robbinT"^] climate and EVIDENCE OF CLIMATIC CHANGES 49 



About five miles below Santa Fe, directly on the arroyo del Santa Fe Creek, is the 

 Mexican town Agua Fria, (cold water,) rather a misnomer at present, since the water 

 has to be brought in barrows a distance of two miles, there being none in the vicinity 

 of the settlement. On inquiry, I was informed that about one hundred and fifty years 

 ago the Santa Fe Creek was full of water, and that its margins were fringed with wil- 

 lows and alamos, whose shade kept the water cool; but the water sank gradually into 

 the sand and the trees disappeared. ... In my own opinion the sinking of 

 this stream is due not only to the gravelly character of the river-bed, but also, and 

 much more, to the diminished water-supply from the mountains — a fact attributable 

 partly to the disappearance of extensive forests once upon them, and partly to a 

 diminished precipitation upon the mountain and lowering of the level of the whole 

 region as above explained [pp. 135-36]. 



The disappearance of the ants may be due to some cause other than 

 drought, and even if due to drought woukl indicate perhaps a dry 

 year or cycle rather tjian progressive desiccation. So, the sinking 

 of the water in Santa Fe creek, if correctly reported, may be due to 

 causes other than dimmution of flow. However, these statements 

 are suggestive for future observation and investigatiorf in the region. 



Cummings ^ says of the San Juan Valley: 



The evidences of a more extensive growth of oak and pine, the presence of cis- 

 terns and reservoirs where now it would be impossible to obtain enough surface water 

 to fill them, and the location of large villages where now it is impossible to develop 

 in the springs formerly used for the water supply enough water to satisfy the needs 

 of a small camp, all tend to show that there has been a gradual lessening of the rain- 

 fall and a consequent drying up of many of the springs. Land formerly capable of 

 producing a good crop under primitive methods of cultivation, ceased to respond to 

 the efforts of the planting stick and horn spade; and man was forced to search for a 

 new location. Long periods of drought, with consequent famine and disease, prob- 

 ably played their part also in weakening and diminishing- these people; until the 

 remnants became an easy prey to the piratical Ute and the warlike division of the 

 Navajos. Thus, gradually absorbed and forced southward, one group after another 

 lost its tribal identity, and lives today only in the vague traditions and myths of the 

 Zuni, the Hopi, and the Navajo. 



Writing of southwestern Colorado, Holmes ^ says: 



At first, it seems strange that a country so dry and apparently barren as this now is 

 could support even a moderate population, and it is consequently argued that the 

 climate has grown less moist since the ancient occupation. Be this as it may, I 

 observe the fact that the great bulk of remains are on or in the immediate neighbor- 

 hood of running streams, or by springs that furnish a plentiful supply of water during 

 the greater part of the year. The ever present pottery may in many cases have been 

 broken and left by hunting and wandering parties, and the remnants of dwellings 

 far out from water may have been but temporary abodes used only in the winter or 

 during rainy seasons. I also notice that the country is by no means an entire desert. 

 All along the stream-courses there are grass-covered meadows and broad belts of allu- 

 vial bottom, affording, if properly utilized, a considerable area of rich tillable land. 



1 Cummings, Byron, The Ancient Inhabitants of the San Juan Valley, Bull. Univ. Utah, vol. m, no. 3, 

 pt. 2, p. 45. 



2 Holmes, William H., Report on the Ancient Ruins of Southwestern Colorado, Examined During 

 the Summers of 1875 and 1876, in 10th Ann. Rep. U. S. Geol. & Geogr. Surv. Terr. (Hayden Survey i, for 

 1876, p. 383, 187S. 



67519°— Bull. 54—13 4 



