Arizona republican., 1902-12-21
CWritten for the Women's Club and
 published by permission.)

When the early 'conquistadores came from the south, in the early part of 15OO they found scattered over what is now Arizona, New Mexico and Colo rado. series of ancient ruins, which were then quite old looking, as they are today.
 Of these ruins, the one at Casa Grande, Arizona, of adobe, and at that time over five stories high, with mas sive walls and part of the floor and roof timbers still in place, seemed pos sibly to be the most recently occupied, and yet none of the tribes they met could tell them who built these ruins, nor when they were last occupied.
 They extended from what is now the northern end of Sonora, Mexico, into the state of Colorado, and as far east as the great Rio Grande valley. So far as is known none of them have been found to the north across the canyon of the Colorado river, that huge gorge forming an impossible barrier to the northern drift of the race that inhab- ited the buildings before they became ruins-althCugh the Hopi PueblOs had at the time oi COronadO's visit in 1045, a trail down into the canyon north of Lees ferry, where they went for salt.
 In Colorado the stream of emigra- tion flowed around and across the head waters of the great Colorado. The can yon of the San Juan and other tribu- taries of the big river being unusually rich in deserted dwellings. Eastward as a general thing they did not cross the valley of the Rio Grande, below where Albuquerque now stands, but above there their trail runs east to the neighborhOod of Santa Fe, which is especially rich in evidence of prehis- tOric occupation. Above Santa Fe the general government has recently ere ated PajaritO (Pa-ha-ri-to) national park. covering some 800, 900 acres, and within the limits of this park are found the most extensive. varied and satisfactory series of prehistoric dwell ings on the American continent. The park is a most beautiful piece of land, well timbered. plenty of water and cas- fly visited. It is a mesa country and sceamed with deep, rocky canyons. where these people found an ideal home.
 There are four distinct types of dwellings here in this park First, the
 
 Arizona-a heap of rocky debris; then the ordinary cliff dwellings, built away up Cn the sides of cliffs. and generally with three walls and a roof, in contra distinction to the type known as cave dwellings, which are merely natural caves or recesses in the rocky cliff walled up in front; and finally a type not found elsewhere, which consists of a small dCor-like opening about two and a half by four feet, cut into the solid rock running back oft-times eight or ten feet and then opening out into wide chamber frequently ten or fifteen feet square. All this is chiseled out of the solid rock and not very far up from the bot tom of the cliff. Tn fact the most of them are within easy reach with a short ladder
 The cliffs are of hard sandstone and the labor of cutting these chambers must have been tremendous.
 Of this type of dwellings there are many thousands, the cliffs being full of them for miles and miles It is esti- mated there are 300 miles of cliffs in this park, almost every mile of which has numerous ruins. Some of the canyons are literally honey-combed with them.
 The ruin at Casa Grande stands alone, as type, there being, SO far as is known, no other adobe ruin that can be ascribed to the prehistoric era.
 Whence came the builders of these long deserted ruins?
 By careful research it is easy to trace the migration that led this strange people up from the south. for. from the south they surely came-in direct contrast to the native Indian, who as surely came from the north.
 The valleys of the Salt and Gila were their first general stopping place, and as those vicinities grew in numbers they pressed north and east up the Verde, across the TOnto basin and over into the basin of the Little Colorado, where they made a long stay. Thence northeast through northern New Mex leo and into southwestern. Colorado where the flow nOrthward ceased. That they were a mighty race so far as numbers go is indisputable, hence the difficulty in answering the very nat ural question, Where did they all go?"
 If they had been killed off by