Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1874-08-15

PRE.HISTORICAL RUINS IN ARIZONA.

A careful examination of some extern
sive ruins found some miles east of
Florence. on the Gila river, has been
made. Lieutenant Ward was the first
explorer who came npon the desolate
remains of once imposing architect
ural pile. 1t has been deserted per-
haps for more than thousand years,
and has been crumbling away in the
wilderness. The Apache even never
pitched his tent on the spot so thickly
strewn with fragments of the work of a
perished race. The principal ruin is a
parallelogram fortifcation G, 900 feet in
width by 1900 feet in length. The
walls, which were built of stone, have
long been overthrown and are over
grown with trees and vines. In many
places a mere ridge indicated the line
of the wall; the stones have disappeared
beneath the surface. Within the en-
closed area are the remains of great
structure 2OOv26O feet, constructed of
roughly hewn stones. In some places
the walls remain almost perfect to q
height of some twelve feet above the
surface. On the east side of the granda
casa there are two openings of an oval
shape, which doubtless served the pur-
pose of windows On the inner sides
of the walls of the palace, for such
doubtless it was, there are yet perfectly
distinct tracings of the sun. There are
two towers at the southeast and south
west corners of the great enclosure,
still standing, one of which is twenty
six and the other thirty-one feet high.
These have evidently been much higher,
rs the broken tops and the amount of
debris at their base show. A few cop
per implements, some small golden Or
naments-one being an image of the
sun with perforation in the middle,
and some stone utensils, and two rudely
carved stone vases, much like those
found at Zupetro and Copan, in Central
America, are all the works of art yet
discovered. No excavations have been
made yet to determine the extent and
character of these ruins. The ruins are
situated in small plain, elevated near
ly two hundred feet above the bed of the
Gila. Just west of the fortifcation
there is beautiful stream of water
having it's source in the mountains,
which crosses the plain, and by series
of cataracts falls into the Gila about
two miles below. The fragments of
pottery and polished stone reveal a con-
dition of civilization among the build
ers of these ruins analogous to that of
the ancient Peruvians, Central America
and Mexican nations. The country in
the vicinity of this buried palace is par
ticularly wild and unusually desolate.
No clue to the builders of this great
fortified palace, with it's towers and
moat, has been, or is likely ever to be
discovered. There is one thing, how
ever, made apparent, that is, that this
whole country was once peopled by
race having higher grade of civiliza-
ton than is found among any of the
native tribes of the latter ages. But
whether this race was the ancestors of
the Pimos, or some extinct people, is
not and cannot certainly be known.
The ruins on the Gila are another un-
covered Palenque, another Copan, an
Allan exposed, at least to bewilder and
confound. 1t is understood that these
extensive ruins will be thoroughly ex-
plored within the present year.