SMITHSOXIAX EXPLORATION; 



1929 



179 



feet wide is no mean achievement for a primitive people without beasts 

 of burden : with no excavating equipment other than stone and 

 wooden implements. We have as yet no certain knowledge as to just 

 what Indian groups accomplished this stupendous task but we do 

 know, from archeological deductions, that the work was done by 

 hand and that small baskets were the most likely containers employed 

 in the removal of excavated material. 



If, as contractors insist, a husky laborer can pick down and shovel 

 into waiting cars 12 cubic yards of loosely-cemented gravel in an 

 eight-hour working day. then anyone so inclined may figure the time 





^- J* 





Fig. 161. — Pima children, no doubt, had constructed a pebble maze on the 

 floor of Canal Fourteen during the summer of 1929. 



involved in the construction of the Salt River valley canals. I have not 

 done it for several reasons : for one. I have no statistics on the rela- 

 tive efficiency of an eight-pound steel pick and a river cobblestone, 

 sharpened by the taking process and used as a grubbing tool. But I 

 do know the average Indian farmer of the Southwest is at his self- 

 appointed tasks from sunrise to sunset when necessary and I know, 

 further, that same Indian will accomplish more in his own behalf than 

 he will for anv employer. \\'ith stone and wooden tools : with baskets 

 as precursors of wheelbarrows, the native populations of the Salt and 

 Gila river valleys performed tasks the very magnitude of which as- 

 tonish us of a mechanical age. 



