Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1875 — Ancient Arizona. [ARTICLE]

Ancient Arizona.

A correspondent of the San Fran • cisco Chronicle writes from Florence, Arizona: The route and trip through Arizona grows more and more interesting at every stage of my evidences of an ancient civilization and of a former dense and agricultural population increase and multiply on every hand. During my stay here of five days I have visited many old ruins of houses, water-ditches, etc., on the plains around Florence, and for many miles around the country, all of which have been wonderfully interesting to me. The ruins called “ Casa Grande” are some ten or twelve miles south of west from Florence, and are the most noted of any in this region, solely on account of their better preservation. There are others very much larger, but more decayed. “ Casa Grande” is on the south side of the Gala River, and on the great plain or valley of the Gala, and distant from the river between two and three miles. West of the ruins some eight miles is a spur of the Sacatone Mountains; south, it is thirty miles to the “Picacho” Peak; to the north rise several detached, isolated mountain peaks, distant ten to fifteen miles, while far off to the north, sixty miles distant, are the “ Four Peaks,” and to the east extends the great Gala Valley as far. as the eye can reach. Here, in the center of this great vaffey, stands “ Casa Grande,” agrim sentinel of the past, of whose history nothing is known. From the ealiest histories of the country, going back to the account fiven by the Jesuit Fathers of the ndian war of 1753, and also away back to the Spanish expedition about the middle of the sixteenth century, we can learn but little of this and the other old and extensive ruins scattered all over Arizona. All of these earlier accounts speak of these ruins and also describe them almost exactly as the visitor finds them. “ Casa Grande” stands exactly with the points of the compass, the longest way being north and south. It is sixty-three feet long and forty-five wide. The walls are standing to the sixth story, and it was from appearance seven stories high. It is not built of common adobe, but of a kind of concrete or grout. It is very hard and as difficult to be broken as stone. The bases of the walls are five feet thick. The walls were evidehtly laid up the same as concrete houses are now built in the Eastern States, in tiers or blocks of thirty inches in height, as the seams between the tiers can be plainly seen extending across the whole building. The inside walls were plastered over with a peculiar hard cement of a dark orange color, and this cement or plaster is as perfect as when it was first put on, in the unknown ages of the past. There were five rooms on the ground floor, one of which, in walking over it, seems to be hollow below; yet of this we can only conjecture as the debris from the roof and falling walls have filled in these rooms to a depth of five feet or more. The opening or doorways between the rooms on the ground floor and the stories above werp uniform and about two feet wide and four high. On the west side of the building there seemed to have been a narrow door or gateway three stories high, but this had subsequently been filled in above the fir§t story with like material to the orig inal walls. On the north side w r ere four port-holes'about sis teen inches in diameter. On’the south side, near the southwest corner, there was evidently at first an open door or gateway six feet in width running up to the second or third story, but this had evidently been filled in at a later date, as the joint or seam can be plainly seen. Why these open ings were first left and afterward filled in is only a subject of conjecture. To me it seems that they were filled in by the occupants in order to more successfully repel and keep out enemies in time of war. This idea would also seem to convey the impression that this ancient, civilized and agricultural people were driven out by an armed foe. If so, there mdst have been a t£rrihle_war and . destruction, as ruins of like character as this are . to be found for hundreds of miles around. But to return to my description. The east side of the building had an opening above the first floor to the fourth story. This opening, window, or doorway was two feet wide. On the north end' there was an opening above the first floor six feet high and less than two feet wide, lhe floors above and the roof were upheld and supported by—“ vigas”—beams or rafters of pine, six inches or more in diameter, and they seem to have been destroyed by fire. The ends of these “vigas” yet remain in the walls, one of which I got out for examination. The ends of them were cut oft by stone axes, the dull, blunt cuts being plainly seen. These stone axes are found in and around the oid ruins and at other places, and are quite similar to those found in the old workings of the copper mines of Lake Superior. To the east of the “ Casa Grande” fifty feet a portion of the walls of another building are yet standing, and td the south 100 feet portions of another large building, the walls of which are in places over twenty feet high. All over the plain for a mile or more are mounds, being the debris of otherTarge buildings now gone to decay, yet in places the form and extent of them are easily traced. Broken pottery is scattered all over the country, but more profusely in and around the old ruins. A greaY irrigation ditch ran a few hundred yards from “ Casa Grande,” which in places is entirely obliterated by the washings of water and the changes of ages, but -where it was cut through a gravelly soil is yet plain to the sight. This ditch can be traced for forty to fifty miles up and down the river, ami is from one to four miles from it.. Hundreds of thousands of acres of land must have been watered by it, and untold amounts of grain and vegetables, etc., raised, sufficient to have supplied the wants of a very numerous people. At different places and miles apart i measured these great ditches where they had been cut through pebbly ridges, and found them from thirty to fifty feet wide, and in a few places over ten feet deep. I have as yet found no iron or metal instruments and no bones of large animals in or around these ruins, but a few shells, stone instruments, and large amounts of broken pottery. The pottery-ware was, much of it, painted in colors of red, black, orange and other colors, and some of it is as bright and perfect as when put on hundreds and perhaps thousands of years since. Government ought to appoint a few active, pnergetic and untiring men with instructions to explore these old ruins of ancient civilization. . And it should be done at once, Tor with the building of a southern trans-continental railroad the influx of an immense mining population and the improvement of the country consequent thereto most of them will be obliterated. On the line of

thia great ditch or canal ruins of large houses are found, and on the opposite, or north, side of the river other great ditches and rains are also found. One of these rains—some four miles northwest—l have examined, and the main building was one hundred and twenty feet long by eighty feet wide. The walls have all fallen down bat the foundation was easily traced. These walls were four and one-half feet thick and of the same concrete material as “ Casa Grande.” This and all other of the ruins were laid out with the points of the compass—north, south, east and west. Most of them are the longest north and south. From the northeast corner of this last-mentioned ruin a wall ran east fifty feet, thence at right angles south 225 feet, thence west 130 feet, and thence to the southwest corner of the building 105 feet, forming a court or yard, which is raised, and now stands from three to five feet above the surrounding plain. This ruin stands, like all the others, on slightly elevated ground, which here is a coarse gravel. Immediately to the north and west the soil is a rich silt, alluvial or sedimentary soil, capable of producing immense crops of all kinds of grain, fruit and vegetables. South of Florence one mile is another old ruin, which 1 visited in company with Mr. Collingwood, and south of east three miles another. In fact, all over the country they are found with the other evidences of industry, perseverance and skill of the ancient people who lived here. Who and what they were, none can tell. The ruins of great houses, canals and immense water-tanks still ex--ist, and have changed but little for the past 300 years, when they were old ruins as described by Spanish explorers and Padres the same as we now find them.