The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1902-09-27
RUINS OF AMERICAN CITIES.


RUINS OF AMERICAN CITIES.
The passage by the house of represen-
tatives at Washington of a bill for the
creation of a national park for the pres
ervation Of the petrified forest of north
eastern Arizona from the vandalism of
relic-hunters and seekers of polished
stones for ornamental building purpos-
es, led same seven thousand people re-
Gently to petition congress for the crea-
ton of national park for the preserva-
ton Of the remains of several large cit
les, in Maricopa and Pinal counties, in
Arizona, that passed away hundreds of
years ago. Professor hamilton b.
nynge, of Cambridge university, has
said that there is no richer field for
archaeological work in America than
the ruined sites of these prehistoric
communities. Unless congress throws
some protecting hand over them there
will be little left of the relics by anoth-
er ten years. While Italy has been pro-
tecting her Pompeii and Herculaneum
for a century, while Egypt jealousy
guards her ancient relics, and even
Mexico and Peru permit no one to go
digging among their relics of prehistor-
ic races, there has never Except in the
case Of the ruins of the aboriginal tenn
pie All Casa Grande) been the least le-
gal effort to save from obliteration the
marvellous relics of the buried cities on
the plains of southern Arizona, or to
check the destruction Of the matchless
cliff and cave dwellings among the
mountain canyons along the line of the
Atchison. Topeka and Santa Fe railroad
In northern Arizona. The tourists, who
become more numerous in Arizona eve
ry winter. have made relic-gathering a
settled industry. There are cowboys,
schoolboys, clerks and men out of a job,
who go forth every winter and dig and
plow for relics In these Pompeiis of
America. In the last ten years there
has been awholesale ripping open of
tombs of prehistoric warriors, a search
ing for ancient turauoises, battle weap-
ons, personal finery. household utensils
and other articles used by the unknown
ancients, who dwelt In the ella valley.
The buildings. of the enormous irriga-
ton plants In the Salt and ella valleys
has obliterated} acres of very interesting
remains of aboriginal irrigation sys-
TENS, while ranchmen and cattlemen
have laid low many an outline of pre-
historic structures, where trained
archeologist might have learned facts of
inestimable value in solving the pro-
benz of who these aboriglnes were. how
they lived, whence they came and
whittier they departed. During the last
year several fine specimens Of the engi-
neerlng skill of the mysterious race who
dwelt here ages ago have been covered
over and well-nigh obliterated by alfal-
ia growers.
There are no more interesting aborig-
inal remains in the Union than these of
the buried towns in the ella and Salt
valleys, within fifty miles of Phoenix.
Indeed an aggregation of mines of pre-
historic towns may be traced across the
hot, sandy, desert wastes from Florence
southwark into Sonora, Mex. Frank H.
Gushing estimated that the population
of these dead, silent. uninhabited local
tiles was once over three hundred thou
sand. In age, these ruins Of the buried
cities of Arizona are far earlier than
Pompeii and Herculaneum.
The evidence is overwhelming that
there were once fourteen aboriginal cit
les, each having population varying
from ten to seventy-five thousand in
southern Arizona. Here, In what was a
wholly unclaimed desert until the last
few years, and is yet largely waste of
hot. drifting sands, there lived several
thousands of years ago a dense popula-
ton Of intelligent, ambitious and skilful
farmers. That these people lived In thsi
region hundreds of years, is not gain
said by any archeologist, and that they
were the peers in brains and progress Of
any contemporaneous race on the west
ern hemisphere is patent to the most
careless investigator. The irrigation
systems, which comprise canals sixteen
miles long, with ingenious water gates:
the arrangement of streets and build
ings; the polished woods, stones and
shells; the finely-woven fabrics that
have been recovered from these buried
ruined cities all tell Of the high degree
of civilization reached by these mysteri-
Gus people. There is no more fascina-
ting subject in the realm of scientific
exploration and study than that which
concerns the origin and aspirations. the
wars and the final and wonderfully
complete disappearance of the several
hundred thousnd men and women who
made a garden of the Arizona wastes
centuries ago.
The remains of the largest cities are
on sloping, plain-about forty-five
miles across in any direction-between
the Salt and ella valleys,
The irrigating canals are characteris-
tic of this region. Over seven hundred
thousand acres of land must have been
watered by these great systems. Even
in this day of mechanical devices and
the finest tools and appliances, the con-
struction of such canals, big dams, stor-
age reservoirs and dykes would be no
mean engineering work. Fancy, then,
what years of patient labor their con-
struction required from this pheristoric
race, who had only crude stone imple
ments to excavate with, and wicker