Morning journal and courier., 1893-01-04
Salt River Valleys Ruins.
Correspondence of the St. Louis Globe Demo

Salt River Valleys Ruins.
Correspondence of the st. Louis Globe Demo
crat.
That the Salt River valley of Arizona,
at one time in centuries past, was thickly
settled by an industrial people, no one
who has travelled through the valley can
deny. In fact, turn the eye whichever
way you may in the Gila or Salt River val
leys, and it will rest upon ruins of great
buildings or the remains of ancient canals
which can be traced many miles across the
deserts. But the Salt River valley In par
ticular seems to have been the favored
spot above all others in Arizona where
these ancient people lived and built cities,
and who dug canals heading from the
large as and more numerous than those of
the present day. Remains of adobe-house
walls in the valley and of stone house
walls in the mountains, and many we'll
fortified mountain peaks, show that the
buildings at one time were large and mas
sive. The fortified peaks show no mean
plans for defence, and the narrow trails
along precipitous cliffs which led into
these rocky Businesses show they had lead
ers among them who could truly be called
generals of war.
The canals in some places were worked
for hundreds of feet through the hardest
kind of rock. Did they break thie by re-
peatedly building great fires along the line
and then pouring water upon the hot rock
and cracked it, or did they have metal
tools? No ancient metal tools have ever
been found in the mounds or ruins. How
!, u. L, IL l.
of the many unsolved questions connected
who have laid out the canals which now
irrigste the valley could do no better In
many instances than to follow the course
and grade of the prehistoric engineers,
thereby saving many thousands of dollars
in rock work and obtaining the fall of wa
ter desired. Hardly spadeful of earth
can be turned over in a great portion of
this valley without bringing to view frag-
ments of fine pottery, some of which are
nicely painted, and the colors are as bright
as if painted but day since.
Curiously formed stones, carved by the
patient hands of these ancient people, and
others covered with strange hieroglyphics,
are found by the rancher as his plough for
the first time turns over the desert soil, OF
by the curious one who investigates the
mounds.
Hundreds of ancient mounds, from
those a few feet across and raised just
above the surface of the surrounding
ground to those which cover several acres
of ground and twenty or more feet in
height, can be found up and down the
valley. Some of these mounds, when
they are dug into, show they are the over.
turned walls of what at one time must
have been massive buildings. Other
mounds. covering several acres of land,
show they were built up from earth brought
from the surrounding desert by multi
tude of people. In some of the mounds
beautifully painted ollas have been found,
containing the ohsrred bones of human
beings, for without doubt these ancients,
to great extent, believed in and prscticed
cremation, In the mounds are also found
boulders of stone covered with hero
glyphics and shells on which are cut
strange looking faces or animals. Curl
ously carved shell bracelets, still encir-
cling the arm bones of skeletons, and
pieces of slate with strange marks cut on
them, which, if they could be deciphered,
might tell the life tale of this vanished
race, have been unearthed.
Were the clin-dwellers, the ruins of
whose rock houses are found built under
overwhelming cliffs, high up the nearly in
accessible sides of the deep canyons,
throughout the mountains of Arizona, of
the same race as the mound builders of the
valleys below! This is question often
asked. Some who have made this subject
study think those who titled the soil of
the valleys were driven from their irriga-
ted fields by a wsrlike race to the noun
tains, where they took refuge in the rocky
forts and built houses up the sides of
steep cliffs only reached by ladders or
knotted ropes.
Here in these cliff houses have been
found cemented tanks to hold water for
long time should necessity require it, and
places for graneries, where could be stored
seeds, grain or other food. All evidence
goes to show that these cliff dweliers lived
so they could, In case of siege, easily and