The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-08-07
of dental infections will be available for service in the trenches.
SEASONAL CLOCK IN CASA GRANDE
 RUIN IN ARIZONA

For many years two pairs of holes in the walls of the celebrated prehis- toric Casa Grande Ruin in Arizona have given rise to much speculation not only on the part of tourists but of archaeologists also. The holes are about an inch and a half in diameter and are bored through walls four feet thick. They occur in pairs each pair on opposite sides of a great central room. The holes in each pair are In line with each other so that one stand ing in dark first floor room behind the central room may look through the innermost hole, across the central room, and through the outermost hole at the sky. One pair points due east. The other pair points north at de- clining angle.
 The interesting people who built this most ancient of pueblos have left no traces behind them. One can only imagine, by analogy from better known neighborhood races of a later period, what their civilization may have been. That they were a deeply religious people and worshippers of the sun is an assumption. Recently an interesting theory has been ad- vanced to explain the holes.
 According to this theory these holes form what might be called a seasonal clock. Twice a year, once as the sun works north and once as it works south along the eastern horizon, it rises in line with the eastward point | ing holes and for one morning, for possibly three minutes, throws a bar of light into the dark inner room.
 From this the ceremonial calendar | could be dated and certain festivals would fall on the same day year after year. One is reminded of Stonehenge ln England where the sun at it's sum- mer solstice shone down a long alley of stone monuments upon an altar placed in the center of a series of circles of stones.
 We come now to the northern pair | of holes which are placed in hte north wall. of the central room and the cor responding outer wall of the building. This pair trends downward and to the east so that they never overlooked the defensive wall which surrounded the group of buildings around the Casa
 
 cludes any astronomical use, but the ingenious theorist has an explanation for even this condition of affairs.
 If we grant the former inhabitants the use of an instrument of reflection, which need be no more complicated than a plain bowl of water, then it is easy to imagine the medicine man in the dark of the night, when he comes to a certain point in his ceremony, putting a bowl of water at a predeter- mined point on the plaza outside and so reflecting the light of some bright star in the northern heavens up through these holes into the central room of the Casa Grande.
 The problem is now being studied as to which bright star near that par ticular angle could have been moved from that exact angle by the preces- sion of the equinoxes, and it is hoped by this point to establish the date when the Casa Grande was inha abited.
 How long ago this was is uncer- tain, moderate guesses beginning with 500 years and more radical guesses go- ing to 1000 or more years.
 The Casa Grande itself. however, ancient though it is. was the most re- cent of it's group. The evidence seems to show that an older group of ruins was abandoned about the time the Casa Grande was built