450 



NA TV RE 



[March lo, 1898 



Being now satisfied with the trustworthy nature of his 

 apparatus, Prof. Nipher determined to apply it to the deter- 

 niination of the distribution of pressure over a large pressure 

 board. For this purpose the board, which was a wooden one, 

 4 feet long by 3 feet wide, was mounted on the roof of a railway 

 cj^rriage. It was bolted to a vertical iron pipe, and the couple 

 required to keep it perpendicular to the direction of the wind 

 was measured by a spring balance. On opposite sides of the 

 board, and at the centre of one of the 108 4-inch squares into 

 which the board was divided, two disc collectors were fixed 

 and connected by rubber tubes with their respective gauges. 

 The latter, together with a third, which was used as a level, 

 \yere mounted on a board which was rigidly attached to a heavy 

 pendulum within the carriage. The speed of the train va,ried 

 generally between twenty and fifty miles an hour, and was 

 fhecked by direct observations. 



. , The total action on the board is the result of an increase of 

 pressure in front and a decrease behind. Both the increase and 

 ttie decrease are shown by this series of experiments to be pro- 

 portional to^ the force necessary to hold the board to the wind as 

 jndicated by the spring balance. Further, the force measured 

 in this way differs from that deduced from the data given by the 

 collectors by no more than i per cent., and although this may 

 be in a measure accidental, it affords a confirmation of the 

 accuracy of Prof. Nipber's method. On 

 both sides of the board the difference from 

 the ordinary pressure becomes less as the 

 periphery is approached, although there is 

 some evidence of a minimum excess at the 

 centre of the front face. Prof. Nipher 

 gives a few notes on the application of the 

 device to the study of pressure variation 

 around a building. It iS to be hoped that 

 *vtch developments as this will be realised. 

 At present it is too early to estimate the 

 full importance of these researches as a 

 contribution to the Study of anemometry ; 

 but the idea is full of promise, and the 

 simplicity of the apfjaratus is certainly a 

 g^t'eat point in its favour. 



the friable wall of the cliff, destroying the only trail' to the 

 summit and leaving a few old women to perish on the inaccessible 

 height. What more, then, could be necessary to enwrap the 

 place for ever after in the mystery of enchantment ?• 



This tradition was recorded in its native purity some twelve 

 years ago by Mr. Charles F. Lummis, and the same story was 

 repeated by Acoma lips to the present writer while conducting 

 a reconnaissance of th^pueblos in the autumn of 1895. During 

 this visit, desiring to test the verity of^the tradition, a trip was 

 made to the base of Katzi'mo, where a careful ■ examination of 

 the talus (especially where it i^ piled high about^^he foot of the 

 great south-western cleft (Fig!'-i)'up which the aneient pathway 

 was reputed to have woundi its course) was ^rewarded by the 

 discovery of numerous fragments of pottery of very ancient type, 

 some of which were decorated in'a vitreous glaze, an art now 

 lost to Pueblo potters. The'5;t^lus at this point rises to a height 

 of 224 feet above the plain, and therefore slightly more than 

 half-way up the mesi side. It is composed largely of earth, 

 which could have been deposited there in no other way whatso- 

 ever than by washing from the summit during periods of storm 

 through many centuries. An examination of the trail to a point 

 within 60 feet of the top exhibited traces of what were evidently 

 the hand and foot holes that had once aided in the ascent of the 

 f ancient trail; {Fig. 2) as at Acoma to-day. Even then the indi- 



. . : 4N ENCHANTED MESA} 

 'T'HE pueblo of Acoma, in Western 

 - Central New Mexico, is the oldest 

 settlement within the limits of the United 

 States. Many of the walls that still stand 

 on: that beetling peiiol were seen by 

 COronado during his marvellous journey 

 in' 1540, and even then they were cen- 

 turies old. 



The valley of Acoma has been described 

 as " the Garden of the Gods multiplied 

 by ten, and with ten equal but other won- 

 ders tht-own in ; plus a human interest, an 

 archseological value, an atmosphere of 

 romance and mystery " ; and the com- 

 parison has not been overdrawn. Stretch- 

 ing away for miles lies a beautiful level plain clothed in grama 

 and ■ bound on every side by mesas of variegated sandstone 

 rising precipitously from 300 to 400 feet, and relieved by 

 minarets and pinnacles and domes and many other features of 

 nature's architecture. 



I None of these great rock-tables is so precipitous, so awe- 

 inspiring, and seertiingly so out of place as the majestic isolated 

 Katzimo or Enchanted Me.sa, which rises 430 feet from the 

 middle of the plain as if too proud to keep company with its 

 fellows ; and this was one of the many wonderful homesites of 

 the Acomas during their wanderings from the mystic Shipapu in 

 the far north to their present lofty dwelling-place, 

 i Native tradition, as distinguished from myth, when unin- 

 fluenced by Caucasian contact, may usually be relied on even to 

 the extent of disproving or verifying that which purports to be 

 historical testimony. The Acoma Indians have handed down 

 from shaman to novitiate, from father to son, in true prescrip- 

 torial fashion for many generations, the story that Katzimo was 

 once the home of their ancestors, but during a great convulsion 

 of nature, at a time when most of the inhabitants were at work 

 Jn .their ..fields below, an immense rocky mass became freed from 



1 Abridged from a paper by Mr. F. W. Hodge, of the United States 

 Bureau of American Ethnology, in the National Geographic Magazine. 



NO. 1480, VOL. 57] 



Fig I. — The Enchanted Mesa— the Great South-western Cleft and Talus Heap. 



cations of the former occupancy of the Enchanted Mesa were 

 regarded as sufficient, and that another one of many native 

 traditions had been verified by archreologic proof. 



More recently the author visited Katzimo a second time, on 

 this occasion with Major George H. Pradt, Mr. A. C. Vroman, 

 and Mr. H. C. Ilayt, in order to determine what additional data 

 of an archaeological nature might be gathered by an examination 

 of the summit. 



The ascent of the talus, in which the potsherds had been 

 observed in such considerable quantities two years previously, 

 was made in^'a few minutes, the ladders, ropes, and photographic 

 and surveying instruments being carried with some effort, since 

 climbing, heavily laden, at an altitude of 6000 feet, in a broiling 

 sun, is no trifling labour ; but the real work began when the 

 beginning of the rocky slope of the cleft was reached. One 

 member of the party, taking the lead, dragged the end of a 

 rope to a convenient landing place, where a dwarf pifion finds 

 sufficient nourishment from the storm-water and sand from above 

 to eke out a precarious existence. Fastening the rope to the 

 tree, the outfit was hauled up, and the other members of the 

 party found a ready means of ascent. The next landing was 

 several feet above, at the base of a rather steep pitch of about 

 twelve feet. This wall, although somewhat difficult to scale, 



