86 THE CLIMATIC FACTOR AS ILLUSTRATED IN ARID AMERICA. 



Many of the dwellings appear to have been of two stories, and the height of the heaps of 

 rocks makes it probable that some had at least three stories. The rooms are all small as 

 is usual in this region, the majority not exceeding 7 by 9 feet. The exact number of rooms 

 has never been counted, but some approximate idea may be obtained. If we assume that 

 only half of the 5.5 acres covered by the ruins was actually built upon and that the rooms 

 including the walls had an average size of 10 feet by 10, there would have been about 1,100 

 rooms on the ground floor. The upper stories may be put at 400 rooms, although the actual 

 number was probably greater. This gives 1,500 rooms as a moderate estimate, which would 

 mean at least 1,000 people. 



When the Spaniards came to the countrj', at the beginning of the seventeenth century, 

 the village of Gran Quivira was evidently one of the most important in the district. Other- 

 wise the canny fathers would not have built here one of their largest missions. Building 

 stone was fairly easy to obtain, it would seem, inasmuch as the walls of the church are 5 

 feet thick. Possibly tliis was because a portion of the village was in ruins, and the stones 

 from it were available as building materials for the large church and other structures which 

 the Spaniards erected. Nevertheless, the number of natives must have been considerable, 

 or there would have been no reason for a mission. The beginning of the Spanish regime 

 here, as in the rest of New Mexico, appears to have been peaceful and prosperous. Its 

 end, so far as Gran Quivira is concerned, seems to have come shortly before the Pueblo 

 rebellion, which culminated in 1680. Since that time the site has been left as a center 

 around which a multitude of traditions has gathered. One ascribes its destruction to an 

 earthquake, another to a flow of lava bursting forth some miles away, and still a third 

 speaks of a river which has now disappeared. 



The truth seems to be that there is no village now at Gran Quivira because there is no 

 water and the land is too dry for successful cultivation except in years of good rainfall. 

 A ranch is located in the valley below the ruins, but it is not permanently inhabited, 

 although a httle cultivation is carried on. Settlers have recently come into the region 10 

 to 15 miles to the north, but are having a hard time. If the rainfall is propitious they 

 can exist, but in 1909 none of them raised enough to live on. It scarcely need be added 

 that all depend upon deep wells for water. The Pueblo Indians, so far as we can gather, 

 were like their Hohokam predecessors in knowing nothing of lime or mortar and had no 

 facilities for making water-tight cisterns. Often, however, they constructed reservoirs, 

 which were their main dependence. One such reservoir still remains intact at Gran 

 Quivira. It lies about 0.25 mile east of the village in the mouth of a shallow arroyo, as 

 dry valleys are here called. The reservoir is only about 75 feet in width and 5 feet deep. 

 The owners of the ranch down below in the main valley say that during 7 years of hfe here 

 they have never seen any water in it except immediately after rain. My visit took place 

 in the early spring of 1911, after a more than commonly rainy season. The day previous 

 to that on which I started from the railroad at Willard, 30 miles to the north, there was a 

 heavy storm, and during the drive we were soaked in a pouring rain. Nevertheless, the next 

 morning the reservoir contained no water and showed no sign of having held more than a 

 small pool the day before. In all the region within a score of miles of Gran Quivira there is 

 only one permanent spring. That is located 7 miles to the west at Montezuma, and, as 

 might be expected, has its own ruins of an ancient village. Strangely enough, however, the 

 Montezuma village was evidently abandoned long before Gran Quivira. This suggests 

 that the difficulty of raising crops was a more serious matter than the difflculty of obtaining 

 water. At Montezuma the land does not lie so low and flat as at Gran Quivira and is not 

 flooded, as are the lowlands of the latter place, during summers when the rainfall is large. 



In addition to Gran Quivira another similar ruin of a Spanish mission deserves to be 

 recalled in order to show that the phenomena just described are not isolated. This is the 

 ruin of Buzani, which has already been mentioned as lying about 12 miles below Caborca 



