72 THE CLIMATIC FACTOR AS ILLUSTRATED IN ARID AMERICA. 



settlers. The present settlers agree with the pig-rancher already quoted. One, who has 

 lived in the country 27 years, said that during that time only 6 years had been moist 

 enough so that a crop of corn could be raised without artificial irrigation by water pumped 

 from wells in the spring. A bean-crop might have been made oftener, but not over half 

 the time. The natural flood irrigation, which supports the sturdy sacaton grass and makes 

 cattle-raising feasible, does not usually reach the main valley until mid-July, too late 

 for crops. Kaffii- corn and milo maize do better than Indian corn, but they are of little use 

 except for stock, and they were imknown to the Hohokam. 



Two other cases, far to the northeast of the Animas region, may be briefly described as 

 final illustrations of the Hohokam villages. The Jarilla Mountains are an insignificant 

 group of detached hills lying in the center of southern New Mexico, 50 miles north-northeast 

 of El Paso and 300 miles east of Tucson. Because of the presence of copper and other 

 metals, a small mining industry grew up here a few years ago, but its boom is over and 

 only a few hopeful prospectors still remain. As no water could be obtained among the 

 mountains the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad, now a part of the Rock Island system, 

 had previously been forced to construct a pipe-line to some higher mountains, 20 miles to 

 the east. Except during the rainy season, when water is stored in cisterns, the water 

 thus brought has formed the sole supply, not only for the railroad itself but for two little 

 mining towns, so long as they had any inhabitants. So far as I could learn, only two 

 persons, both of whom combine a little cattle-raising with the enticing but unremunerative 

 occupation of prospecting, depend on any other water-supply. These two men live far 

 off from the rest of mankind, and get their water from deep wells whose construction would 

 be utterly beyond the capacity of primitive people without iron tools. The only surface 

 water is in Water Canyon, but the name is a misnomer. The settler who Uves there was 

 most scornful when he was asked about the "spring." He said there was no spring, only 

 a damp spot in years of unusually good rainfall. A visit to the place confirmed his state- 

 ment. Nothing was to be seen but a waterless valley, slightly damp because rain had fallen 

 the day before; but no one would ever suspect the presence of a spring except from the traces 

 of an old path and of an Indian encampment. In spite of the present absolutely uninhabit- 

 able character of the Jarilla Mountains for any people not able to dig wells or construct 

 large cisterns Uned with mortar, and in spite of the fact that in ordinary years no crops 

 can now be raised there without irrigation, one finds the remains of three distinct villages 

 of the kind already described. The pottery and other reUcs of man are not so thick as in 

 the large villages of the Santa Cruz, but they are so abundant that the ground is thickly 

 strewn with them. No one of the villages is less than half an hour's walk from the dry 

 spring, and two of them are 4 or 5 miles away. All are obviously located close to 

 land which could be cultivated by flood irrigation if there were enough water and if the 

 inhabitants could have a permanent supply to drink. 



The last illustration which I shall put forth in the present connection is located on the 

 lonely western side of the Otero Basin, not far from the western shore of one of the saline 

 playas, whence the gypsum of the White Sands is collected by the wind. Here, in a 

 distance of 30 miles and perhaps much more, the only inhabited place in 1911 was Beard's 

 Ranch, where a sadly diminished stock of cattle is still cared for. Four and a half miles 

 north of the ranch two good-sized canyons, named Dead Man and Lost Man, emerge from 

 the San Andreas Mountains and together form a great fan of gravel and other alluvium. 

 At the lower edge of this the traces of a large village are found. The ancient village covered 

 an area about half a mile in diameter, thickly inhabited in the middle, and with a gradually 

 decreasing number of houses toward the edges. In two distinct central areas pottery is 

 so thickly strewn that one crushes it at every step; in places it is literally so thick that it 

 is almost impossible to put one's foot down without touching it. Much of the pottery is 

 ordinary coarse red ware, but there is a great deal that is ornamented. The greater part 



