MKMOIUS OF TIIK NATIONAIi ACADEMY OF SOIIiNCES. 147 



CommuiKil hoitsm. — Tlie j;re:it slnictiircs tliiis (lcsij;ii:itt'<l were the priiiciiial dwclliiif,' places. 

 They wore built of iimd witiimit the ii-iitial IVaiiie of liuKili-s on which the wails of tlic temples 

 were raised. Thcj contained many rooms on tlu' pound tloor, and, as there is evidence that tiwy 

 were souietinies more than one story liifjli, it is not improbable that they re.send)led mncli the 

 modern terraced pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona. They were too large for the dwellings of 

 single families, and for this and other reasons they are thought to have be«'n each the home of a 

 separate gens, clan, or some other large subtribal division. Each was surrounded by a separate 

 high earthen wall and generally by a sei>arate canal or aceipiia, although, in a few instances, two 

 or more comnuinal dwellings were included in the same encircling canal. Each had its single 

 apjiropriate water reservoir with a branch canal leading into it, its one se])arate pyral mound oi- 

 place of cremation, and its one great underground oven for the prejjaration of food. In I^os 

 Muertos at least fifty of these great buildings were wholly or jiartially unearthed, and it is likely 

 that many more remained unrevealed beneath the surface of the ground. 



Ultra mu ml hoiiites. — These were small, low huts, not rectangular in form, made of sticks, 

 reeds, and similar perishable material, lightly coated with mud, and they i>robably resembled 

 much the modern jaknl or hut of the lower classes in many parts of Mexico, or the houses of the 

 present Pima Indians of the Gila Valley. Mr. Gushing calls them ultra-nniral or ultra-urban 

 because they were situated outside the limits of the towns of earthen houses and not mingled 

 with them ; they formed separate groups. He conjectun's that they may have been residences of 

 an outcast population such as exists at Zuni to-day. As each contained a central fireplace it is 

 evident that they were occupied in winter as well as in summer, and were, therefore, not like 

 certain houses scattered through the fields of the modern Zunis, used only as temporary shelter 

 for laborers while the crops are growing. These ultra-mural dwellings were very numerous; in 

 one place constituting, of themselves, a town of considerable size, which contained a sun temple 

 but no priest temple. In estimating the age and character of some, at least, of these houses, it 

 must not be forgotten that as late as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries we have records 

 of the existence of Pima villages in the lower part of the Salt Kiver Valley. I make this state- 

 ment on the authority of Mr. Bandelier. 



AGKICULTUEE AND WATER SUPPLY. 



When these ruins were inhabited cities, the land in which they lie was, as it now is, an arid 

 region, where agriculture could not be conducted without irrigation. The works constructed by 

 the ancient inhabitants to establish irrigation are as noteworthy monuments to their industry and 

 intelligence as are their stupendous buildings. The explorers have traced in this particular realm 

 in the Salado Valley, they estimate, over IHQ miles of the larger canals — the mother aeequias or 

 accqiiias madres, as the Spanish- Americans call them. Their remains have been found at distances 

 of 12 and 15 miles from the present bed of the river, and there is no evidence that the river has 

 mateiially changed its course since the days of the ancient inhabitants. The miles of smaller 

 aeequias could not be estimated. 



The larger canals varied in width from 10 to 30 feet and in depth from 3 to 12 feet. Their 

 banks were terraced in such form as to secure always a uniform central current in the canal when 

 the rains ceased in the mountains and the waters diminished. It is thought tiiat this device was 

 to facilitate navigation, and that the canals were used not only for irrigation, but for the trans- 

 portation of the i)roduce of the fields and of the great timbers from the mountains which the people 

 must have needed in the construction of their tall temples and other houses. 



In various ])arts of our arid regicm the old Indian canals may l)e still easily traced where they are 

 cut through hard soil or where they are so exposed and situated, with regard to the prevailing 

 winds, that the sand is blowTi out of them rather than drifted into them. There are places in 

 Arizona where the American settlers utilize old canal beds for wagon roads. But in most cases 

 the canals have been filled with sand and clay to the level of the surrounding soil and, to the 

 ordinary observer, no vestige of them remains. Yet Mr. Gushing, guided by his knowledge of a 

 custom which exists among the Zuni Indians, was able to trace the course of these obliterated 

 channels. These Indians, he relates, have observed that wherever there is running wat<'r there 

 are rounded pebbles and boulders; reasoning, as man is so apt to do, inversely to the natural order 



