The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-08-05
TERRACE BUILDERS
OF OLD MEXICO
Asether Race Of Prehistoric Architects
y, Discovered.
FOUND IN NORTHERN MEXICO
Mound Where Now There Is Not q
Handful of Inhabitants..Not an Ar.
Towhead Found, Bpt Some Rude
Implements and Pottery.
J. w. Mitchell, in New York Herald.

]. W. Mitchell. in New York Herald.
To the vanished races of the mound
builders, the cave dwellers and the cliff
dwellers, American archaeologists will
henceforth have to add another class of
prehistoric architects In the peopling of
the western hemisphere terrace
builders Of Northern Mexico. This dis
covery was the result of an expedition
sent out this winter by the United States
bureau Of ethnology into Northern Son
ora, the most northwesterly state Of old
Mexico.
The expedition did not 20 primarily to
look for prehistoric ruins. but that Is
"another story" and the finding of these
remarkable remains in a region hither-
70 considered barren Of ruins of any
sort was strange and interesting enough
to alone have repaid the labors Of the
party.
Imagine a great stretch of country.
big as any one Of the New England
states, a maze OF black frowning noun
tain ranges. broad alluvial valleys and
scattered buttes Of fantastic shape; q
land that IL garden for few short
weeks In spring and a fiery furnace for
the balance Of the year; a region where
the scattered ranches may be counted
on the fingers Of one hand and the in
habitants themselves scarcely know the
trails from one to the other; and then
fancy almost every butte and mountain
wrought more or less completely into
terraces, like to the hanging gardens Of
Babylon after ten centuries of drought.
and you have fair idea Of the land Of
the terrace builders.
But this description must not be taken
am!ss. The monuments to the industry
Of this vanished people. when taken
singly, are neither magnificent nor stu
pendous. Neither do they indicate any
great amount of engineering skill more
than Is necessary to lay a very excellent
quality Of rubble masonry with the ma
terial generously quarried by nature al
ready to hand. But. taken in the aggre-
gate. the work Is enormous, bespeaking
a swarming population and a social con-
dition which 1t Is hard at this time to
appreciate or understand.
To account for them, however. II Is
not necessary to resort to any wild or
romantic theories. Too many such
myths have already been exploded by
the practical, painstaking ethnologist
of today. The idea of a distinct and
mysterious race to account for the
mounds Of the Ohio and Mississippi val
leys, has long ago been settled in the
negative by that hardest of field-work-
ing scientists, Major Powell, while the
same hand, seconded by the researches
of Frank Gushing and others. has
traced back the genealogy Of the Pueb-
los to the time when their ancestors
peopled the cave and cliff houses of the
Manchos Canyon and the Canyon du
Chelly, and still later Carl Lumholtz has
found the wild and scattered fragments
of the same race still inhabiting dwell
ings of the same sort in some of the
most inaccessible mountains Of Old
Mexico.
ALosT RACE.
So 1t may be safe to suppose, for the
present at any rate, that the vanished
architects of the terraced mountains in
Sonora were the .progenitors Of some of
the peaceful tribes that were struggling
to hold their own aginst their fierce No
madic neighbors, the Pimas, the Apa-
ches and the Seri, when the country was
first opened to settlement by the Span
iards. But none of the tribes then ex-
isting had any records or traditions con-
Meeting 1t with the terraced mountains,
and there Is, so far as known, no men,
tion even In the Spanish records Of these
strange antiquities.
Ten years ago, when Bandallier was
carrying on his interesting researches
among the ruins Of New Mexico and
Arizona. he penetrated a short distance
into Sonora, but, finding that the ancient
Pueblo ruins characterized by Casa
Grande, Quivira, and by the modern
Zuni had disappeared entirely, he re-
turned to report the country barren of
ruins Of any sort. This region being
cut off OH the north by the forbidding
waste OF the Arizona desert and on the
west by the even more desolate shore Of
the California gulf, untouched by rail-
roads and scantily watered throughout,
1t Is little wonder that other scientists
were willing to take the pioneers word
for 1t and that region remained terra
incognita to the ethnologlst.
The expedition which ut length
brought these hidden ruins to light was
~
chief archaeologist Of the burea Of eth
noloEy, a scientist Of national reputa-
tion, and conscientious field worker,
but. one whose fame among his associ-
ates Is based almost as much on the &C.
centr!clty Of using no periods after his
initials as upon the number Of mono-
graphs he has written. With the party
was Willard Johnson, Of the United
states Geological Survey. as topogra-
pher, and, through the courtesy of Pro-
lessor McGee, was included in the off,
cial capacity OF photographer. A Mexi-
can driver. whose chief characteristic
was mortal fear of Seri Indians. and
a Papago interpreter, whose strong point
was his unlimited capacity for eating
and sitting still. completed the outfit.
The first Of the terraced mountains
visited was q comparatively small one,
overlooking the very ancient and sleepy
town OF Caborca, an isolated, dusty
speck OF a towE. whose only claim to
fame lies In having been the scene OF
the now almost forgotten massacre of
Crabbe and his hundred American fill
busters, almost half q century ago, This
Caborca Trinchera is q fair specimen of
Its sort. though not large. All Of the ter
raced mountains are known as La
Trinchera," the Entrenohed Mountain,
by the local population, and they calm
~ speak of their entrenched mountain
as though the name were distinctive
and there were no other in existence.
But they have lived SO long in its
shadow that they do not regard 1t with
amy more interest than any other part
Of the landscape. The only interest II
has for them is to furnish ready made
"melates," or grinding stones. And this
may account for the scarcity Of imple-
ments of any sort on the various noun
tains visited, for they must have served
from time immemorial as treasure
houses Of worked stone for the wander
Ing Apaches, Pimas and Papagos. all of
kn, =,