New Mexico's Inscription Rock. "Where History Began In America!"

KIT CARSON

Publication: Vantage Press, 1967, New York

First edition. 8vo. Red cloth, titles stamped in white on the spine, 48 pp., illustrated from photographs. "In the western part of central New Mexico there is a fantastic spectacular monolith with the sheer towering skirts as mysterious, in one respect, as they are expressive." On the vertical walls of Inscription Rock, travelers since prehistoric times have carved their names, or other inscriptions of their choice. Yet many are so baffling to decipher that their secrets may never be known. Here, at El Morro National Monument, is where history began in America. Here is the Spaniards Onate’s message, "Paso por aqui." (“passed by here”), first legible inscription, dagger-carved in 1605, 15 years before Plymouth. Here, recorded in stone, is history, the passage of mankind: Indians, conquistadors, pious padres, explorers seeking the Golden Cities, traders, trappers, a camel caravan, badmen, emigrants, missionaries, Army people, frontiersmen, homesteaders, ranchers who knew America's oldest campsite near "The Pool by the Great Rock." Kit Carson writes a finally descriptive history of Inscription Rock, its dramatic past, its fascinating inscriptions, the Atsinna Ruins high on its surface, its colorful parade of travelers, from mail-clad Spaniards and excited Anglo-American pioneers to the thousands of visitors it knows today. It is a vividly evocative tale of Indian petroglyphs, proud Spanish inscriptions, carvings by men of religion, including those soon to be martyred, and countless other messages in stone for the passerby to read. The author comes to his task in the spirit of reverence the Indians feel for the site. For the great rock holds its aura of tranquility and peace. Even now, "Despite man's constant appearance, it produces a feeling upon the visitor that he is in a faraway place, far, far from the environs of the troubled world. It is a sensation you will not forget." Fine, bright copy in price-clipped, lightly rubbed dust jacket, lightly sunned on the spine and with light wear to the spine ends.

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