530 EXPEDITION TO ARIZONA IN 1895 (ETH. ANN. 17 
people migrated from the south, nor do I believe that those who came 
from that direction necessarily passed through Verde valley. Some, no 
doubt, came from Tonto Basin, but I believe it can be shown that a con- 
tinuous line of ruins, similar in details of architecture, extend along 
this river from its junction with Salt river to well-established prehis- 
toric dwelling places of the Hopi people. Similar lines may likewise 
be traced along other northern tributaries of the Salt or the Gila, which 
may be found to indicate early migration stages. 
The ruins of Verde valley were discovered in 1854 by Antoine Leroux, 
a celebrated guide and trapper of his time, and were thus described 
by Whipple, Ewbank, and Turner in the following year: 
The river banks were covered with ruins of stone houses and regular fortifications ; 
which, he [Leroux] says, appeared to have been the work of civilized men, but had 
not been occupied for centuries. They were built upon the most fertile tracts of the 
valley, where were signs of acequias and of cultivation. The walls were of solid 
masonry, of rectangular form, some twenty or thirty paces in length, and yet remain- 
ing ten or fifteen feet in height. The buildings were of two stories, with small aper- 
tures or loopholes for defence when besieged. . . . In other respects, however, 
Leroux says that they reminded him of the great pueblos of the Moquinos.' 
A fragment of folklore, which is widely distributed among both the 
aboriginal peoples of Gila valley and the modern Tusayan Indians, 
recounts how the latter were at one time in communication with the 
people of the south, and traditions of both distinctly connect the sed- 
entary people of Tusayan with those who formerly inhabited the great 
pueblos, now in ruins, dotting the plain in the delta between Gila and 
Salt rivers. That archeology might give valuable information on this 
question had long been my conviction, and was the main influence 
which led me to the studies recorded in the following pages. 
An examination of a map of Arizona will show that one of the 
pathways or feasible routes of travel possible to have been used in 
any connection between the pueblos of the Gila and those of northern 
Arizona would naturally be along Rio Verde valley. Its tributaries 
rise at the foot of San Francisco mountains, and the main river empties 
into the Salt, traversing from north to south a comparatively fertile 
valley, in the main advantageous for the subsistence of semisedentary 
bands in their migrations. Here was a natural highway leading from 
the Gila pueblos, now in ruins, to the former villages in the north. 
The study of the archeology of Verde valley had gone far enough 
to show that the banks of the river were formerly the sites of many 
and populous pueblos, while the neighboring mesas from one end to 
another are riddled with cavate dwellings or crowned with stone build- 
ings. Northward from that famous crater-like depression in the Verde 
region, the so-called Montezuma Well on Beaver creek, one of the 
affluents of the Rio Verde, little archeological exploration had been 
1Report upon the Indian Tribes, Pacific Railroad Survey, vol. 11, pt. iii, p. 14, Washington, 1856. 
The cavate dwellings of the Rio Verde were first described by Dr E. A. Mearns. Although it has 
sometimes been supposed that Coronado followed the trail along Verde valley, and then over the 
Mogolloues to Rio Colorado Chiquito, Bandelier has conclusively shown a more easterly route. 
