318 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [VOL. 50 



vegetation and easily distinguished from natural hills by the frag- 

 ments of pottery or worked stone upon their surfaces. The arti- 

 ficial character of these mounds, suggested by their form and super- 

 ficial appearance is proved by the walls which sometimes project 

 from them above the surface of the ground. Even when these walls 

 are worn down to a level with the earth so that they appear to be 

 absent and are difficult to discover, it is possible to follow them be- 

 cause of their hardness, compared to the surrounding earth. In the 

 springtime the tops of these walls can be traced with ease by the 

 distribution of small annual plants in their vicinity. After the early 

 spring rains these plants sprout almost spontaneously out of the soil, 

 growing luxuriantly to the very edges of the walls, where they 

 cease, not being able to send their tender rootlets into the hard, 

 moistureless grout of the wall. Although the spade may uncover 

 buried walls in many instances, the majority of these mounds are 

 found to be made up of earth or debris containing many broken 

 fragments of pottery, battered or polished stones, and other artificial 

 objects. Now and then one encounters a mound much larger than 

 the others, surrounded by a low ridge of earth slightly elevated 

 above the surface. At first sight, some of the larger mounds appear 

 to rest on artificial platforms, which is due to the fact that one side 

 of the enclosed building is partly formed by the surrounding wall, 

 but none of the Gila ruins examined by the author show conclusive 

 evidence that buildings were erected on such platforms, as has been 

 sometimes surmised. 



Let us first consider a few of the mounds resembling Casa Grande, 

 in its immediate neighborhood, beginning with that near Florence. 



To the left of the road west from that town there is a small cluster 

 of Papago huts, 1 near an ancient mound of considerable size. 

 Although a few unmethodical excavations have been made in this 

 mound, they have revealed nothing of archeological value, and have 

 somewhat injured the walls. The Florence mound is still in a fair 

 state of preservation, and would well repay systematic excavation. 



1 The Pimas of the settlement, Blackwater, near Casa Grande, claim that this 

 Papago settlement is not very old and deny that its inhabitants are direct 

 descendants of those who built the walls of the neighboring ruin. Blackwater 

 is, however, not an old settlement, but is near that mentioned as follows, by 

 Mange : "On the bank of the river Gila at a distance of one league from the 

 Casas Grandes we found a rancheria in which we counted 130 souls, and 

 preaching to them on their eternal salvation the father baptized nine of their 

 little ones, although at first they were frightened at the horses and soldiers, not 

 having seen any till then." 



