MORGAN. ] MOUND-BUILDERS. 193 
cultivation. ‘There are some facts that seem to favor this hypothesis.’ At 
present I wish to call attention to such existing evidence as points to the 
San Juan district as the anterior home of a number of historic Indian tribes. 
1. The Mound-Builders—Although these tribes had disappeared at the 
epoch of European discovery, and cannot be classed with any known Indian 
stock, their condition as horticultural tribes, their knowledge of some of 
the native metals, and the high character of their stone implements and 
pottery place them in the class of Village Indians. The nearest region from 
which they could have been derived is New Mexico. There is no reason 
for referring them to the San Juan region more than to the nearer country 
of the Rio Grande, unless it should appear probable that the inhabitants 
of the latter valley were themselves migrants from the same region But 
there are good reasons for deriving the Mound-Builders from the Village 
Indians in some part of New Mexico. 
1 Where maize was indigenous is unknown, except that it was somewhere upon the American 
continent. It is the only cereal America has given to the world. At the period of European discovery, 
it was found cultivated and a staple article of food in a large part of North America and in parts of 
South America. There were also found beans, squashes, and tobacco, with the addition in some areas 
of peppers, tomatoes, cocoa, and cotton. The problem of the place of the origin of maize is probably 
insoluble, but speculations are legitimate, and such are all that I have to offer. 
The fecundity of plant-life in the Rocky Mountains is remarkable, particularly on the southern 
slopes, where they subside into the mesa, or table-land formation, north of the San Juan River. The 
continental divide is in the eastern margin of this region. The first suggestion I wish to make is that 
all cereals and cultivated plants must have originated in the great continental mountains of the two 
hemispheres, and have propagated themselves along the water courses of the mountain valleys down 
to the plains traversed by the great rivers formed by these mountain tributaries. AJ1 the cereals belong 
to the family of the Grasses (Graminew), and each of them, doubtless, is the last of a series of antece- 
dent forms. 
I saw rye, barley, and oats growing wild by self-propagation in the mountain valleys of Colo- 
rado the present season; also the wild pea, whose stunted seeds had the taste of the cultivated pea. 
Turnips, onions, tomatoes, and hops are found growing wild in the Pine River Valley, and the pie-plant 
or rhubarb is said to grow luxuriantly in the Elk Mountain valleys. I also saw wild flax and the 
gourd growing by self-propagation in the valley of the Animas. Currants, gooseberries, raspberries, 
and strawberries are found in the mountain valleys in numerous places, together with flowering plants 
of many species and varieties. Tiny forms of flowering plants are to be seen above patches of snow in 
places where the snow had recently melted. This fecundity of plant-life from ten to twelve thousand 
feet above sea level, and the relation of these mountain tributaries to the San Juan, which runs from 
east to west, not remotely from the base of these mountains, in such a manner as to invite and receive 
into its lap, so to express it, the vegetable wealth developed in these mountain chains, are facts that 
force themselves upon the attention of the observer. 
j The altitude of the San Juan Valley ranges from seven thousand feet at Pagosa Springs to five 
thousand nine hundred and seventy feet at the mouth of the Animas, and diminishing to four thousand 
four hundred and forty-six feet near the point where it empties into the Colorado (Hayden’s Atlas of 
Colorado, Sheet 111). The altitude at Conejos is seven thousand eight hundred and eighty feet (Ib.,) 
which is about as great an elevation as admits of the successful cultivation of maize. I noticed ina 
field of maize growing at Conejos that the stalk grew only about three feet high, and the fact that the 
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