Norwich bulletin., 1921-11-02
IN THE DAYS NEWS
CAACA CANYON

The first summers work of the Ma tional Geographic Society's expedition to stu6y Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, where vast apartment dwellings hous- ed one of the most thickly populated and highly cultured communities in North America before Columbus came, has just been completed, according to a report made to Gilbert Grosvenor President of the National Geogra phic Society by Neil M. Judd, leader Of the expedition upon the latter's return to Washington this week.
 While details of the summers finding must await formulation to be presented to members of the National Geographic Society it is stated that the results of the first seasons work fully justi- fy the belief that the studies, in New Mexico, which will be continued through several summers, will rival such expedition" of The Society as those which revealed to the world that Pompeii of South America, Ma chu Picchu, and made known the Val i ley of Ten Thousand Smokes, Alas ka's vast natural cauldron, which has been set aside as a National Monu- ment.
 A bulletin from the Society explain l ing the significance of the aboriginal 1 apartment houses, which are veritable 1 treasure chests of pre-C Columbian his- 1 tory says:
 l "Chaco Canyon is that segment of the Chaco River which is cut out near the borderland of San Juan and Mc- l Kinley counties, New Mexico Its | sheer but sometimes crumbling, walls
 of sandstone rise from it's floor any l where from 100 feet to height near | ly equal to the United States capi- 1 tol dome. From their upper ledge 1 stretch semi-deSert wastes making for an isolation which adds another mys- | tery to the bygone metropolis of the
 canyons maw: Whence came the lum- l Der to build and whence the water to 1 cultivate the corn, beans, and squash i Of these aboriginal farms?
 From an airplane this gash in the
 desert surface might resemble a mag
 nified sector of the Panama Canal.
 Closer inspection would disclose, how
 ever, not an expanse of water, but an
 unwatered canyon, in or bordering which are dozen huge ruins that
 look to the casual observer like remains
 of giant apartment houses, containing hundreds of rooms, with associated temples or sanctuaries, known as kivas and lesser dwellings, the true signifi-
 canoe of which is not yet known.
 More astounding still, some of these larger structures, such as the Pueblo del Arroyo (arroyo-wash), one of the
 two ruins upon which the Society:
 expedition is to cocentrate it's investi gations, are built after the familiar E.
 shaped ground plan of the modern of.
 flee building, with the addition of {
 curved wall binding the ends of the F
 projections and forming inner courts
 The other ruin to be studied, Pueblo
 Bonito (bonito-beautifuD, is a D
 shaped building, with it's curved wal | 800 feet long.
 ''Archeologically this ancient Islan, of Manhattan, surrounded by sea o
 sand, may accurately be described a , a hundred miles from anywhere, fo it is 100 miles north to the cliff dwel lings of the Mesa Verde, 100 mile ! south to the ancient Zuni towns, an
 100 miles west to the ancestral site c the ,Hopis.
 l Within an area less than half tha of the District of Columbia there ar eighteen enormous community house l having from 100 to 800 or more room. } There also are other structure type! s such as the three-to twelve-roor : dwellings, groups of 'talus pueblos' un V der the wall of the canyon, in the i'm AA4OuAdCS fIC1H1Iy u luS ldTSc DullulH&
 and tiny cliff houses and storage cist l. under the canyon wall itself.
 Then there are circular structure adjacent to both large and small dwel l Hngs, and a semi subterranean hom i built of mud instead Of stone-the las mentioned found by the Geographic re connaissance party-which point t | possibility of other ruins of greate l antiquity that will be invaluable i
 tracing the developments of this sbori
 ginai civilization. The existance { y these last mentioned in the Chaco Can
 yon region had not previously bee | suspected.
 II If the major groups were inha bite : simultaneously, it is estimated the car | yon population could not have been les II than 10000. This Indian city lay in d region so unfriendly that even the nc . madic Navajo has not attempted , cultivate it. Hence the question, Whs if has happened there? Did the climat "a change? Were the surrounding ari 2 wastes once fields of cotton, cor Q kH0ARGENECC