El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1916-07-04
HOT WHERE PERSHING ARMY CAMPS
BUT No SUNSTROKES SUFFERED
Heat Is Not Unberabe Because Of Altitude and Dryness
Men Build Adobe Houses to Shelter Them From the
Rains Soon Expected Dig for Relics in Mounds
Marking Homes of a Prehistoric Race.
By GEORGE H. CLEMENTS.

: museum at Cambridge, where they
may be studied by those who have a
penchant for things out OF date
Named For Ruins.
It is because Of these ruins OF casas
grandes or big houses that the names
OF the two Mexican cities in this vi
Casas Grandes are extensive and i'm
pressive. Judging from their area, the
city which once 1OuriShed on the site
Of the present city Of Casas Grandes
Viejo must have been capable OF hour
ing a great population, probably many
times the population Of the Mexican
city in its palmiest days Along the
river. there are countless evidences that
the prehistoric jewellers Of this valley
were thoroughly cOuverSant with irri-
cation as an aid TO the growing crops
and that they used the waters OF what
is now known as the Casas Grandes
river 10 make productive thousands OF
acres Of this fertile valley. II is among
the probabilities that the farmers OF
the section OF the valley now covered
by the tents and shacks of the Ameri-
can army in Mexico irrigated their
lands though they are comparatively
remote from the present bed Of the
stream. but beyond the mounds which
cover their one time houses there are
no other evidences Of their presence.
The lands are so level that they may
have been artificially leyeled but there
are no traces OF acequias or canals
which might have been used to carry
crops.
DRY Farmers,. Maybe.
It is among the possibilities that the
prehistoric farmers Of these lands
which now seem so parched and dry
had the faculty OF growing only such
crops as would grow with such rain
fall as was common TO the territory
and which would mature during the
comparatively short time between the
beginning OF the rainy season and the
coming Of the frOsts which visit this
altitude very early in the fall
Whatever may have been their Gus
tom or whatever there may have been
grown in the way Of crops. enough
must have been grown to feed a great
mass Of men. women and children, If
each OF the mounds which now cover
the half million acres in the valley
housed family which in point of size
compared with the family OF a modern !
farmer and II the ancient city on the |
banks OF the present Rio Casas Gran
des was well filled with human beings
as its ruined area would indicate il
might have been.
Where the PeOpIef
" ny those people left this delec- |
table valley or what became Of them II /
they did not leave II is, Of course,
shrouded in mystery as deep and dark i
as the warp and WOof Of time and J
eternity can make it." That they were
here, that their history is such a deep /
and that this Casas Grandes i
district has figured so prominently in /
the history OF Mexican revolutions ever
since Mexico was Mexico. and even
when II was known as New Spain leads
10 the glamOr Of romance which is
thrown over military movements in /
ms section Of the country and is felt /
~ the humblest private in the ranks
IS well as by the most erudite office !
u this expedition.