NO. lO ARCHEOLOGY OF MIAIBRKS VALLEY FEVVKKS 3 



says very little, however, about antiquities, althous^h he passed 

 through a region where there are still several mounds indicating- 

 ruins. Bartlett writes {op. cit., vol. i. p. 218) : 



On April 29. hearing that there were traces of an ancient Indian settlement 

 about half a mile distant, Dr. Webb "went over to examine it, while we were 

 getting ready to move. He found a good deal of broken pottery, all of fine 

 texture. Some of it bore traces of red, black, and brown colors. He also 

 found a stone mortar about eight inches in diameter. I have since understood 

 that this was the seat of one of the earliest Spanish missions ; but it was aban- 

 doned more than a century ago, and no traces remain but a few heaps of 

 crumliling adobes, which mark the site of its dwellings. 



This ruin was situated near the Rio Grande, twenty-three miles 

 from Mule Spring, on the road to the Aiimbres. Bartlett does not 

 tell us how he learned that this was an early mission site, but from the 

 pottery it is evident that it was an " ancient Indian settlement." 



After having examined the configuration of the country through 

 which Bartlett passed, and having compared it with statements in his 

 description, the present writer thinks that Bartlett camped on May i, 

 1853, near the Oldtown ruin and that the place then bore the name 

 Pachetehu. This camp was nineteen [eighteen""] miles from Cow- 

 Spring and thirteen miles from the copper mines. 



Bartlett records that he found, near his camp, " several old Indian 

 encampments with their wigwams standing and about them frag- 

 ments of pottery." Although not very definite, these references might 

 apply either to the Oldtown ruin and some others a few miles up the 

 river, or to more modern Apache dwellings. 



Mr. F. S. Dellenbaugh claims that Coronado, in 1540, passed 

 through the valley of the Mimbres on his way to Cibola, and that this 

 place was somewhere in this region, instead of at Zuni, as taught by 

 Bandelier and others. The present writer recognizes that the ques- 

 tion of the route of Coronado is one for historical experts to answer, 

 but believes that new facts regarding the ruins in the Mimbres may 

 have a bearing upon this question and are desirable. While it can no 

 longer be said in opposition to Dellenbaugh's theory that there are no 

 ruins in the valley between Deming and the Alexican border, we have 

 not yet been able to discover whether the ruins here described were 

 or were not inhabited in 1540. 



The fragmentary notice of the ruins in the Upper Mimbres and 

 Silver City region by Bandelier is one of the best thus far published, 

 although he denies the existence of ruins now known in the great 



