Daily Arizona silver belt., 1907-04-04


 against the wear of the elements, and a custodian was appointed to protect it against too curious sightseers. Last year Casa Grande again brought an ap- propriation--this time $3,000; and for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1908, a like sum has been granted.
 As provided by the terms of the more recent appropriations, the work was placed under the supervision of the secretary of the Smithsonian institu- ton, and Dr. J. Walter Fewkes of the bureau of American ethnology was chosen as the most available member of the Smithsonian staff to undertake the excavations. He set out on Octo Der l7, arriving on the scene on October "A, and since then has accomplished appreciable results
 A live description of the spot is given by one of the predecessors of Dr. Fewkes. He says:
 "The Casa Grande ruin (the single standing building) is located near the southwestern corner of the group and the ground surface for miles around it in every direction is so flat that from the summit of the walls an immense stretch of country is brought under view. On the east is the broad valley of the Gila river, rising in great plain to distant range fo mountains. About mile and half to the north fringe of cottonwood trees marks the course of the river, beyond which the plain continues, broken somewhat by hills and buttes, until the view is closed by the Superstition mountains. On the north west the valley of the Gila river runs into the horizon, with few buttes here and there. On the west lies a range of mountains closing the valley in that direction, while toward the southwest and south it extends until in some places it meets the horizon, while in other places it is closed by ranges of mountains blue and misty in the dis. tance.
 The accounts of visitors to this par the Gila river trickle along the course of time ever since white men landed in this thew world.''
 When the adventurous members of Coronado's expedition in l540 braved the seorehing sands of the north Mex ican desert, they halted in amazement at the ruins of long deserted, sand | topped city hiding the secrets of peo- pie older than the Indians. Castenada, the scribe of the invasion, wrote with appreciation of the relic of supposed fortress which had been destroyed long before by barbarous tribes, perhaps an cestors of the Apaches. In 1894 a Jesuit father wandering in penance, .hanted mass within it's walls, recall ing the spirits of departed chiefs of whom we are left no written record. While the white eolonists of New Eng land were struggling in 1775 to throw off yoke binding them to Europe, an ecelesiast, Padre Fent, was living in a room of the Casa Grande, writing the deeds of nation whose prestige had already waned at the approach of a nightier tribe.
 In lS46 an Army of the West" of this advancing mightier tribe conquered hose tottering walls and the territory surrounding them. Lieutenant Emory md Lieutenant Johnston of this army 'aw and wrote of the ruins, and Major | John Russell Bartlett later described | hem with admiration. MT. A, F. A. Bandalier, travelling for the Areheolog- ieal Institute of America, was the next to mention them in notes on trip as far south as Central America. These accounts were followed by partial 'epOrt in 1888 by MT. Frank Hamilton Cushing of the Hemenway Southwestern Areheological Expedition, from which the party returned laden with spec- mems of many carved stone implements, highly decorated pottery and burial urns, but above all with vivid de Scripti)n of the customs of the extinct people of that region. In settling the affairs of this expedition Dr. Fewkes came into actual touch with the arche- DlogJ of Arizona.
 The Hemenway explorations were gen eral. The work of Dr. Fewkcs is linn tied to the buried city about Casa Grande, which he firmly believes as he writes to the Smithsonian, will be one of the great spectaeles of the region "an American Pompeii for sightseers IS well as an object lesson for students of American archaeology and history. v
 "The Casa Grande group of mounds v he says, is composed of three walled 'lusters of buildings or compounds now for the most part buried in the earth v
 In his reports he has labeled them Compounds A, B and c. Compound A he is excavating. Compound B is close at hand. He describes it writing from his tent upon the grounds "It is a noble ruin and as 1 see it now looming among the mesquite trees l fancy the stately building that someone some day will uncover there.
 pr. Fewkes has already unearthed much of the first group of structures in which stand the walls of the 'Fgreat house. As the sand is dug out, the mystery of its meaning gradually clears. It can hardly be a massive tenn pie of sun worshippers, as former traveller surmised, but it is more prob ably place of refuge, a stronghold, in which there may have resided powerful ehieftains of bygone days who exacted | homape from his vaesolo Tho ,..o,,.