ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 19 



enormously exaggerated. It is probable that at the present time the 

 number of Indians in the country does not equal that of the time 

 of the landing of Columbus. On the other hand, the disparity 

 between the numbers of the two periods is not great. 



But here I must be permitted to remark that ofttimes the evidence 

 adduced to prove the antiquity of the ancient works discovered 

 throughout the country is unsound. There is abundant evidence 

 of antiquity — good geologic evidence. Stone implements are found 

 in geologic formations to such an extent as to leave no doubt that 

 this continent was inhabited by man in early quaternary time; but 

 sound evidence must be clearly discriminated from much of the 

 evidence which is adduced. Travelers and scholars sometimes talk 

 very loosely on this subject. Let me illustrate this. 



In the southwestern portion of the United States we discover in 

 vast numbers the ruins of ancient stone villages. Often these ruins 

 are found at sites where water is not now accessible, and hence it 

 has been averred again and again that all this arid portion of the 

 United States was at some early period densely inhabited, and that 

 the country has been depopulated by increasing aridity. And this 

 secular change of climate has been adduced as evidence of the great 

 antiquity of these works. 



In 1S70 I discovered ruins on the Kanab Creek in Utah and 

 some of its tributaries elsewhere in Utah and Arizona, away from 

 the neighborhood of water, and, like many other travelers, it at 

 first seemed to me that I had discovered evidence of change of 

 climate. But my work in that region was that of the geologist 

 rather than of the anthropologist, and I early discovered that such 

 evidence is valueless. In that arid country years — perhaps tens or 

 scores of years — will pass without great rains. During such times 

 the larger valleys are filled with the materials brought down by the 

 wash of rains and minor streams, and sucli accumulation in the 

 valleys of this arid region is very often found. But there come at 

 greater or less intervals storms of such magnitude, precipitating 

 waters in such volume that the valleys themselves are cleared of the 

 accumulated rands. When this is done streams flow through them for 

 miles or scores of miles where they did not run before, and the few 

 springs along the water courses are unmasked and yield a constant 

 supply. And I have in my mind at the present time a ruin which 

 I supposed to be far away from water, and which was far away from 

 known water ten years ago, but at the foot of which to-day a beau- 



