the high mountains or in the mounds not yet
examined. On the other hand, there can be no key to the inferior class
of pictographs made by the people who came after the mound, canal and