Bisbee daily review., 1903-11-15


 An Indian who dwells in 8 house at all seems an oddity to most of us. who know none too much of our own country. There are some tribes of recently civilized aborigines in the h. dian Territory who have learned to dwell in fairly good farm houses, but these all learned the habit from us and recently.
 There Is but enc Indian tribe in North America above Mexico which has always lived in permanent houses since history began and that is the Pueblos. The most striking exam pie among living towns is the Pueblo of Taos, in the extreme northern part of New Mexico. This wonderfully picturesque town has but two houses but they are five and six stories high and contain about three hundred rooms apiece. Quite as interesting as the best types of present Pueblo community houses are the ruins of their still more ancient homes. It was long supposed that the so called cliff dwellers were of an extinct race but investigation revealed that they had not vanished but moved for va- rious reasons-and their descendants are living to this day in later pu- eblos.
 Southwest of Moqui and still on the edge of the desert is one of the most startling regions in America-known as the Mogallon watershed. There is no great range as in the Rockies. The system is merely an immense plateau, full three hundred miles across an apparently boundles5 plain, dotted here and mere with a lonely peak which seems scarcely to attain the panse.
 The Tonto Basin-the scene of 1 General Cooks most brilliant cam I paign against the Apaches. is a part ! of this wilderness. About this basin which is fifty miles across clusters many of Arizona's greatest wonders. 1 South are the ruins of Casa Grande, and all Gila Valleys prehistoric rel ics. The Salt River Valley and the | county of the Verde Valley. A long and rocky twelve miles up Beaver Creek. brings one to a wonder which is not the greatest of its kind but the cnly one. Like much of the South west its name IS a mIsnomer-Monts zuma's Well, and Montazuma River had anything to do with it,though legend of late invention says that af- ter Montezuma had been conquereu by Cortez he threw his treasures in- tl> ic but La Lo ures, and could hardly have earned them two thousand miles from Mex ico, it is counted a myth. At this point Beaver Creek has eaten away the side of a rounded hill of stone, which rises more than 100 feet above it. Its outward show gives no great promise of interest but one soon reaches a flat place on the hill and in moment more stands upon the brink of vast well-perfectly round-with sides of cliffs, and a dark gloomy lake at the bottom. At first glance it looks like the crater of an extinct volcano, but study of the sunburnt limestone dispels that thought. As to its depth, theretis no knowledge. A sounding line has heen sent down 3S0 feet without finding bottom. Toss large stone into the lake and for an hour the bubbles will come to the surface. The well seems to have no outlet unless by channel underneath. The water is always little warm.
 Between the cliff and the creek is a little irrigating ditch which carries | the water half a mile south to the | ranch of small farmer. Probably | no other man waters his land from 50 strange source.
 Several miles back from the well | stands the ruins of Montezuma's | Castle-the best remaining specimen of Pueblo Indian community house. | A castle it truly looks. It is five stories high and built in the form of a crescent, though the az of he Arizona Antiquarian society. the walls and foundations have been repaired and protested.
 We all know of the Natural Bridge | of Virginia, learned in our youth to be one of the seven wonders of the world, yet little is known of Arizona's Natural Bridge. on the western edge of the Tonto Basin in the same gen eral region as Montezuma's We'll and castle. This bridge is to natural bridges what the Grand Canyon is to the worlds chasms, the, greatest and most bewildering. It's grandeur Is equally as indescribable and the peculiarities of it's architecture make it difficult subject for a camera; this bridge spans two canyons 200 feet deep. Its actual span is over 800 feet its height over 200 and its breadth 600 making it 12 times as wide as the Virginia wonder. The Tonto Basin country is just now be- ing widely discussed, for 1t is there that the government is preparing to build huge reservoir. The irriga- tion problem in Arizona is hard one. and has been widely discussed and studied. When finished this great body of water will be 25 miles long. an average width of miles and an average depth of 80 feet. It will hold a years supply of water and will |