l66 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



was replaced by another which connected with a new intake, farther 

 up stream. Such substitutions were necessitated by altered conditions 

 in prehistoric times no less than today. 



Modern irrigation canals and the industry they symbolize have done 

 most to erase from central Arizona former vestiges of that native 

 civilization which once prospered there. The sad ruins of aboriginal 

 homes have been leveled with their neighboring fields ; the ditches 

 which once watered those fields have been filled or scraped away. 

 Where Indian farmers eight or ten hundred years ago cultivated gar- 

 dens of beans, maize and squashes, vast acres of cotton, lettuce and 

 melons are now harvested. Neat orchards of dates and grapefruit 

 flourish where catclaw and mesquite stretched their spiny branches 

 only a generation ago. The diabolical Apache has been tamed if not 

 conquered. Bow-legged cowboys, garbed according to the latest fash- 

 ion notes from Hollywood, ride herd on eastern " dudes." Attractive 

 dwellings and sumptuous winter resorts, with green lawns and flower- 

 bordered walks have replaced the mud-walled habitations of the 

 ancient folk. 



As one looks down from the air upon this Paradise that is Salt 

 River valley today, one is impressed first of all by the orderly habits 

 of mankind. At least there is a semblance of order, from a height of 

 2,000 feet or more. Long, straight roads on which autos slither away 

 like headless roaches ; brown and yellow fields all nicely squared ; 

 orange trees that seem as tiny pellets of dark green, patiently arranged, 

 row upon row ; little cubed houses, fringed with flat green things. 



Reaching across these fields and under these houses, light or dark 

 streaks mark former prehistoric Indian canals which only the avia- 

 tor may readily detect. Silt deposited in those old ditches shows 

 dark brown against the drab desert soil ; pale yellow lines remain 

 where embankments have been smoothed away. Slight differences in 

 vegetation, imperceptible when close at hand, take on color variations 

 that enable one at a considerable height to retrace works which other- 

 wise have been wholly effaced. 



The blue Army plane glides down from the clouds and back to port 

 with numbed crew and empty cameras. Camel Back Mountain squats 

 complacently at one side and looks out across the valley where such 

 momentous changes have taken place within memory of men still 

 living. Squaw Peak lifts her unkempt bulk to frown upon this new 

 civilization, as she did upon the old. A setting sun momentarily gilds 

 the giant sahuaro whose long, fingered shadows point eastwardly to 

 rugged mountain ranges whence flow the life-giving waters of the Gila 

 and the Rio Salado. 



