ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT CIII 



eminent as a benefactress of many institutions of education; 

 William ClaHin, Francis Parkman, Dr Edward Everett Hale, 

 Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Fiske, William T. Harris, and 

 John G. Whittier, "calling the attention of Congress to the 

 ancient and celebrated ruin of Casa Grande, an ancient temple 

 of the prehistoric age, of the greatest ethnologic and scientific 

 interest, situate in Pinal county, near Florence, Arizona," and 

 praying "that the Government will take further measures to 

 have the ruin protected from injury by visitors or by land- 

 owners in the neighborhood." (Congressional Record, vol. xx, 

 pt. 2, p. 1454). Thus was initiated a movement on the part 

 of the Congress toward the preservation, for the benefit of 

 the people, of one of the remai'kable aboriginal antiquities of 

 the United States. The movement resulted in an inquiry 

 concerning the condition of the ruin and a detailed examina- 

 tion by collaborators of the Bureau of Ethnology (the results 

 of which have been published in the Thirteenth Armual Report), 

 and it eventuated in a small appropriation by the Congress for 

 the protection of the ruin, and in the reservation of the site 

 through an Executive order. Accordingly, this impressive 

 record of an ancient culture has been set apart forever for the 

 instruction of the pul)lic, and the Federal Govermnent has 

 established a precedent for the protection of its priceless relics. 

 The history of the w^orks for the preservation of the ruin is 

 set forth ill the accomuanying paper by Mr Cosmos Mindeleff". 



